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 🍪
173. Baking it Down - Prep 4 Q4
🎢 Prep 4 Q4 - How to prepare for our busy season.
In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 173 - Prep 4 Q4, we're preppin' for Q4 - the baker's "Super (mixing) Bowl." 🏈 Right now, you should be feeling the tides of a lullish summer slowly begin to change as we creep into back-to-school territory.
🌬️ Add in the cooler weather blowing in (hey, we can hope, right?) and that signals the official kick-off for baking mayhem that will last until the week after New Year's (until Valentine's Day).
BUT - 😴 we still have a few weeks of down-ish time (are bakers ever truly on vacation though??) to prep for Q4, because - if you remember last year, 😫 you ain't gonna have no time to do this when you're elbow deep in red and green royal icing.
🎢 Twin2 likens this part of the year to a roller coaster that's reached the peak of the initial drop... that point where you feel like the coaster has stopped at the highest point. It feels slow, but what's next is utter calendar chaos, hands in the air, screaming at the top of your lil' lungs. And here's what we think you could spend the next few weeks on so you're all prepped up for Game Day.
🎢 1. Instagram
Let's start with Instagram - even if it's not a big lead generator for you, keeping it up-to-date can help signal to your audience you're rearin' and ready to take holiday orders. It's easy to forget about the bio info, but that's an important jump point for people starting their ordering process with you. Here's what we'd focus on:
- ✅ Update your auto-responder
- ✅ Refresh the pinned posts (You can have 3) - How to Order | Lead Time | Offerings
- ✅ Update your bio - Location | Now Booking For [Month]
- ✅ Audit your bio links (see: Linktree)
- ✅ Use emojis and line breaks
🎢 2. Facebook
Similar to Instagram, but different - Facebook needs some cleaning up too. I prefer to update it on a desktop computer since the Meta Business Suite app doesn't always give you all the editing options. There's an about section and the more important "Intro" section - this intro section has had an extended character limit and can now feature hyperlinks - ya know, for your ordering form. Also updated those pinned posts so they reflect a 2024 timestamp (bonus if it's not January 1, 2024... ahem, Corrie).
- ✅ Audit About section - check for old information
- ✅ Retype up Intro bio + add a link
- ✅ Refresh pinned posts (repost for 2024 timestamp)
- ✅ Check that your button still works
- ✅ Update links + add social profile links if you haven't
- ✅ Respond to all reviews - include a picture of their order!
- ✅ Add upcoming events to the Events tab for easy tagging
- ✅ Clean up your personal profile (I don't wanna see you arguing politics)
🎢 Website | Forms
Many clients discover us on social media but find themselves on our websites or forms to place an order. Clean up that web shop by archiving old products or products from past holidays.
Make the product options the ones you know you can knock out of the park quickly (mid-December is not the time to attempt to make your first cake pop). Adding an availability banner (or calendar) can signal that you're ready to bake for the holidays and increase conversions. Adding holiday-themed pictures is another signal that you're ✨the✨ holiday baker of their dreams.
- ✅ Add an availability banner (Now Booking for [Month]
- ✅ Delete / archive old products or past holiday-themed products
- ✅ Add a "Schedule" page for events like classes / vendor markets
- ✅ Update pictures to feature upcoming holiday-themed items
🎢 Google Business Profile Listing
If you'
