Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪
👋 Hey - Heather and Corrie here with the Baking it Down Podcast with Sugar Cookie Marketing (a group on Facebook full of sugar cookiers turned business owners). 🍪 We're here to help you rise with your reach, flood with new followers, bake up new ideas, and make that all-important dough (while makin' that dough - see the pun there?) 🤑. What’s it about? We’re a Facebook Group turned Podcast, Membership, Book Club, and Baking 101 that’s dedicated to assisting bakers in effectively marketing online to generate more sales and better manage their businesses. 🧠 With free Facebook Live classes, hundreds of resources, and thousands of like-minded bakers, there’s a lot to learn in "SCM" (aka Sugar Cookie Marketing). ️🎧 As an extension of our Facebook group, this podcast is here to let you learn by listening. 📈 We'll cover group topics, marketing trends, and more (leaving this wide open in case Corrie wants to start singing). 💸 We take the sweet art of selling online to the cottage bakery world with marketing methods that move products (and pastries).👂 So open up those glorious ear canals because we have a podcast! Just when you’ve thought you’ve “heard” it all with those marketing "miracle" twins (that's our last name - not a proclamation), we’ve got something just for you each week! 🥣 As a baker, you don't always have the luxury of two hands needed to scroll in Sugar Cookie Marketing Group or crack open a book in Sugar Cookie Bookies, but what you can do is listen (unless you're my kid asking “what’s for dinner” for the millionth time). 👐 Hands full of flour? No problem! 👍 18 dozen iced cookies due tomorrow? Let’s do this. The Baking it Down Podcast by Sugar Cookie Marketing is a weekly podcast geared toward helping you grow your bakery business - dropping (almost) every Tuesday. 📅 We choose a topic each week that's either something new and emerging in the world of social media or something that we saw in "The Group" that was a hot topic and we bake it down... I mean, "break" it down for you. 🗯️ What you can expect in the podcast is about an hour of chit-chat with the meat and potatoes right at the beginning of the episode. 🥔 That’s when we dive into the marketing topic of the week! 📞 Oh yeah, folks can call / text / email in with their questions too - a fun way to hear from other bakers out there. Our promises to you: 1️⃣ We always make it clean = no cursing. We understand that you are busy and could be around little ones while also trying to get your weekly dose of business growth so we make sure that each episode would make our grandma proud and keep it clean so you can listen while also living your life. 2️⃣ We always make it fun. There’s a lot of negativity in the world so we try and make the podcast an upbeat and fun learning experience for you. I mean, we try to make the Instagram updates and changes as happy as we can, but come on Instagram! Give it a rest! No more changes! 3️⃣ Other than that, we take a positive approach to marketing We are also *not* professional podcasters. I feel like we need to say this because, hey, sometimes we get giggles! We do our best to extend our marketing knowledge to you all free of charge each week at the cost of listening to our higher-than-normal pitched voices and the occasional giggle spree. 4️⃣ You can find the podcast on all the major platforms and you can typically expect a new episode each Tuesday afternoon (unless life happens). We invite everyone to listen. Either start from the beginning or work backward! The episodes don’t build off themselves so you won’t be confused hearing one before the other. You just might miss new Lives we mention but you can always catch the replay in the Sugar Cookie Marketing Group on Facebook!
Episodes
🤝 Mmmmmm - A meeting framework (that works).
About two years ago, Corrie and I started meeting (well, 😭 she was kicking and screaming) each Monday for what later became known as the 📅 Monday Morning Marketing Meeting with the Miracles. The MMMMM for short.
😕 Meetings can feel pointless unless they, well, have a point. And that's where meeting frameworks come in clutch. A framework is a meeting structure - and ...
💸 Price vs Value Prop - Value is relative(ly easy to manipulate).
I was watching a YouTube video featuring a TedTalk where a salesman asks a member of the audience for their pen. He then asks how much the person bought the pen for. "Five dollars," the guy tells him. The salesman then asks if anyone in the audience wants to buy his newly acquired pen for $5 bucks.
✍️ The salesman then says he's going to t...
🥲 Excuse my Excuses - Don't cry unless you've tried (everything).
This week's podcast is a deep dive into a post I made in the group earlier this week - the post regarding "woe is me" threads saying the cookie industry is done, pack it up kids, you don't gotta go home, but you can stay... in this kitchen.
You see - that defeatist mentality ain't go no business being in a business-cent...
🤦♀ Comfy Mistakes - Getting comfortable with uncomfy mistakes.
We had a (very) abbreviated podcast today - thanks to the door guys. 🚪 But in the few minutes we did get to chit-chat, we wanted to touch on "uncomfortable mistakes."
😿 Being bad at something sucks. It's no fun making mistakes. In fact, it feels like bad business acumen to make mistakes, right? I mean - imagine a business built on mistakes...
⭐ Deborah Deborah Deborah
When you've not been seen, heard, or understood.
Grab your popcorn - 🍿 we covered a buttery topic on today's podcast when a Canadian restaurant went viral for all the wrong review reasons. 🧈 Blaming Deborah in a now globally reaching door sign, Heirloom Restaurant closed its doors this April citing issues with... well, unhappy clients. 👨🍳
How did they handle it? 😠 Making unhappy ...
⛔ Class is Canceled - What to do when you need to cancel cookie class.
When you venture into the wild world of cookie classes, the last thing you want to do is consider canceling said cookie class. BUT - it's just a fact of life that even the most seasoned instructors will have to face a cookie class cancelation.
Heck - we've been doing this for years now and it still happens. No one's above it. So best t...
😡 Upsetspectations - How setting expectations up front can keep us outta hot water.
Upsetspectations - the tongue-twister we came up with to describe what setting expectations as a baker and then not meeting them as a baker creates in your clients.
🛫 Listen - you're the one piloting the plane here, you get to set the expectations because likely your clients don't really have a clue what goes into baking. Bu...
🏡 Cottage Curb Appeal - How zhuzhing up your front lawn can increase sales.
🌼 Happy first day of spring! And with sunny skies (for some of us - ⛄ my apologies to y'all gettin' snow), it's time to consider that curb appeal - ya know, 👀 the stuff people are glancing at as they walk up to your house to snag their sweet treats.
Ya see - marketing encompasses more than just cute captions and pretty social m...
👎 Facebook Ouch-Tage - And what we can learn from Papa Zuck.
I remember exactly where I was when it all happened... I was... sitting at my computer like I always am. I reached for my phone - only to realize, in horror, my access to the mighty blue thumbs-up app was no more. How was I supposed to post that absolutely hilarious baking meme (see bottom of email)?! Or... or... heart-care react to someone asking whether th...
✍️ Copy This - Copy Formulas for Beginners.
🗒 If you see a big blank space asking "What would you like to say" and your brain follows suit and also turns into a big blank space - copy formulas are you're new bestie.
🤔 First - what's copy?
📑 Copy is any text you use to sell or persuade someone to take an action (like buying cookies). So copy could be the caption on Instagram, the social media text...
🎨 Hobby vs. Have To - And what Bob Ross has to say about it
Okay okay - Corrie and I couldn't agree on the ✨definition✨ of "hobby baker" since most of us are technically a hobby baker - but in reality - I don't consider filing business taxes, updating your LLC yearly registration, and tappin' a lawyer to check for a trademark anything remotely close to "hobbyist."
So for this Onesday...
🪪 License to Delight - And what we can learn from $400 perfume.
Twin2 is back in her "Corporate Girly Era" with Neiman Marcus and "Patrick 2" - and here's what we learned from their customer experience manager that will help you delight your own customers all the way to the bank.
Waiting up in the (fancy) corporate office of Neiman Marcus - a department store so expensive that my hands instant...
☝️ I Adject...ive! - Using different words to sweeten the deal.
Your business will live and die by the words you use - either words used to make more sales or words used unintentionally to make a sworn enemy whose new purpose in life is to drag you through all the local community groups.
*shudders*
But in today's podcast, we're talking about words to sweeten the deal, deter an unwanted action towards a desired...
🪧 Branding Woes - The process to proceed with the perfect branding.
If your commitment-averse (like yours truly), you'll find branding one of those long-term relationships you may eventually regret. So how do you build a brand when you're not sure of what you're building in the first place?
Fair question. The answer? It's a tricky blend of approaches. Oh yeah - and it's very frustrating. But you know what&ap...
👀 Peeky Blinders - When to Look and When to Look Away
The typo was intentional (this time) - 👀 it's a play on words when it comes to peeking over the proverbial fence of social media to see what our competition is up to.
🧠 But staring leads to comparing and that can be a real mind-trip wondering why the highlight reel of your nearest cookie competitor looks like they're one post away from being featured on...
🎁 G-i-v-e-a-w-a-y-s - What to Watch out for Choosin' a Winner.
Giveaways - do you do them? If so, what do you need to watch out for? What should you give away? How do they enter? How do you make the post? How do you choose a winner?
🧠 Giveaways are tempting - I mean, who doesn't want free stuff? Marrying a giveaway to audience growth seems like a no-brainer - 👀 buuut there are a few things you need to watc...
☎️ Not All Leads Are Created Equal
Let's define some words before we jump into this week's podcast topic:
- ✅ Lead: someone contacting you to secure a potential product or service
- ✅ Qualified Lead: a lead that has been vetted and is willing to pay your price or work with your availability
- ✅ Converted Lead: a lead that has turned into a sale, a sign-up, or a confirmation (ideally this is when money exchanges ha...
📍 Community Groups 101 - Creating Your Greatest Lead Source
Community groups - you love them, you hate them, you love to hate them, you hate to love them - but they are a lead source powerhouse, and we're not ones to sit on the sidelines when it comes to making that dough (baking and monetary types).
So what happens when you get banned from a community group? Or when your community group doesn't allow sales?...
📑 A list of EOY Tasks to set you up for sales in 2024
Hopefully you've survived the holidays and with NYE being a more muted cookie holiday, you get a chance to breathe, meet your kids you've not seen in 6 months because you've been sequestered in the kitchen, and take a little time to binge some good ol' Netflix.
During this lull of a week in between 2023 and 2024, here are some easy wins you can ...
💚 Burnout Boundary - How to ward off the Spirit of Grinch-Mas.
'Tis the season to h-h-hate your bakery business. I can't even judge, I'm a slave to the "cookie SuperBowl" where we sell the MOST volume all year x10 (see the diagram from Google search queries for "Sugar Cookies" below). 🔥 It's our time to shine - shine - shine, baby, and then go out in a glorious flame of burnout...
Popular Podcasts
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Anna Sale explores the big questions and hard choices that are often left out of polite conversation.
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.
A straightforward look at the day's top news in 20 minutes. Powered by ABC News. Hosted by Brad Mielke.