Hi everyone

I've put my cake business on hold for awhile since I started work for a wedding shop. I would really love to start doing my cakes again so I'm going back to the beginning and starting all over again.

-My kitchen has been inspected by my local council and I received a 5 star rating.

-I'm on Facebook: www.facebook.com/pieceofcakewirral

-And I've just ordered 100 business cards from VistaPrint.

But I want to be more out there.

I've heard that making mini-cupcakes and bringing them into hairdressers, salons, local businesses, does help. I don't want them to sell my cupcakes for me. I would like them to try them and I can say to them, 'I'm here if you want anymore.'

So I would like advice or ideas from everyone out there if you can.

I'm based in the Wirral, England and I make homemade cakes. I don't decorate them with fondant or anything like that. It's just good old traditional homemade cakes.

Many thanks and I hope you all had a good Christmas!

Anne-Marie.

Not much time now, but my first thought when I went to your facebook page would be to go through your gallery.  Focus on having really great photos.  Nothing cluttering up the background, no mixers or kitchen things showing, have your cupcakes on a decorative plate or nothing, not have them photographed on a cooling rack.  There should be quite a few threads if you search google for taking good cake photos.  It would be better to have fewer really great photos.

One general marketing thought... why would I buy from you? That answer would be- they look better, - they taste better, or- I haven't enough time to do it myself. Right? 

Be sure you are focusing on the target audience and "tout" those aspects of it. 

I needed a cake for a neighborhood "cake off". Went to food.com and picked the best cake recipe, named "Best apple cake". Did a couple of tweaks and renamed it "Carmel apple cake". I won. Marketing is everything. The little details like yummy names, good photos, and targeting the "best" aspects off YOUR cakes is it. 

Best of luck!

Who are you going to be selling to? The idea of giving out cupcakes is fine but make sure that you're putting them into the hands of people who will pass your name along, or who will order more from you for office functions. Hairdressers might be good because they talk to so many people, but they might not bother to mention you at all unless the conversation comes up about cakes etc. If you're not doing decorated cakes (you didn't say how far you'd go with the decorations) then they might not be sending you the customers who want the kind of thing you make.

Thanks everyone! 

I definitely need to get better photos of the cakes. I hope to re-test everything and post better photos of them.

In terms of decorating, I use buttercream and other toppings and I can use fondant but I don't overly use it. Like some will make little heads and animals or fancy flowers. There's a lot of people in my area who do that and are amazing. I would just like to focus on good old traditional homemade cakes that haven't sat in a supermarket all week. 

I'm also interested in doing savory cakes/cupcakes as well and naked wedding cakes.

I would suggest going through what you have and just use the better pictures.  You can make sure each picture you add is a good one going forward, but I think it would really help if you cleaned up your existing gallery, get rid of the people and event shots, the mantle, the lower quality pictures.  Then the better pictures would really stand out.

AA few things that I think of: Yes, get better pictures! Get a website with prices etc Hate fondant too, but sometimes it's what the customer and/ or design calls for, don't exclude it straight away. Practice if you have to... Buttercream is yummy, but it's not just about taste. You want the