If any holliday was made for the foodservice industry, that would be Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a less materialistic holiday that is about bringing people together and enjoying a good meal. If your bakery plays it’s cards right, it will have great opportunities to increase sales at this time of year. We’ve put together 5 promotions that your bakery can implement that will prepare you for this holiday.
Gift baskets are a great way to foster a connection between people so that they can enjoy some of their favorite seasonal treats. Create some Thanksgiving themed gift baskets for your bakery that are filled with an assortment of your most popular Thanksgiving treats. If you’re concerned about the freshness of the goods, you can have them be “made to order”. In this case, it would be advisable to have a display basket to catch your customer’s attention, along with a list of the goods or the options available that they can add to the assortment.
While Thanksgiving is mostly about cooking, it can be overwhelming at the amount of cooking that needs to be done to prepare all of the traditional dishes. This is why many people opt-in to buying several prepared dishes, including pies. Create a list of traditional and specialty pies that your bakery offers and promote them on your website and social media platforms. People may put in orders for pies, and pick up the day before Thanksgiving (this way you don’t need to be open on a holiday). By doing reservations only, it will also insure you will know exactly how many need to be made to insure that you are 100% prepared for the demand. Check out the following video on bakery production and scheduling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA5pzxaKABYCreate a Thanksgiving themed flyer with your bakeries name and contact information. On it, include Thanksgiving recipes that are related to baking specifically. These should be given away for free at your business. You can also include the information regarding your pie and gift baskets reservations. These recipe flyers end up providing your customers with valuable information and will in some cases, end up on their fridge for their reference. This promotion ensures that they will “keep you in mind”, especially if your recipes turns out to be delicious!.
We’ve all heard of a countdown till Christmas, but the same thing can be done for a countdown to Thanksgiving. Select a period of time that leads up to TG’s and do a different daily special each day. For example, “free cup of coffee with breakfast muffin purchase” or, “half off pumpkin cream cheese cake”. This also provides you with marketing content to promote on your website and social media each day. Your loyal followers will be thrilled to see their favorite menu item on special and come in to get their fixin’s.
Sometimes connecting with your customers isn’t just about making a sale. By getting involved in your community, you become an integral part of it. Host a food drive at your bakery and encourage people to donate by placing signs in your store or by advertising on your online platforms.
We hope that this article has been of benefit for you. We‘ve been helping small businesses succeed since 2004 and provide them a variety of resources. To check out more helpful tools and tricks, check out our industry page for your business to see how you can continue to grow your business and reach your optimal potential.