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 🍪
196. Baking it Down - Words Matter
🤐 Words Matter - How copy can compel cash.
Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 196 - Words Matter (now watchable on YouTube, don't forget), we were a lil' late - and that's because Heather thought she had a bad night's sleep but was actually 🤢 sick-sick and never left her quarantined room for 3 days and nights.
But better late than never, the show must go on... Friday. The message still stands though - your words matter (even if they're three days late).
✍️ Copy is best summarized as any writing that's meant to help you sell or advertise something. That could be the caption on your Facebook post, the text in your email (hey, like this one!) or the ad you took out in the local kids PTA newsletter.
If it's written to sell = it's copy. 💸 And if it's copy, it has to be intentional. Gone are the days of, "Thanks for your order, Cheryl," and here to stay is compelling copy intended to get a person to part with their cold hard cash.
💊 There's no "magic copy pill" that, if swallowed, moves mounds of money (trust me, if there was, I woulda swallowed 1,000 pills by now 💊💊💊). But there are strategies you can mix and match to serve as a guide 🗺️ to finding copy that compels - meaning copy that when read makes people want what ya got.
🪝 Start with the Hook
Consider the hook - you know, that first part they read before social media companies "truncate" (aka anything behind the ...See more text) the post. The first few words in a post that capture the reader's attention to stay beyond just glancing at that stunning photo.
Examples of hooks could look like:
- 🪝 "My inability to count is your gain! ...I overbaked and have some extra cookies!"
- 🪝 "I'll NEVER do this again! ...This is the LAST time I'll reopen pre-sales for latecomers!"
- 🪝 "I've got bad news... I've only got 1 cookie class ticket left."
Hooks, 🐺 much like the boy who cried wolf, have to be used sparingly, or eventually you'll exhaust your audience. Additionally, hooks don't have to be dramatic. A simple hook like, "Okay guys - let me give it to ya straight" can even capture someone's attention. 🛑 Don't be afraid of using emojis on social to stop that scroll!
📝 Follow a Formula
Copy formulas can help guide your vibes. I use them so often that I don't even realize they've become a natural style of writing for me. AIDA is a great one to start with. Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. Let's try it out:
"🆓 Get a FREE transfer sheet! How about a free sheet every week? All you have to do is sign up! ✅ Here's the link: [link]"
Let's break that down by the AIDA formula:
- ➡️ Attention: 🆓 Get a FREE transfer sheet!
- ➡️ Interest: How about a free sheet every week?
- ➡️ Desire: All you have to do is sign up!
- ➡️ Action: ✅ Here's the link: [link]
The AIDA formula is a fan-fav because it walks the user through a really short copy funnel with a clear call-to-action. It's a great foundational formula to start with - highly recommended.
📞 End with a Call
End with a Call-to-Action that is (don't worry, I hate calling on phones too). Call-to-actions (also called CTAs in marketing jargon) tell your customer where to go and what to do (like give you their money).
Some CTA examples for bakers would look like:
- ☎️ "Subscribe to our YouTube channel"
- ☎️ "Sign up for class!"
- ☎️ "Click here to learn more."
Copy missing a clear call-to-action doesn't accomplish a goal. So tell your audience what you want them to do next.
