28 marketing ideas for your bakery

1. Shoot the 7am shelf30 min

Photograph the counter at 7am, before anything sells out — full trays, steam, daylight from the window. Put the five best on your Google Business Profile. Local searchers decide on that photo strip before they read a word about you.

2. Tally the answers by the bag rack0 min extra

For seven days, ask every customer how they found you and mark it on a sheet taped up by the bags. By Sunday you'll know whether it's the window, Google or a friend — and you can stop guessing which one to feed.

3. Put tomorrow's bake on tonight's story15 min

Post what's going in the oven overnight: the sourdough shaped, the trays lined, the proving baskets stacked. People who see that at 9pm walk past at 8am. Baking is the rare trade where 'coming tomorrow' is genuinely exciting.

4. Answer every review before Friday30 min

Reply to every Google review from the last three months, two warm lines each, naming the bake they mentioned. Active profiles rank better locally, and the next hundred readers are deciding where to buy breakfast.

5. Start the pre-order list20 min

Card by the till: 'never miss the sourdough — join the Saturday list.' Take a phone number or an email. Forty locals who want one specific loaf are worth more than four thousand followers who don't.

6. Sell the last hour10 min

Post at 3pm: what's left, at what price, gone at close. It clears the counter, wins a second visit from price-conscious locals, and turns tomorrow's waste into today's reason to come back.

7. Bake to the tally10 min

Read Tuesday's sheet. Whichever route brought most people, do twice as much of it next week. And bake more of whatever sold out before ten — selling out early is lost money, not a badge of honour.

8. Find the dead hour on the till roll15 min

Print last month's takings by hour. Bakeries usually die between 2pm and close, midweek. Pick that single window — say Tuesday and Wednesday, 2–4pm — and aim the whole week at it rather than at 'more trade'.

9. Invent the midweek box20 min

Make one small recurring reason to come at that hour: a 3pm coffee-and-pastry price, a mixed box of four for the price of three, half-price savouries after three. Recurring beats one-off, because people learn the rhythm and plan around it.

10. Tell the Saturday queue about Tuesday25 min

The people who already queue at the weekend are the cheapest to move. Tell them at the till, on the list you started, and on an A-board outside: 'quiet-hour box, Tuesdays and Wednesdays from two.'

11. Walk samples into the offices45 min

Take a box into the three biggest workplaces within five minutes' walk, with a card for a standing afternoon order. Offices buy pastries at exactly the hour a bakery goes quiet, and they buy them every week.

12. Photograph the calm, not the queue20 min

Shoot the empty table, the sun on the counter, the last tray at 2pm. Post it the night before with 'tomorrow from two'. Quiet is a genuine selling point to everyone who hates standing in a line.

13. Run it and ask at the counter0 min extra

On the day, mention the midweek box to everyone at the till and ask each afternoon customer what brought them in. You're testing something, not hoping for something.

14. Compare the two Tuesdays10 min

Put this Tuesday's 2–4pm takings next to last Tuesday's. Up? Lock it in for a month and get a proper sign printed. Flat? Change the offer and never the day — the day only works if it repeats.

15. Name it in one line20 min

Finish this: 'it's [what], made with [the one thing that makes it good], out on [day].' If you need two sentences, it isn't ready to shout about. A name people can say at the counter does half the selling.

16. Post the dough, not the product15 min

Tease with the proving basket, the lamination, the flour on the bench — and a date. No name, no price. Process footage is the cheapest reach a bakery has and it makes people feel let in early.

17. Let the regulars taste it first20 min

Cut up a test batch, hand it to your regulars and your list a day early, free, and ask one question: would you pay for this? They'll tell you the truth, then tell everyone else they had it first.

18. Reveal it at opening30 min

Launch post at 7am: the best daylight photo, the one-liner, the price said proudly, and how many you made. Add it to your Google profile the same hour so people searching at breakfast see it too.

19. Show the tray emptying15 min

Post the tray at eight, at ten, and empty. Scarcity is real in a bakery and no other business can post it so honestly. Tag anyone who let you photograph them eating one.

20. Say when it's back15 min

Second post for everyone who scrolled past or arrived too late: 'gone by ten — back Thursday, and there'll be more.' Most sales come from the reminder, not the reveal.

21. Do the maths on batch one15 min

Count how many you made, how many sold, what the ingredients cost and what people actually said. Keep it, re-price it, or drop it — decided by those numbers and their exact words, not by your gut.

22. Be the same bakery everywhere45 min

Tonight, make yourself findable and identical on Google, Apple Maps, Facebook, Instagram and Nextdoor: same name, same hero photo, same hours. Wrong opening hours on a bakery is the fastest way to lose someone forever.

23. Pick the loaf you want to be famous for15 min

Choose one bake to be known for and feature it in most of what you post this month. Towns remember 'the place with the cinnamon buns'. Nobody has ever remembered 'the place with a wide range'.

24. Tell the 4am story25 min

Post the story only you can tell: the alarm at four, the winter you nearly packed it in, why you use that flour from that mill. Local people follow people, and this is reliably the highest-reach post a bakery makes.

25. Turn up in the local groups20 min

Find the two or three Facebook groups and community feeds where your town actually talks. Answer questions, congratulate people, recommend other shops. Never advertise. Useful neighbours get tagged when someone asks for the best bakery nearby.

26. Bake for the café down the road30 min

Offer one nearby non-competing business a real collaboration: supply their counter, build a joint hamper, put your buns on their menu with your name next to them. Their customers meet you already trusting you.

27. Make the box worth photographing25 min

Spend an hour on the one thing customers hold up: a stamped box, a paper bag with a line people repeat, a ribbon. Then a small card at the till: 'tag us — we repost our favourites.'

28. Set the weekly rhythm20 min

Lock in three posts a week — one behind the scenes, one of the signature bake, one human — plus ten minutes a day replying to every comment, review and tag. Six weeks of that changes what your town pictures when it thinks 'bakery'.