Butter and Blooms is my small business.
I attribute my success to two things— my focus on developing a deep understanding of the customer and my visual design skills.
Ultimately I developed an aesthetic that my customers recognized. They could look at a cake or cookie set and know if it was a Butter and Blooms product.
It earned me invitations to major TV network competitions, celebrity customers, and a loyal customer base.
My business began with the name Wanderlust Pastry and bakery subscription boxes filled with a surprise assortment of pastries from around the world. People liked it. Business was okay— what you would expect from a hobby business.
Then a customer asked me if I’d do real estate sugar cookies every week for her clients. So I set out to learn how to decorate with royal icing. I didn’t love the set, but it was good for a first go. So I kept practicing, posting my progress. With my posts, I did a lot of visual storytelling with behind the scenes stories and polls to collect information on what my audience liked and wanted more of.
And what other dessert do people need for these events? Cake. Fancy, gorgeous cakes.
But do you know what almost all fancy, gorgeous cakes use? Fondant. Expensive, tasteless fondant.
So I set out to solve that customer problem and create my own niche. I created cakes with all of the beauty, but none of the fondant. Just buttercream or ganache— things people actually want to eat because what good is a beautiful cake if no one wants to eat it?
My business evolved from selling inexpensive subscription pastry boxes specializing in luxury artisan cakes and cookies, and not because I had the skill. I developed the skill because I had an open dialogue with my customers and acted on those insights.
As a result,
my part-time small business grew by 299% in the second year,
I was chosen to bake for visiting executives from Food & Wine and Bake from Scratch magazines, and
I was invited to compete in a cookie competition on The Food Network.
Achievements
Instagram Growth
In one year, I increased my local instagram following from 100 to 1500.
I grew my instagram following larger than even the brick and mortar bakeries in town.
Many of my posts rank as top posts for local baking hashtags
I maintained a high instagram engagement rate above 3.5% with posts often receiving above 10% engagement and receiving over 10,000 impressions.
I increased sales for my part-time small business by 299.5% (+$13,926.57) from 2017 to 2018 through visual storytelling and digital marketing.
I taught two ticketed cookie decorating classes totaling 50 people, selling out of tickets within 3 days of opening sales.
While I have not been active since the pandemic, when I do happen to post something (every few months at most), my audience engagement is still high, which I contribute to building a group of brand loyalists.
