So, as we have said before, we have recently read “Get Different” by Mike Michalowicz. (Please note that the links to the books are affiliate links. If you choose to make a purchase, then we may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.) Reading this book helped us learn to market our Christmas menu in a different way
We love the book because it helped us feel validated with some of our outlandish marketing ideas. If you are interested in some of these ideas, check out our cookie dough fundraiser page [LINK] to get an idea of some of the things we do with our bakery.
We want to share with you an idea we had that we just spent the last two weeks executing and already received holiday orders.
“You’ve Been Boo’d”
Scroll to the bottom to get access to the full instructions on how we created our “boo” bags and what we did to include our Holiday Menu in our bags.
If you have never heard of the “You’ve Been Boo’d” concept, then you will need to search Pinterest or Google to see what we mean. There are several examples of “You’ve been boo’d”. We first became aware of the concept last Halloween, we some of our neighbors started randomly boo’ing each other.
This year while seeing a sign up to participate in a new annual “You’ve Been Boo’d” Halloween tradition in our neighborhood. We had the grand epiphany to tweak this idea for our bakery and use it to market our Christmas menu in a different way this year.
We decided to do a “You’ve Been Boo’d” concept to bring awareness to our holiday menu this year. So, we decided to go around and “Boo” our local businesses.
To give you a bit of background about our business, we are not an established business in our area. We started out as a bakery with no storefront. We baked in a commercial kitchen and did events and wholesale baking for local coffee shops and restaurants in the local St. Louis, MO area.
During the “shutdown” in March of 2020, we had the chance to slow down and decide how to move our business to the next level. The opportunity presented itself to sign up for a 6-month storefront food hall concept at Urban Eats in St. Louis, MO.
We jumped on the opportunity to take our business to the next level. So, in the middle of all the craziness of 2020, we got the bright idea to open a storefront bakery.
Though it seemed crazy and scary to quite our jobs and open a fulltime storefront in the height of COVID, we did it anyways. I mean being an entrepreneur is part innovation and part plum crazy; am I right?
We spent 6 months in the food hall concept at Urban Eats in St. Louis, MO and learned all kinds of things about running a bakery. It was probably the best decision we ever made. It allowed our busines to learn important lessons and skills about running a bakery before fully committing. (I mean besides the whole quitting our jobs thing.)
As we neared the 6-month mark of the contract, we had to decide how we wanted to move forward. We chose to commit to our final home for our bakery in Waterloo, IL and couldn’t be happier with our choice.
No, we are not from Waterloo, IL. No we don’t have family in Waterloo, IL, and no we don’t have friends in Waterloo, IL. My sister moved near Waterloo and fell in love with everything about Waterloo, IL, their downtown atmosphere, and the love of the community for their local small businesses.
We knew we had to make it our forever home. So, when the opportunity aligned itself, we took the leap and here we are. We are regrowing our business and customer base for the second time in a year.
So, all that wordiness to say, the “You’ve Been Boo’d” idea was not done as a way to connect with our existing customers though it would absolutely do that for you. Instead, we actually had to go and figure out how to attract new customers in an area where we are outsiders. We needed to find a way to connect with our fellow business owners, our community, and our customers in a fun way.
And these “You’ve Been Boo’d” Halloween bags did just that. They were a fun and innovative way to say “hey” to the community.
We received an overwhelming positive response to our bags. Do not get me wrong, not everyone cared about the bags, but most people thought it was fun and enjoyed being “boo’d” for Halloween.
If you want all the instructions on how we set up our boo bags and linked it to our Holiday Menu to stand out and start getting orders, then drop your email below to get free access to our full instructional PDF with links to the items we used and the documents we created.
If you are still reading this article, then you missed how to learn to market your Christmas menu in a different way. Many people have start doing a “boo” bag for friends and neighbors, but you can stand out by booing your customers. It will be unexpected because most people don’t do anything for Halloween. I suggest scrolling back up and signing up to get our PDF that includes what we used and how we did it.
