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How to Get Your First Loyal Microbakery Customers | Episode 4

  • Nov 12, 2024
  • 7 min read

Updated: 3 days ago

Listen on Apple Podcasts or watch on YouTube


The first post I ever wrote about my bread was not a sales post. It was a photo of two loaves I had just pulled out of the oven, put in a local Facebook group, with a question underneath: my baking habit is getting out of hand and we are running out of freezer space, so what should I do with all these extra loaves? Aside from a market, what are your ideas?


About fifty people commented that they wanted to buy some!


I did not offer anything for sale. I asked a real question and let people answer it, and that is where my whole customer list started. Here is how to do the same thing where you live, and then how to keep the people who show up.


Ask a question instead of making an offer

A question sparks conversation and draws people in. When you post a photo and say "sourdough loaves, $10, DM me," you are asking strangers to commit money before they know anything about you. When you post that same photo and ask what you should do with all this extra bread, you find out whether there is demand in your area without spending a dollar.


A few practical notes on where to post.

  • Use a local, area specific group that allows businesses to promote. That is a different audience from your own friends list.

  • Many of those groups require you to post from a personal account. Tag your business page so people have somewhere to follow you. I do not accept friend requests from strangers, but the tag gives them a place to go.

  • Follow up with gratitude, not a pitch. My second post was a big thank you. Your support overwhelmed me in the best way, I have figured out how to bake a few more loaves at a time, and here is the link to order.

Notice the link. I sent people to an order page instead of inviting them into my messages.


Give people one place to order and one place to reach you

My inbox filled up within days of that first post, and I could see how fast people were going to start slipping through the cracks. Missing someone's order is a customer service failure before it is anything else. So I did two things right away, and I would do both again.


First, an ordering platform. I started with a free spreadsheet so I could point to a link instead of saying "DM me to buy." It worked, but looking back I would set up Hotplate or the Simply Bread app from the start. Either one lets people order without you touching a message, and lets you cap how many orders you take.


Second, a texting number that is not my personal phone. I use Project Broadcast. It gives me a local number my customers can text, my business cards say texts preferred, and everything lands in one app.


The weekly text is the piece that does the most work. When my orders open, my list gets a text with what is on the menu and any news. I do not always post on social media when orders open. I always send that text, and the order link sits right in it, so a repeat customer with saved payment information can order in about two taps. New people join by texting one keyword to that number, automatically.


Fewer clicks, fewer moments where someone has to think, more orders. That is the whole principle.


Get specific about who you are actually selling to

Your neighborhood is not your target market. Your target market is the person who benefits most from what you bake, gets excited about it, is willing to pay what you are asking, and wants to try your new offerings.


Sit down and answer real questions about that person. What is their age range? Do they have kids? Are they health conscious, athletic, young professionals who want an artisan experience with unusual flavors?


If you get stuck in your own head, ask ChatGPT to interview you. Something like: I am starting a sourdough microbakery from my home and I need help identifying my ideal client, so please ask me twenty questions to help me identify my target market. Answer them, send them back, and it will hand you a description you can write from.


The more specific you get, the more accurately you speak to the person you want to sell to, and the more of those people find you.


Build an offer worth coming back for

Great bread gets someone to try you once. An offer is what makes them choose you again next week, and it is worth building on purpose.


That could be a subscription, one flavor nobody else near you makes, a rotating menu you announce ahead of time so people watch for it, or sourdough workshops.


Your whole menu does not need to be exciting. I sell a basic sandwich bread that is probably the single biggest reason people come back. Refresh a few offerings periodically, ask your customers what they want to see, and let the rest be reliable.


Promote it where your people actually are

Friends and family are a fine place to start. They will get you some traction and some practice baking in bulk. Branch out as fast as you can, because a business that runs on the goodwill of people who love you is not a business yet.


Ways I have seen work.

  • Post consistently in that local group. Most of my posts get crickets, and they still compound, because people see them without ever clicking like. Every week someone walks up to my booth and says they have followed me on Facebook for months and finally came.

  • Keep the conversational posts going, at least every quarter. I will ask something like: I am working on my summer menu, what flavors would you love to see? That brings people back into the conversation.

  • Post when you sell out or have a great market day, with a lot of gratitude. It shows you are still here and still growing.

  • Take loaves around your neighborhood, or pop up at a local business that already attracts your ideal customer, and ask them to share the date.

  • Send samples with a business card or a QR code to a teachers lounge, a fire station, a nurses station, your workplace or your partner's.

Do not expect twenty new customers from any one of these. Expect one or two, and remember that one loyal customer ordering week after week and telling their friends is real growth.


Treat every interaction as the relationship it is

This matters whether you sell four loaves a week or a hundred. You are a business either way, and a professional image is part of what people are buying.


These are not people buying bread. They are people carrying food you baked back home to feed their families, and they chose you when they had other options.

  • Send a quick thank you text after an order. Hey Susan, thank you so much for ordering this week, I hope you love it.

  • Slip a loyalty gift in now and then. I have tucked extra cookies into a regular's bag with a text saying thanks for coming back every week.

  • Respond promptly, inside business hours. If someone texts at ten at night, you are allowed to answer in the morning. Set the boundary and keep it.

  • Answer unhappy feedback professionally and humbly without groveling. If someone tells me the bottom of a loaf came out dark, I say I agree, that is darker than I would have preferred, and I would be happy to replace it on your next order or hand you a free loaf at my booth on Saturday. I offer a real solution, and I do not fire up the oven mid week for a one off.


Keep them close

Show up on social media in a way that lets people see the process. Behind the scenes, a new flavor you are testing, a poll asking which one should be on the menu this week. When people feel involved, they stay.


The best thing I have seen happen is at pickup, when a first timer runs into a regular and the regular talks them into trying something new. That word of mouth is worth more than any post I could write.


If you already have a customer base

Take one afternoon and walk the path a new customer walks. Find your bakery, get on your list, place a first order, and count the clicks and the moments where they have to wait for you to reply.


Then look at your last thirty orders and mark which came from repeat customers. If that is under half, your energy belongs in retention this quarter rather than in finding more new people. A thank you text and one loyalty gift cost almost nothing, and they are what turn a first order into a standing one.


Final thoughts

Building a loyal customer base is not fast. It takes time and a lot of consistency, and the temptation to quit shows up right when it feels slowest. That is exactly when you keep showing up, because that is what makes you the bakery still here next year.


Understand your ideal client, build an offer they cannot pass up, promote it where they already are, take excellent care of them, and keep the relationship going. Those five things work whether you stay at four loaves a week or grow into something much bigger!


Cheering you on,


Caroline


Keep going

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