Making the Most of Easter

"Make hay while the sun shines!" Apply this well-worn adage to Easter 

Easter presents a great opportunity for bakers and meal prep businesses big and small to grow sales, find and connect with customers.

So what is a moment anyway? And how can they be used to extend the reach of your food business even more successful?

We have broken down step by step everything you need to create your very own Moments Plan.

TIP – THINK OF MOMENTS RELEVANT TO YOUR CUSTOMERS SUCH AS LOCAL EVENTS OR FAITH-BASED CELEBRATIONS

Timing is everything

When should you start promoting a moment? When it comes to making the most of
a moment, timing is important. If you go too early or leave it too late, you’ll miss the moment. Think about when people start to plan how they’re going to celebrate and time your launch accordingly.

After analysing over 80,000 sales powered by Cookaborough we suggest for Easter having your offering buttoned down and ready to promote THREE WEEKS before Good Friday

Part A | YOUR MENU

1. Get the menu items right

Consider this Moment as different from your typical menu offering

Have a think about something you can offer that is going to make your customers excited. Something that will be difficult for them to pull off themselves, whet their appetites and reduce the load for them.

For example, traditional Easter offerings for Bakers as well as bakery goods they may need over the long weekend.

For businesses making meals, go to your Analytics page to review popular meals during the year and what worked last Easter. Make any modifications to the menu, possibly take new pictures and present your menu in a concise, mouth watering way.

2. Open the menu with fanfare

Call on the festive spirit to encourage customers to plan ahead

Once you have worked out what's on the menu, make your Moments menus like Easter look different from your regular menu. Have a festive Menu photo, upload a banner to run on your Homepage and make the items on your menu look like your customers can imagine them on their Easter table. 

Coordinate your menu open emails with posts in your social media or on your website. Create bespoke posts with the help of our Canva template (read on for a link to this template).

3. Refine pickup and delivery windows

Reduce your stress and enhance your customer's experience

Often customers will want to pick up their orders at the same time on the same day, for example, Good Friday between 9 am – 10 am can be extremely busy, with many customers arriving at the same time.

If you’re not prepared for the rush, it can create production headaches and staff stress and it risks delivering a poor customer experience with people left waiting to collect their orders.

Adding additional, small window pickup and delivery slots for your customers to choose can help plan with staffing and pick and pack.

TIP – IN YOUR SETTINGS > DELIVERY AND PICKUP WINDOWS, YOU CAN CONFIGURE PICKUP AND DELIVERY SLOTS, GIVING YOU CONTROL AND ENSURING A SMOOTH EXPERIENCE ON COLLECTION DAY, AVOIDING THE ISSUE OF EVERYONE ARRIVING SIMULTANEOUSLY.

4. Schedule a Reminder Message

Take control of last-minute orders and increase your sales.

People will often leave it to the last minute to place their orders. To manage this situation, you need to maintain a connection with your customers in the lead up to the event and make it easy for them to place an order. 

Using social media and sending emails to your customer database with reminders to place orders and showing what’s on the menu will increase final orders.

TIP - Cookaborough's Automatic Order Reminder Feature results in an average order increase of +25%, making sure you never miss an order.

5. Use Reports and Pick and Pack to pull it all together 

Reduce the rush and enhance your customer's experience

It’s exciting to receive a high number of orders, but now you must produce and fulfil those orders, which can be stressful, particularly when a lot is going on at once. 

To ensure a seamless process for both front and back of house there are two reports that will help you manage both production and the pick & pack process.  

1. Our automatic Order Summary gives you all the information you need to manage production and back of house Watch Tim talking about how Cookaborough helped Bread Club manage their Easter orders!
2. The Individual Order Summary makes pick and pack seamless. Simply staple orders ready for collection
   
   

PART B | MARKETING

1. Coordinate your efforts

Organise your social posts and website banners to co-ordniate with your Menu opening.

Coordinate your menu open emails with posts in your social media or on your website. Create bespoke posts with the help of our Canva Collateral Pack templates, and make a fuss of your Moment.

2. Build your Customer Database

Attract new customers in your key moment.

By attracting new customers in a key moment you can grow your database and create return customers. 

Having a customer database is one of the most valuable assets of your business. The more people on your customer database, the more successful your next major moment will be, so each should be seen as an opportunity to increase your customer database. 

By following the above steps you will be well equipped to extend your database with each key moment, in fact, our data shows that Moment Menus result in three times the average number of orders and double the average transaction value. 

So there you have it, with a few easy steps, your bakery or meals business can be well on its way to growing, one moment at a time.

BAKERS: Make sure not to miss the next moment and download our comprehensive guide to Making the Most of Moments created for bakers big and small.