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 🍪
124. Baking it Down - TOMA
🧠 T-O-M-A 🧠
🍅 Thought I typoed "tomato" didn't ya? I wouldn't put it past me at this point. But alas - no. It's an acronym this time.
"What other weird acronym are the twins talkin' about today?!" 🗣️ Yeah - agreed, but this marketing jargon may make you sales without selling!
⬆️🧠 T-O-M-A: Top of Mind Awareness.
Think of "TOMA" marketing as a way to stay in front of a client without directly saying "hey - yo, yeah you - don't forget to buy from me." If a client only needs to place an order with you once a year when it's Mother's Day or when their kid as a birthday, pummeling them will sales post does not for the ideal experience make.
🤔 "But how can I sell to people if they're annoyed by my selling to people?"
Great question, Mr. Miagi. Let's brainstorm some of the best ways to sell without selling using the T-O-M-A method.
- ⬆️ CRM Programs - man, hittin' ya with the double acronyms this week. CRM programs are "customer relationship management" applications that handle a lot of "TOMA" for you. 👥 Use these programs to remind you to email folks on their birthday, touch base with clients who order on specific holidays, or follow up with clients who place orders 4 months in advanced. CRMs, if utilized correctly, can single-handedly fill your pipeline by harnessing the power of T-O-M-A.
- ⬆️ Newsletter / Email List - harness the power of newsletters by staying top of mind (using some of the tips below). 📬 Email is awesome at keeping clients in the roster if you do it right. Finding a newsletter platform is key here. Mailchimp, Flodesk, Sendgrid, ConstantContact - all viable options (don't use your Gmail though - you'll get burned in deliverability).
- ⬆️ Facebook Ads from Email Lists - "YIKES" is what many folks think when we drop the Ads Manager keyword. But the "dollar a day" adspend budget means you stay in front of clients by staying in their newsfeeds. ️🎯 Targeting "people who like your page" can mean you're keeping an eye on (well, they're keeping an eye on) your clients all year around for just $30/mo.
- ⬆️ Charity Donations - "Strategic Giving" is a great way to build good karma while also staying in the minds (and hopefully hearts) of your target audience. 🎁 Donating cookies for a cause or a class ticket to a raffle can help market you while also giving you some feel-good content for your socials.
- ⬆️ Content Cookies - flex without selling (and brush up on new skills) with content cookies! Content cookies are cookies made for content for your socials. 📸 Often I see Corrie make just one or two cookies for this. It makes for cute photos, shows off your capabilities, and it's not selling since you're likely not even baking these cookies for the marketplace.
- ⬆️ Pop-Bys / Main Street Marketing
- ⬆️ Resource / Informative Touch Point
👂 Snag this podcast and hear the breakdown on the last two T-O-M-A ideas on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or your desktop) by clickin' here - Episode 124 - TOMA.