Confection Confession: I Don't Have a Website!

by Sweet Success Magazine Staff

First of all, congratulations on starting your business and embracing social media as a way to promote your company! Almost everyone has a social media account so it is good that you are present where your clients are spending their time. However, being present on social media is only one element to marketing your business. Social media should supplement, not replace your website and it’s important to get one setup for your cake business as soon as you can. 

Just as you would have a physical bakery presence (although not a requirement with home-based bakeries), a website is a representation of your digital bakery presence. It’s your small corner of the web that educates, informs, and serves as the digital headquarters to your cake business or baking business. And should anything happen to social media, your clients will still be able to find you.

Your website is also established according to your rules. With social media, you are playing by their (the platform you are on such as Instagram, or Facebook) rules, and each platform has a different set of rules of engagement. If your business is on multiple platforms, you’re managing those rules and expectations just to keep your business afloat. It can get very complicated. This is not to say social media isn’t important, because it is extremely important for business, and it’s free, unless you pay for advertising. Social media is an essential component to marketing your cake business and should not be discounted by any means, so it’s good that you have established your presence there. 

The best use of social media is to connect, engage, educate and inform your clients so they will want to request more information from you by either:

• Going to your website, or 

• Contacting you directly.  (As a best practice, use a contact form instead of direct messages.)

In our industry, especially if you are doing wedding or specialty cakes, clients want to discuss, see, and taste before they commit to an order. Wedding cakes are typically large purchases so you won’t see many direct purchases through social media. With that being said, your website--the digital hub of your business--is the foundation which supports all other activity surrounding your business. 

Here are a few, of the many, reasons why you need to implement a website for your cake or baking business. Your website:

• Represents your brand, style, and how you want to be known to clients. The colors, fonts, images, layout, and design all represent who you are and what your company represents to a client. Not having a website means you don’t really exist as a business, you’re a hobbyist.

• Supports your customer service and communication efforts such as email, blogging, and newsletters.

• Supports your social media and gives people a place to go for more information, especially if you capture client information through a signup form.

• Is 100% yours. Your site, your content, your rules. 

• Supports all marketing, advertising, and promotion efforts such as open houses, bridal shows, and online directories like The Knot or Wedding Wire. If you don’t capture client information through these outlets, then you need to capture their information through the website by having a place for couples to go.