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!
Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪
82. Baking it Down - 5 Things We Can Learn from Susan Reed
It struck me the other day - Susan the Scammer is actually really good at marketing. I mean - look at her! This little "event planner" has marketed so well that an entire industry knows about her antics! 👏 And 👏 the 👏 woman 👏 still 👏 doesn't 👏 quit.
If we think about it - we can actually learn a pretty solid marketing lesson from the lady with the bluest of hearts. But beyond the scam, Susan has a pretty solid marketing campaign that's gotten her a lot of business (never repeat business though, mind you). So what can we learn from Miss Reed?
1. 💙 Be consistent
Susan hits the pavement consistently. She replies consistently. She keeps her funnel short and converts bakers time and again. She keeps the process simple. And she's simply a good scammer - and that's something we can learn from ol' Susy Reed. Keeping your communication consistent, your order pipeline consistent, and your workflow consistent creates conversions.
2. 💙 Don't take no for an answer
Susan has been ghosted, lambasted, told up one way and down the other by more bakers aware of her scammy ways - and yet she remains undeterred! Suzy keeps going - no after no - until she finds a yes. She's the embodiment of "it's not personal, it's just business." Don't let the next NO take you to your knees. You're a business owner now - no is a part of your life and the more you learn to love these two little letters, the more successful you'll be - just like Reed.
3. 💙 Warm up to Cold outreach
100% of Susan's emails are sent to a cold audience - people she's never worked with before. But she lures them in with promises of things that interest her audience - not the other way around. Susan appeals to her cold audience and we can too. By contacting cafes where we'd love to host cookie classes, reaching out to vendor events, and asking the HOA if a pop-up is A-okay, we're taking a lesson from Susan and doing "cold outreach." By appealing to our cold contact's wants and needs (just like Susan dangles that big check in front of us bakers), we can get a yes even from a stranger.
4. 💙 More than one form of payment
Now here's a lesson we can learn on what not to do a la Susan. Because her whole scam can only operate from checks, she limits her audience. We can get more market share by opening up our payment options. Yeah - that may mean processing fees, but if accepting credit cards gets you more money overall, it's a net win - and somethin' Sue can take notes on.
5. 💙 There are niches in the riches
Susan niched down to SUGAR COOKIE bakers - she doesn't care about cakes, she doesn't want chocolates - the woman wants her hearts, and she wants them blue. Because Susan niched down, she appeals to a smaller audience, but that audience is far more receptive that way. You can too - instead of being a baker of all trades, master of none - focus on being known for one or two products. You'll find that you'll become people's go-to source for that one thing you're really good at (the same goes for how many products you sell within your niche).
6. 💙 If it's too good to be true...
Bonus - if it's too good to be true, it's probably not for you! Very rare are the times in my life when I came out ahead on something that sounded too good to be true. Clients who promise you the world if you make this one exception, class attendees who push your boundaries but promise repeat business, and DIY kit pick-ups who promise they'll be early - if you do XYZ - these can lead you holdin' the bag (and that's not a bag of money). If it sounds too good to be true, do your r
