We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Camile Melton Brown a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Camile, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Every time you see our business name, Buttermilk Babes Memphis, you’ll most often see the tag line underneath, Give the gift of sweets! Although it’s a fun catchy line, it actually has personal significance.

There are three ways that “Give the gift of sweets”embodies our company. First, our desserts are an absolute delectable treat. The aroma, flavor, quality of taste, is a gift to your taste buds. And as you do most great things you enjoy, you share this gift with someone you love! So our desserts are a gift to yourself, a family member, loved one or friend.

Second, our packaging is a gift to the environment. We receive many compliments on the look of our packaging, that’s it is sleek and classy in appearance, but what most don’t know is that we are focused on environmentally friendly options for our desserts, thus the use of a paper box and wooden fork. It is important to us that we are doing our part to reduce the use of plastic whenever possible.

And third, we are a gift to the community. Buttermilk Babes Memphis strongly believes in giving back to the community. We have donated dessert boxes for bidding in multiple philanthropic auctions, financially contributed to local fundraisers, as well as using our platform yearly to raise awareness for Sickle Cell Disease.

So when you see our tagline, give the gift of sweets, know that we mean it!

Camile, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Buttermilk Babes Memphis is a boutique bakery focused on baking simple southern desserts. From the moment you open our signature black box, the aroma immediately draws you in while the taste keeps you coming back for more!

In regards to creating a business, it all started with my Great Aunt Classie’s red velvet cake, which she brought to every family gathering. Well, one year she didn’t come and the family was not happy. After inquiring about her absence, I gathered up the courage to ask her for the recipe.

She lovingly obliged, wrote the recipe down, and sent it in the mail. I first baked the cake for my husband, then my students, then my co-workers and friends. Soon after, people I didn’t know were inquiring about ordering my red velvet cake.

It was then I decided to turn this hobby into something more serious and as they say, the rest is history!

You can find us at the Cordova AgriCenter Farmers Market most Saturdays or at festivals around the city of Memphis.

How did you build your audience on social media?

Although we are still building our social media audience, there are a few things we did that caused us to go from 12 followers to over 1k in a few months, without going viral. The first was to post on several social media platforms. Time is super limited due to a hectic work and family schedule so having a plan was critical. We created a schedule to post at least three times a week at 5:30am. We also committed to posting videos, reels, and photos from the vendor festivals we participated in.

The second was to post a QR code at events for customers to follow our social media platforms. They would see their picture posted in our Instagram stories with their dessert item and we would tag them or their business on the photo.

The third thing we did was follow a lot of Memphis pages, comment on their posts, and like other peoples comments. It allowed other people to see our name and check out our page. If they liked what they saw, they followed us.

Staying consistent was the key to a steady growth!

Let’s move on to buying businesses – can you talk to us about your experience with business acquisitions?

Contact Info:

• Website: https://buttermilkbabesmemphis.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buttermilkbabes901/
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/buttermilkbabesmemphis/

Image Credits
Aleks Werks Seidel Shipp