So I'm entering a cake show in September, to benefit the arts in our area. It's a huge street fair and we'll have a booth to display our cakes. Each participant that enters has to donate something for a raffle. I'm not clear on if the raffle is for only the people that WE (our cake booth) sell tickets for, or if our donation will go into a huge pile of other donations that the entire street fair is selling raffle tickets for.
The donation has to be an actual product, or equal to a product. For example, I can't give $50 gift cert towards a $100 order. Something that the winner doesn't have to pay extra to use.
I know cupcakes would be the easiest thing to do, but I think a lot of people in my group are doing cupcakes and I wanted to do something different.
Obviously my goal is to get some business out of this, but would be it way out of line to do an 8" & 6" two tiered cake with a retail of $108? Do you think it would be a waste of time and money??
And thoughts?
When I have done this I always make the certificate out for a standard 1/4 sheet cake (which means white, chocolate or vanilla) or a discount in the equivalent amount off any larger order (to encourage larger orders). I then attach my pricing brochure to the certificate. I figure I can whip a standard 1/4 sheet cake up pretty quickly and I am not giving away a lot of my time on decorating. They still get to taste the cake (and lets be honest people come back only if the taste is good) so it is a win win. Although I also provide samples for my specialty flavors hoping they upgrade to a specialty cake at a minimum.
Thanks GuiltyPleasures! Do you mind telling me what you charge for a 1/2 sheet cake? I don't do sheetcakes, but it would be helpful so know what my equivilent would be. I have to donate something equal to a product, I cant donate a certificate for a larger purchase (although that would be ideal!) I'm just trying to find out what is middle of the line, not too expensive and over the top, but just enough to keep 'em coming back!
I charge $20 for a plain 1/4 sheet cake. However I am priced for a very rural area. The bakeries around me charge between $18 and $24 and the Walmart/grocery store is about $15-$18 for a similar priced cake with a basic design.
When I've done stuff like this I do go a bit above and beyond since I see it as a way to get my work seen. I want people to look at my cake and go "Wow" The two raffles I've donated to I did versions of the Daisy bouquet that I saw on here and got inspiration from. I definitely got the desired result.
I forgot to mention that I always bring along a couple of decorated dummy cakes for display. This way people see my cakes (often from a distance pulling them over to where I have free samples). It allows me to add more photos to my portfolio and I am not worried about insects or bugs landing on it because it will not be eaten anyway. I then have tri-folds that list everything I offer and a portfolio of my prior cakes. I have one tri-fold printed on really heavy card stock and then my thinner tri-folds from the printer. I nicely lay the ones done at the printers infront of the heavy duty one that people will often grab to look at.
Between the cake displays and the large sign stating free samples I seem to always be busy. I never push my tri-fold verbally I just let them sit there and I seem to fly through them. I have gotten many orders this way.
Thank you guys!!
Good luck. Let us know what you end up doing.
I did a raffle recently and donated a 6 and 8 inch tier cake.
Value up to $150.
So if they wanted something crazy they had to pay.
This was a charity i was personally trying to raise $1000 for so it was worth it
for me. We had multiple items in the auction and ended up selling $6000 worth of
raffle tickets to benefit suicide prevention. (we raised $13,500 total!)
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