Bakery marketing

Canada Create™ provides bakery marketing and digital marketing for bakeries, patisseries, cake shops, bakery cafés, bread bakeries, cultural and specialty bakeries and wholesale bakers across Canada. We help you sell more of what you bake through a website that takes orders, local search, Instagram and short video, email and SMS, delivery apps and paid campaigns built around the baking calendar, all measured by orders and visits rather than likes.

Bakeries have a natural advantage: people love what you make, and it photographs beautifully. The challenge is turning that love into steady sales every week, not only at Christmas and Mother’s Day, and getting more of the higher value orders (custom cakes, catering trays, wholesale accounts) that make the numbers work.

How customers find and choose a bakery

A bakery customer is usually doing one of three things. They want something now: fresh bread, a coffee and a croissant, a dozen doughnuts for the office, searched on the way with “bakery near me” or “bakery open now”. They want something for an occasion: a birthday cake, a wedding cake, a dessert table, holiday pies, searched days or weeks ahead with “custom cakes Toronto” or “gluten free birthday cake near me”. Or they are a business buying regularly: a café, restaurant, grocer or office that wants a dependable supplier.

Each needs different marketing. Walk in customers need accurate maps, hours and photos. Occasion buyers need a gallery, flavours, sizes, lead times and an easy way to order. Business buyers need a wholesale page, product list and a person to talk to.

Google Business Profile: the bakery’s front window online

For walk in sales, your Google Business Profile is the most important page you have. Keep hours accurate (including holiday hours and early closures when you sell out), add photos of the case, the bakers at work and the storefront, list products and specialties, and post new items and seasonal specials weekly. Mark attributes such as dine in, takeout, delivery and accessibility. Use your real business name only; adding keywords to it breaks Google’s rules.

Reviews matter for food businesses. Invite customers to review with a card in the bag or a QR code at the counter, reply warmly to every review and handle complaints calmly in public and in detail in private. Never offer free treats for reviews; incentivized reviews break Google’s rules and can be treated as deceptive marketing under the Competition Act. Our SEO services start at CAD 1,500 a month and cover local search for single and multi location bakeries.

A bakery website that takes orders

Many bakeries lose custom orders to a website that shows pretty pictures but makes ordering hard. A bakery website should do these jobs:

• Show the menu and the case with real photos, prices or starting prices and daily or weekly specials.
• Sell custom cakes properly: a gallery by occasion, flavours and fillings, sizes and servings, lead times, starting prices and an order or enquiry form that captures the date, servings, design ideas and dietary needs.
• Take preorders for holidays and busy weekends, with pickup slots, so you can plan production and avoid sell outs.
• Explain catering and wholesale with product lists, minimums and how to start.
• Load fast on a phone, because most visits come from Instagram and Google maps.

Our website design team builds bakery sites with online ordering, and our ecommerce agency handles shipping products such as cookies, granola or gift boxes where they travel well.

Instagram, TikTok and short video

Bakeries are made for social media. Lamination close ups, bread coming out of the oven, cake decorating timelapses, the morning case before the doors open and the team behind the counter all perform well on Instagram Reels and TikTok. Post daily specials in stories, feature custom cakes (with the customer’s permission), announce sell outs and new items, and show your story: the recipes, the family, the neighbourhood.

Local creators and food accounts can introduce you to new customers; any gifted or paid relationship needs clear disclosure. A steady rhythm matters more than viral moments. See our social media management service.

Plan around the baking calendar

Bakery demand follows the calendar. The big peaks in Canada usually include Christmas and New Year, Easter, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, graduation and wedding season, plus cultural celebrations that matter to your customers, such as Lunar New Year, Nowruz, Eid, Diwali, Rosh Hashanah and Hanukkah. Each peak needs its products, preorder page, photos, emails and ads ready two to four weeks ahead, so preorders fill early and production is planned.

Between peaks, weekly specials, loyalty rewards, a soup and bread lunch, classes or a “bread of the week” keep regulars coming in.

Email, SMS and loyalty

Your regulars are your best marketing. Collect emails or mobile numbers at checkout, through online orders and with a loyalty program, then tell people about specials, holiday preorders, new items and events. A simple weekly or biweekly email often outsells social media for preorders. Every commercial message must follow CASL: consent, clear identification and a working unsubscribe. Our email marketing service sets this up.

Delivery apps, catering and wholesale

Delivery apps bring new customers but take a large commission, so many bakeries use them for discovery and then invite customers to order directly for pickup. Corporate catering (breakfast trays, meeting sweets, holiday gifts for clients) is a steady, higher value channel: a catering page, a simple order form, LinkedIn and email outreach to office managers in your area and reminders before holiday season can build it. Wholesale to cafés, restaurants and grocers needs a product list, consistent quality and delivery reliability; marketing supports it with a wholesale page and direct outreach.

Food claims to get right

Allergen and dietary claims carry real risk. “Gluten free”, “nut free”, “vegan” and similar claims must be accurate for the whole process, including shared equipment and cross contact; federal food labelling rules apply to packaged products, and claims online and on menus should be just as careful. Prepackaged products need compliant labels. Home based bakeries must meet provincial and local public health requirements before selling. When in doubt, describe ingredients plainly and note shared equipment. Quebec also has French language requirements for commercial communications. This is general information, not legal advice.

Related guide: how restaurants get more customers.

Paid ads that sell occasions

Paid ads work best for occasions and preorders: custom cakes, holiday orders, catering and new location openings. Google Ads catches people searching for cakes and catering near you; Meta and Instagram ads show seasonal items to people within a few kilometres of the bakery. We send each ad to a matching page and track every order. See Google Ads management and social media advertising.

Start with a free marketing review of your profile, website, social media and ordering. You get a written plan and a quote, with every fee in writing. Call our 24/7 toll free line at +1 (800) 808-9235 or request a proposal below. Canada Create has helped businesses across Canada and the United States since 2008; cafés and restaurants can also see our restaurant advertising service.