What's Been You Best Way Of Advertising??
Business By Amanda114 Updated 24 Apr 2007 , 6:15pm by MikkelPaige
I did test market research for months before going "live", and found that my best advertisement was myself. I dropped off HUNDREDS of cookies at local businesses, schools, Dr's offices...etc. Word of mouth and a fantastic product gets em' everytime...OH, and great customer service. A nice professional business card or brochure doesnt hurt either! 
dessertdiva.....how did you do it? Did you just walk into local businesses and that you had never been to before, or did you only do places you frequented a lot? I don't know if I could just walk into a place and cold sell (i think that's what it's called). I live on a very busy state route with a bunch of businesses, lots of car dealers, and wondered if I should visit some of the larger dealers with edible image cookies with their logos. I just don't think I have the guts!
dessertdiva.....how did you do it? Did you just walk into local businesses and that you had never been to before, or did you only do places you frequented a lot? I don't know if I could just walk into a place and cold sell (i think that's what it's called). I live on a very busy state route with a bunch of businesses, lots of car dealers, and wondered if I should visit some of the larger dealers with edible image cookies with their logos. I just don't think I have the guts!
Thats EXACTLY what i did. I took a good few weeks and baked up a storm, decorated and packaged nicely and then went out everyday for about 4 hrs a day, dropping off my cards, brochures and if they seemed genuinely interested, I left a "sample". I have quite a few loyal customers from that expierence.
I was really nervous at first, and yes you will have a few places who are just down right not interested, and that can be discouraging, but more often then not, they were like "really? you can do that?" and who doesnt want a free sample of cookies (my sample is 4 basic decorated cookies in each of my "flavors" nicely wrapped in a celophane bag with ribbon...OH, i wish my PC would let me download my pics from my camera...ugh). Oh, and a few of those "not interested" businesses, have actually contacted me and said they'd like a sample...cause they new someone at the business down the street who talked about it...LOL
Just Go For IT!!!
.... I don't know if I could just walk into a place and cold sell (i think that's what it's called). I live on a very busy state route with a bunch of businesses, lots of car dealers, and wondered if I should visit some of the larger dealers with edible image cookies with their logos. I just don't think I have the guts!
Good lord, girl! You've got a whole market in one spot! What are you waiting for? My biggest commercial order was a standing weekly order for 100 dz cookies for a car dealership!
I went out one day with samples. went into a BMW dealership and asked to speak to the person who takes care of the cookies for their customer lounge. Front desk said, "We don't do cookies....we have doughnuts." I said, "Oh my gosh, these people pay this much for a car and you serve them DOUGHNUTS?? You've got to try these cookies instead!" 
They don't have to be expensive edible image cookies .... I supplied my dealership with choc chip, snickerdoodles and the like. This dealer takes their customer service VERY seriously and when General Motors would call their customers for a customer satisfaction survey, the customers would say things like "I'd sit there all day waiting on my car repair as long as those cookies were there!", so even GM knew about my cookies!
Go do it! Car dealerships are a prime target market!
Now I feel like I would be stupid not to, with all of the advice here to go for it. I just ordered new business cards from Vista Print. I think I'll wait until they come in and hopefully by then I'll have a plan of attack!
My advice about logo cookies is, to approach the businesses about creating a logo cookie BEFORE doing so. Go in with a basic sample and information. I have found that some companies are very protective and have an issue with you using their logo without written consent. Why burn a bridge before you even get to cross it, you know? JMHO...lots of luck!!
Good point. I'll just do them in my logo or my sister's logo for an example. I've been wanting to try this out and have an actual picture to use anyway.
respond.com .... 80 to 90% of my business comes from there. They now have a Wedding Cakes category. (I'm in the Catering category).
What is respond.com?
There's also Craigslist.com, which is a website that you can put free advertising on.
respond.com .... 80 to 90% of my business comes from there. They now have a Wedding Cakes category. (I'm in the Catering category).
What is respond.com?
There's also Craigslist.com, which is a website that you can put free advertising on.
Here's a lot of my info that I've already posted re: respond.com
http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-36472-respond.html+com
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%