The most effective publicity costs you nothing

Like this tip? Join the Cake Coach Online Mailing List for more weekly tips delivered right to your inbox.

What can you do to make a customer feel that your service is excellent and get a confirmed order as a result but yet costs you nothing?

Let me tell you a story

On a weekend away we visited a market town in UK. And we wanted to find an Indian Curry House.

We looked on Trip Advisor and identified a street with two restaurants in it.

That road would be worth a visit to have a look at the menu and decide which is nicer.

When we arrived there the restaurants were just two doors apart.

One was empty totally. The waiters looking very forlorn and bored.

The second one on the other hand had a queue out of the door. People busting a gut to get in.

Such a queue we couldn’t even see the menu in the window, but we stayed anyway and waited. Wow - what a difference.

Why would we wait? We could have gone to the empty restaurant?

The restaurant full of people had on display in the window right by the door - of every award they had won recently. Their food hygiene certificate and newspaper clippings of their success. When we reached the front of the queue – the menu was displayed for all to see.

The empty restaurant had nothing.

On top of that when we were paying our bill at the full restaurant, they gave us a business card and asked sweetly if we would kindly put up a review on Trip Advisor about our visit. Which of course we said yes, since the service had proved to be delightful and complied with their request.

So how does this story relate to a cake business? It is show casing the power of social proof. The fact that others have written many reviews about the business on Trip Advisor. People were queuing out of the door. Their shop window was full of accolades and awards for the restaurant. More social proof that people liked the service.

So my question to you today - is how can you weave more "social proof" into your cake business? Could you start to ask people to leave you a review? Where do you want them to send these reviews? Where and how will you capture positive feedback? And how will you use these to fuel desire for your products and services?

If prospective customers feel like other people are saying your service is excellent, then it is regarded as the truth and not the exception. And that is something to bear in mind.

How is it best to organise the reviews? Can you split the reviews into categories in any way? Novelty cakes, wedding cakes, christening cakes etc so that people can review specifically what others had said about the type of product that they are considering.

There is a lot to learn from others actions when running businesses. I love making observations and helping cake decorators to make money from their craft skills.

PS! Keep an eye out - we are working on a new affordable course - Cake Pricing Pro. If you have struggled with cake pricing, to value your time and more, stay tuned. Help is on the way!