Marketing for food and beverage brands that keeps orders coming back
We run the ads, email and SMS that bring first-time buyers back, and we plan each holiday around what your kitchen can actually make. If you also sell to stores, we track those buyers in HubSpot.
Free, 30 minutes, and you'll leave with at least one clear next step.
What keeps food founders up at night
These come up more than anything else when food brands call us.
Your busiest weeks arrive all at once
Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and the holidays come fast. Creative, ingredients and shipping cutoffs get sorted out the week before.
Gift buyers order once
The person who sent the gift rarely hears from you again, and the person who got it never joins your list.
Shipping can cost more than the margin
Perishable and fragile orders need fast delivery, and some of them lose money once it's paid.
Store buyers live in a spreadsheet
Samples go out, the follow-up slips, and you can't tell which retailers are close to saying yes.
What we learned growing Baked Bouquet
Baked Bouquet makes gift bouquets that look like flowers but are made of cupcakes. People loved the idea in person at its pop-up stores. Online, many shoppers didn't realize the flowers were cupcakes. A pretty photo and a price weren't enough.
At one point, a viral video brought millions of views and a rush of orders. Within about two weeks, interest faded and sales fell back to where they were. A spike like that is exciting, but you can't hire people or buy ingredients around it.
So we built ads in steps. The first ads show what the product is. The next ones show how people give it as a gift. Only then come the offers. Google Ads was one of the main channels. When a message and audience combination won, we kept it and reused it.
We also gave the team a simple view of incoming orders against what the kitchen could produce. On busy days, they could make quick calls. Baked Bouquet brought in more than 10,000 new customers, and online orders became a steady stream instead of a spike. The first location did well enough to open a second, which launched with the same tested ads. Read the Baked Bouquet story.
How do you plan a food brand's holiday rush?
Start with your kitchen, then plan the ads. The first number we ask for is how many orders you can make and ship in a day. Every other part of the plan has to fit under it.
For Baked Bouquet, we projected holiday sales against production limits. That guided hiring and ingredient buying, and the better forecast cut food waste. We build the same kind of plan with you. Each peak gets a forecast, a date when ads start, dates for email and text reminders, and a last day to order for delivery.
Once the cutoff passes, ads switch to gift cards or the next delivery date. That way you're not paying for orders you can't deliver in time.
What we do for food brands
Holiday plans matched to your kitchen
A sales forecast checked against what you can make, with ads, offers and shipping cutoff reminders set before each peak.
Paid adsGift recipients turned into customers
A card in the box or a delivery page invites the person who got the gift to join your list. Then emails bring them back.
Email marketingReorders and subscriptions
Reminders timed to how fast people finish a bag, a box or a case.
Email marketingAds judged on profit after shipping
Cold packs and fast delivery included, so you know which orders actually make money.
Ad tracking and reportingHubSpot for retail and wholesale buyers
Each sample, tasting and follow-up tracked to the account, so you know which stores are close to ordering.
HubSpotSelling to grocery and specialty stores
Many food brands start online and then pitch stores. That's a different kind of selling, with buyers, samples, tastings, distributor introductions and long waits between replies. A spreadsheet works for five stores. It falls apart at fifty.
We set up HubSpot for that side of the business. Each store or chain is an account. Each sample and tasting is logged with a follow-up task, so it doesn't slip. You can see which buyers are close, which went quiet, and which distributors are bringing you leads. Klaviyo keeps running your online shoppers. Once you're on shelves, ads can point local shoppers to the stores that carry you.
Gift boxes, pantry goods and brands heading to retail
Gifting brands like Baked Bouquet depend on holiday peaks, shipping cutoffs and the person who received the gift. Snack, coffee and pantry brands make most of their money on reorders, so the timing of the reminder matters more than the size of the discount. A bag of coffee that lasts two weeks needs a different reminder than a case of hot sauce.
Brands moving into retail need both sides in view. We keep store buyers in HubSpot and online sales in Shopify, with one report across both. For how we approach online stores in general, see our ecommerce page.
Your first months with us
- Day 1
A free 30-minute call
Bring your numbers from last holiday. We'll show you where orders slipped and what we'd fix before the next one.
- First month
Forecast and tracking
Profit per order, a holiday forecast against kitchen capacity, and shipping cutoffs set before the next peak.
- Ongoing
Flows, ads and store outreach
Live and reviewed every week against profit.
More specific pages
Pick the page closest to your business. Each one covers the problems we see most in that part of food and beverage.
Food and beverage questions
When should a food brand start planning holiday gift orders?
Start as soon as you know how many orders you can make and ship in a day. For the big holidays, that usually means a couple of months ahead. That gives you time to get ingredients, packaging and creative ready before demand peaks.
How do you handle shipping cutoffs?
The last day to order goes into every email and ad as it gets close. After it passes, ads switch to gift cards or the next delivery date.
How do we avoid taking more orders than we can make?
Work out how many orders you can make and ship per day, then pace ads and emails to that number. When you get close to the limit, ads can switch to gift cards or a later delivery date. Baked Bouquet planned baking around demand, which also cut food waste.
Can we market to the people who received a gift?
Yes, once they opt in. A card in the box or the delivery tracking page can invite them to join your list.
Should a food brand sell subscriptions?
Yes, if people finish the product on a regular schedule. Gift-only products do better with a reminder before the next occasion.
Can you help us sell into grocery and specialty stores?
Yes. We set up HubSpot to track each buyer, sample and follow-up. Once you're on the shelf, we run ads that point local shoppers to those stores.
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Get ahead of your next holiday
We'll look at your last season on the call and tell you what we'd change for the next one.