top of page
Search

How to Get Repeat Customers at Your Microbakery | Episode 61

Feb 17, 2025
6 min read

Updated: Jul 30

Listen on Apple Podcasts


Here is a business stat that changed how I run my bakery: it costs about five times more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep one you already have.


Most of us are not spending money on ads, so that number can feel like it belongs to somebody else. Think about your currency as time and energy instead of dollars, and it lands. Finding a brand new customer takes more of you than loving on the ones who already order every other week.


So if you feel like you constantly need more orders, more exposure, more eyes on your account, the problem may not be the top of your funnel at all. You may simply need to keep the people you already have and turn them into the loyal, diehard customers who tell their friends about you. That is the most organic and lasting way I know to grow a bakery.


Why repeat customers are the whole business

Loyal customers love what you do and they trust you. They already know your systems, when your orders open, where to park, how pickup works. Every one of those things is a cost you paid once and never have to pay again.


They also do your marketing for you. A customer who has ordered from you nine times is the one telling her sister and her coworker where to get bread. You cannot buy that, and you certainly cannot rush it.


Here is the test I would run on your own numbers. Look back at your last ten bake days and count how many buyers were repeat and how many were brand new. If only two or three are repeat, that is a signal to put your energy into retention rather than reach.


If you have been in business a year or more and most of your buyers are still brand new every week, you are living in acquisition mode, and acquisition mode is exhausting. If you are brand new, everybody is a first time customer right now, and that is normal. Start building the system while your list is short.


What actually makes someone come back

I like to think about this as a consumer. It would truly be easier for me to add a loaf to my grocery pickup order. So what makes a person go the extra step to drive to your porch or find you at the market? Three things, in my experience.


A great first experience. Your ordering process is the first impression, long before the bread is. If someone has to DM you, dig through your bio, guess at the pickup window, and then message you again to change their time, you have made them work for it. A pre-order app fixes almost all of that. If you have no ordering system at all yet, get one early. Waiting to set one up until I had real order volume is one of the things I would go back and change about my first months in business.


A feeling of connection. People do not just buy bread. They buy the story, the warmth, the fact that they know who baked it. That is the magic of a local business, and it is the one thing a grocery store can never copy. Let people see a real person in there. Your flowers, your kids, the reason you started. It does not have to be your whole life, just a thread they can hold onto.


Ease. If ordering from you is clunky or confusing or unclear, even your most loyal customers will eventually give up. People are burning mental energy all day long and they will choose the easier option, sometimes even over the better product. That is a hard truth, and it is also great news, because ease is something you can fix this week.


Simple ways to encourage the second order

Customer service is where you separate yourself from every transactional business your customer deals with. That looks like:

  • Quick, warm responses during business hours. You do not owe anyone a reply at 10pm, but same-day matters.

  • Using their first name. Sometimes I cross reference a phone number against an order just so I can greet somebody properly, and it is worth the two minutes.

  • Commenting back by name when someone tags you, and resharing it with a thank you.

  • Stepping outside at pickup when you can to thank them and let them know feedback is always welcome.

Then build a keep-in-touch plan so you are not relying on people to remember you on their own. Do not wait for your customers to think of you. Stay in front of them.


I send a text every Sunday and have for well over a year. Plenty of people on that list order from me only every couple of months, but when they want bread, I am the one they think of, because I have been landing in their inbox all along. Behind the scenes stories work the same way. Let them watch you work.


And when a regular stops ordering, reach out gently. Something like: "Hey Sarah, I noticed you have not ordered in a while. No worries at all if you are taking a break from bread, but I am here whenever you need me." People almost always write back and tell me they needed a break from carbs, or their doctor changed something. In all this time nobody has cut ties because they were angry at me!


The other version I love, especially for products you only run occasionally: "Hey Sarah, I know you loved the cinnamon rolls last month. They are back on the menu this weekend and I did not want you to miss them."


Rewarding the people who keep showing up

A little VIP treatment feels so special, and none of this needs to be complicated:

  • Early pre-order access for specialty or limited run items.

  • An analog punch card. Print a simple business card from Canva. Buy nine loaves, get the tenth free.

  • A surprise discount code sent to your most loyal buyers as a thank you.

  • An extra cookie or scone tucked in the bag with a note that says thanks for coming back.

When somebody places a third order, a message like "I saw your order come in and I got so excited that you chose to come back, so there is a scone in your bag on me" does more for loyalty than any promotion you could run. Let it flow out of the goodness of who you already are.


If you are one to three years in

You probably have enough customers now that you cannot hold them all in your head, and that is exactly when retention starts leaking without you noticing. Give it a system.


Pull your last few bake days and identify your top ten or twenty customers, the ones ordering roughly every month. Put them in a simple spreadsheet with their name and how often they order. Then do two things on repeat: greet every first time customer with a warm welcome text, and watch for their second order so you can thank them by name when it lands.


Hotplate already gives you some of this data, and Simply Bread is building out its analytics too. The tracking is the easy half. The habit of actually reaching out is what makes it work, so set aside fifteen minutes on the same day each week and it stops being a project.


If you are just getting started, build this now while you have thirty customers instead of four hundred. Starting a system on the ground floor is such a gift to future you.


Final thoughts

Running a profitable microbakery comes down to keeping the people you already have happy, engaged, and excited to order again. That is slower work than chasing reach, and it compounds.


Here is my challenge for you this week. Pick one thing from this post and actually do it. Thank your repeat customers by name. Send a warm welcome to somebody brand new. Set up a punch card. Or go fix the clunkiest step in your ordering process. One thing, this week.


Cheering you on,


Caroline


Keep going

If this one hit home, these three go deeper on the same idea.


Links to things you might like!


 
 
 

Comments

bottom of page