Beth Fahey, co-owner of Creative Cakes in Tinley Park, IL, stressed the value of being on Facebook and Twitter to promote your wedding cakes during a Sept. 26 Retail Bakers of America workshop on wedding cake trends. She also urged the importance of having a website for your bakery and linking your website to others like Projectwedding.com, helping build awareness of your products and services.

“If you are in several places, it’s easier for brides to find you,” says Fahey. “Twitter is a nice way to do connections.”

Creative Cakes, which has its own website at www.realbuttercream.com, uses Twitter to send a message with a photo of the wedding cake attached every time they deliver a wedding cake.

Odette D’Aniello of Celebrity Cake Studios in Seattle emphasized the importance of sponsoring wedding shows to the packed audience of cake decorators at the Sept. 26 workshop on wedding cake trends. Celebrity Cake Studios sponsors the annual Seattle Wedding Show, which attracts 10,000 people.

She also offered a great customer service tip: “We send a hand-written thank you note after delivery of each wedding cake, and we include a purple survey card asking them who we did. 99% of the time those who loved the cake will write you back.”

Minette Rushing of Custom Cakes in Savannah, GA, shares another idea for wedding cake bakeries to promote creative designs to potential customers. Custom Cakes posts a gallery of photos on its website (www.savannahcustomcakes.com) of cakes that brides can order in the store (minimum order $750) and also promotes a special Savannah Wedding Cake design for online orders only. This gives brides an additional option to buy from your bakery if they are working on a tighter budget.