When he was rejected for an after-school fast food job, then-18-year-old Jonathan ‘Jonny’ Massaad decided to start his own cake business. Six years on, Cake Mail is a multimillion-dollar online cake-selling success.

“I’d handed in an application with KFC, and because I had no experience, I got rejected. So, I took it upon myself to start my own business,” Jonny tells Kochie’s Business Builders.

It wasn’t a case of simply throwing darts at a board. Jonny was already baking cakes for his friends and family as a hobby. In his quest to earn some extra spending money while he finished his secondary studies, he decided to monetise his skills and sell them to the public.

While he may sound matter of fact about starting up his own business, Jonny readily acknowledges starting up Australia’s original same-day delivery online cake shop has not been without challenges.

“Our biggest challenge was reaching the right customers because people are so used to going to the local cake shop to buy their cake,” the 24-year-old says. “We’ve had to switch their mindset and get them to see shopping with us makes it easier – you can go online and order, then pick it up or have it delivered.”

Watch: Inside Cake Mail with Jonny

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Reels and recipes driving brand recognition

Starting out in a custom kitchen at the back of the family home, originally under the name Sugar High Desserts, Jonny saw the visual medium of social media as a perfect outlet for his creative cake confections. His first foray into this type of marketing was photo based – the indulgent cake-laden Instagram account now boasts 139,000 followers thanks to consistent posting and engagement.

As the business has grown, Jonny says Cake Mail’s marketing has evolved, particularly with technology and new social media features like Instagram reels, live stories and TikTok videos.

“We’ve had to adjust to that world to promote our product to a new audience… Our business wouldn’t be where it is today if we didn’t have social media, and in particular, us curating how-to videos and content for engagement purposes so people don’t feel like they’re always being sold to,” he says.

They’ve racked up hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok as the“Cake Gods”, sharing short vids of everything from cheeky food hacks (we’re going to agree to disagree on the virtues of popping a cheeseburger in the sandwich press) to the uber-popular three-ingredient cake and doughnut recipes.

As well as getting eyes on their mouth-watering cupcakes and creative larger scale concoctions, their popular tongue-in-cheek customer complaint reels share the space with exclusive discount codes, giving customers a tangible incentive to buy with them.

 

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Email marketing is the icing on the cake

Jonny says their strength lies in that they aren’t just selling the same thing that everyone else does and don’t try to imitate others. It’s a point anyone that has watched their reels would agree with.

“If you have a point of difference, you’ll have more chance of other customers coming to you and picking your service or product,” he says.

Jonny also credits Mailchimp, the advanced email marketing and automation platform, as a key tool to drive customer loyalty and greater revenue. The platform has helped alert Cake Mail to key opportunities to engage with their customers in a constructive way – at the most opportune times.

“In particular, the feature allowing us to collect customers’ birthdays means we’re able to advertise our products to them on their birthdays – it just works hand in hand if they need a birthday cake,” he says.

Cake Mail’s Loyal Customer campaign they’ve been running through Mailchimp has also proven to be an effective way to drive sales.

“So Mailchimp allows us to see what customers have purchased – how many cakes over what period of time. This means we can pretty much see who our actual loyal customers are, and then in turn, we can reward them with a discount code, which keeps them purchasing,” Jonny explains.

Let Australia eat cake

As the orders keep on coming, so too does Jonny’s plan to take his baked goods to new locations. Cake Mail is already delivering to more than 1000 suburbs across Sydney, Wollongong, Melbourne, the Gold Coast and Brisbane – with the goal of reaching even more hungry mouths in different locations.

“Cake Mail is fortunate enough to have already opened up in Melbourne,” he says. “And now we want to look at opening up into other parts of Australia.”

Find out more about Cake Mail here.

Want to see how you can take the guesswork out your email marketing with Mailchimp? Head to their website to see how you can drive revenue and customer loyalty today.

This article is brought to you by Kochie’s Business Builders in partnership with Mailchimp.

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