28 marketing ideas for your bakery
Written for owners, not marketers: every idea is specific, free or nearly free, and most take under 30 minutes. Grouped by what you are trying to make happen.
More customers this month
Shoot the 7am shelf
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.
About 30 min
Tally the answers by the bag rack
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.
About 0 min extra
Put tomorrow's bake on tonight's story
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.
About 15 min
Answer every review before Friday
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.
About 30 min
Start the pre-order list
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.
About 20 min
Sell the last hour
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.
About 10 min
Bake to the tally
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.
About 10 min
Fill my quiet days
Find the dead hour on the till roll
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'.
About 15 min
Invent the midweek box
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.
About 20 min
Tell the Saturday queue about Tuesday
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.'
About 25 min
Walk samples into the offices
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.
About 45 min
Photograph the calm, not the queue
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.
About 20 min
Run it and ask at the counter
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.
About 0 min extra
Compare the two Tuesdays
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.
About 10 min
Want these as a day-by-day plan instead of a list? The free 7-day plan arranges them for your exact goal, no account needed.
Launch something new
Name it in one line
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.
About 20 min
Post the dough, not the product
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.
About 15 min
Let the regulars taste it first
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.
About 20 min
Reveal it at opening
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.
About 30 min
Show the tray emptying
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.
About 15 min
Say when it's back
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.
About 15 min
Do the maths on batch one
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.
About 15 min
Get known locally
Be the same bakery everywhere
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.
About 45 min
Pick the loaf you want to be famous for
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'.
About 15 min
Tell the 4am story
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.
About 25 min
Turn up in the local groups
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.
About 20 min
Bake for the café down the road
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.
About 30 min
Make the box worth photographing
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.'
About 25 min
Set the weekly rhythm
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'.
About 20 min
Or stop doing this alone.
Kate, an AI CMO, and twelve specialists do all of the above for your bakery: the posts written, the pictures planned, the numbers read. 14-day trial, card to start, cancel before it ends to avoid a charge.