May 23
Chances are you fall into one of two categories – you either spend a ton of time on Facebook promoting your business or you feel guilty about how you’re not nearly utilizing Facebook like you should. With all the focus on building a Facebook following and getting fans to ‘like’ your business page, the question remains; does any of that actually pay off? Or, more bluntly, what’s the actual dollar value of a Facebook Fan? Read more
Nobody in any industry likes to be deliberately wasteful, but many companies don’t realize how often they fail to make the best use of their resources. Sadly, nowhere is this more the case than in catering – whether its food ending up in the trashcan, bulky packaging items reducing workspace in the kitchen, or simply chefs and kitchen porters having to carry out menial, time-wasting tasks, caterers frequently spend more money than they need to on practices that are of no benefit whatsoever. Read more
The first in our new series of Small Food Business webinars will be hosted by Dara Turranksy of Turranksy Design Studio. Titled ‘What You Need To Know About Working With A Graphic Designer’, this free 1-hour webinar on Thursday June 20th at 2pm (PST) will cover the following topics: Read more
May 16
As I mentioned yesterday, I ran a test during the month of April to see how two similar pay-per-click online ad campaigns would fare. One of the campaigns ran on Google’s Adwords platform while the other was advertised on Facebook. Everything else was basically equal though – so how did the ads perform? I was a little shocked by the results. Read more
May 15
In March I decided to run a little experiment for a month to see which would perform better for me, Google Adwords or Facebook Ads. The goal was to promote the Small Food Biz Product Cost & Pricing Calculator and I wanted to see which one, if either, would generate enough traffic to that product so as to provide a worthwhile return-on-investment. Read more
Continuing our Mother’s Day theme for one more day, we all know that moms are special but did you know that they are also one of the most powerful consumer groups? Women over 16 make over 85% of all purchasing decisions. That’s more than $2 trillion (yep, with a t!) in buying power. Given that approximately 68% of women in America are moms (based on the 2008 census this equates to 85.4 million women), this is a huge and powerful market. If your product or company targets moms and/or their kids then you need to understand what makes moms tick.
Yesterday I introduced you to Beth Kirby, a successful cookie maker who sells on Etsy under the SunshineBakes name. During the course of our interview Beth was kind enough to share the following tips for any other food entrepreneurs who are looking to open their own Esty store: Read more
May 9
In honor of the upcoming Mother’s Day, today and tomorrow’s articles are reprints of highly popular material I originally published in 2011.
Despite the fact that many women love to cook, you’ll find that men outnumber women in professional kitchens at an astonishing rate. One reason for this is that a professional kitchen career leaves very little room for motherhood. It’s not easy to juggle partner, house, and baby when you’re working 14 hour days. With Mother’s Day coming up I thought it would only be appropriate to share a story of a mompreneur (entrepreneur + mother) working in this crazy food industry. Read more
May 6
I’ve been noticing more and more small specialty food businesses turn to subscription models to help them keep customers and revenue coming in. It’s an interesting concept especially since most businesses (food or otherwise) spend more money acquiring new customers than retaining their existing customers* so if there is a way for your to maximize the customers you already have shouldn’t you do it? Read more
Courser Farm Kitchen Granola really did start at a farm’s kitchen table. Thanks to the homestead laws in Hew Hampshire (known as Cottage Food Laws in other states), Emma Bates was able to start her company out of her home kitchen while keeping a watchful eye on her children. But that’s not all there is to the story. It was some ingenious thinking and the help of neighbors that helped Courser Farm Kitchen Granola really take off. Read more
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