We were lucky to catch up with Camryn Kellogg recently and have shared our conversation below.
Camryn, appreciate you joining us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?
My love for baking goes all the way back to my childhood- I have the fondest memories of my great-grandmother, Ollie, teaching me her recipes and baking techniques. Whether it be her famous Banana Bread or heavenly Delight Brownies, I learned that baking was a way to express our love as a family. Every time I would see Ollie, affectionally known as ‘Great Meme’, she would have some sort of baked good for me to enjoy. I cherish these memories of her, and truly feel like her legacy and love live on when I smell her banana bread baking in the oven. As I worked my way through college at UNC-Chapel Hill, the pandemic hit. While I was home, my girlfriend Charlie and I began baking for friends and family to express love and feel connection in a world-gone-remote. The idea of our bakery was born – based on a delivery-model, I aimed to deliver absolutely delicious, decadent baked goods to college students and community members in the NC Triangle. When thinking of names for the bakery, I wanted to communicate the importance of my great-grandmother Ollie, and I landed on a play on words: Ollie’s Great Bakery. I continue to honor her legacy through the naming of my brand, and am always living up to her standards of delicious, love-filled goodies baked fresh to order.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My name is Camryn Kellogg- I attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a Morehead-Cain Scholar, and have been baking my whole life. While I was in college and sent home during the pandemic, I began searching for ways to feel connected with others. I quickly landed on my childhood passion of baking, and the idea of Ollie’s was born. When I returned to the Triangle area, I decided to launch our bakery with the goal of providing truly decadent, delicious desserts to college students and community members in the area. Many of the university parents live a long ways from campus, and I wanted to provide a way for loved ones to send a taste of home to their students. Thanks to the support of the community and universities we serve, we have grown tremendously and have truly fine-tuned our model. We have a beautiful website with easy online ordering. We deliver all orders for FREE right to your dorm, apartment, or house. We create personalized tracking links with each order, along with real-time email and text updates, so recipients know our ETA down to the minute. We personally hand write notes on each and every box. And most importantly, we bake every item fresh to order on the morning of delivery. Our baked goods are truly special in that I use the highest quality ingredients- real grade AA butter, farm-fresh chicken eggs (yes, I even raise a flock of chickens to maintain a steady stream of the highest quality eggs), and and loads of chocolate. In addition to having 4 generations of family recipes, I love putting my unique spin on our goodies. Putting a layer of chocolate fudge through the center of our brownies? Yes, please! Topping cookies with a double layer of our signature chocolate drizzle? Thank you! There is something special about receiving a box of freshly baked goods, complete with a handwritten note from a loved one (and delivered right on time of course). I am really proud of how we have grown in the past couple years- we now offer delivery at 5 universities and their surrounding communities in North Carolina on a daily basis, 5 more universities all across North Carolina on a monthly basis, and run beautiful social media pages on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok (check us out @OlliesGreatBakery). I am also very proud of our website- I have built it out myself from scratch! Check us out at www.OlliesGreatBakery.com
How did you build your audience on social media?
When first starting Ollie’s, I leaned heavily into social media (particularly Facebook and Instagram) as that was the best way to connect with others remotely, especially considering we began during the pandemic. To begin building an audience, I first wanted to create content of our delicious goodies themselves. This involved many rounds of baking, posing, and of course taste-testing my treats. I am a bit of a perfectionist, so I ended up baking every single variation and flavor of all my recipes to get consistent photos and content for social media. I began to post and asked family and friends to give us a follow, and then began to take our efforts into the real-world. I reached out to local ‘food influencers’- I would identify people in the Triangle area of North Carolina who posted about food, had a significant following (1000+ followers), and received a substantial number of likes on each post. I would DM these people and ask if they’d be willing to give our bakery a try, 100% free and complete with delivery right to their door. This was a hard offer to pass up! In exchange, I asked for an honest review and shout-out on their page. For several weeks, I was baking for these influencers without a profit. The hope was to build a social media presence, and it began to work! I also did a few ‘give-aways’ on Franklin Street near my campus. My girlfriend, Charlie, and I would bake a bunch of cookies, head out on a busy Friday night, and ask students walking by to taste our cookies and follow our Instagram. This really worked, and we began to see our social media pages grow! Finally, our pages really took off thanks to the support of the UNC Facebook parent community- when parents learned that we were offering this service, they began to follow our accounts and our engagement grew tremendously. We continue to grow our pages by asking students/parents to give us a follow when we bake for them, and we launched an ‘Ambassadors Program’ as well! Through this program, we partner with students at college campuses where we provide free desserts in exchange for them posting about us and sending us content to share.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
One of the single most important qualities I attribute our success to is remarkable customer service. Our entire mission is to provide a local, small-business bakery experience for our customers, and having impeccable customer service is a huge part of that. I personally handle all of our customer service and am continuously thanking our customers for their support. I truly mean it when I say that their support means the world- and I treat them that way! I send multiple email updates when it comes to orders, I personally resolve any delivery conflicts when scheduling our routes, and I always handle every customer problem with patience, respect, and understanding. If something goes wrong with an order, I go above and beyond to correct it. I will personally reach out to the customer, provide a refund, schedule an additional free delivery, include additional baked goods, etc. I view each and every customer as a significant part of my business and story, so I handle every situation that way. By going above and beyond for customers, I have been able to build a strong reputation in our area as being reliable, flexible, understanding, and great to work with. I am extremely grateful for all our customers who have given us 5-star reviews on Facebook and Google, and will go out of my way to make sure each customer has a fantastic experience with us!!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://olliesgreatbakery.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/olliesgreatbakery/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OlliesGreatBakery/
- Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@olliesgreatbakery Google Reviews: Google “Ollie’s Great Bakery” in North Carolina!
