Students put icing on business' cake

BROOKVILLE, Ohio (WDTN) - A small business gets a surprise boost from a group of MBA students at Wright State Univeristy.

Cammie Hines started Clever Confections out of her Brookville home kitchen earlier this year.

The baker and cake designer makes beautiful and whimsical party and wedding cakes to order. Her diaper bag cake, designed to look just like the new mom necessity, but made entirely of cake, sugar, fondant, and chocloate, just won first place at the Queen City Cake Competition in Cincinnati.

Hines calls herself a hobby baker, who just this year turned her passion into a business. She bakes between 4 and 10 cakes each week.

Earlier this year, Hines was contacted by someone who didn't want to place an order.

"I emailed her," said Kelly Kreiger, "would you be OK with us doing this for you. Because I know most of her business comes from word of mouth, I thought this was a unique opportunity."

Wright State MBA students Jameika Sampson, Amber Maham, Lindsay Gibbs and Kreiger wanted to create an online ad campaign for Hines... for an international Google competition they were participating in for class.

Sampson said, "We thoguht they were great looking cakes, we also noticed there was little web visibility."

For a month, anytime someone googled the word, "cakes," or any of the other 650 search terms the team created, an ad for Clever Confections would appear to the right of the results page.

And the team's results were impressive.

Kreiger said their ads for Clever Confections resulted in 653 clicks, and a huge boom in business for Hines.

Hines agrees. She said, "Overall, I saw an increase of at least 25 percent" during the 4 week long competition.

Now that the competition is over, Hines is back on her own when it comes to marketing her business.. but she says being a part of the compeition was definitely eye opening.

Hines said, "Now that I know the market is there, it's just about learning how to do it effectivly, and if I makret it right, the business will come."

The MBA students will learn how they did in the Google ad competition later this month. They're hoping to place in the top 50, nationwide.

If your sweet tooth just got the best of you, check out Hines' work, www.cleverconfections.com .