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 🍪
206. Baking it Down - Expound then Expand
💳 Expound then Expand - Plan before your purchase.
In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 206 - Expound then Expand, Corrie wanted to come to the altar with her confession of packaging purchases. Yeah - we're talkin' to the "overconsumption cookier" this week, 👣💥 and it'll step on some toesies (starting with Twin2's... er... TwinToes?).
It's easy to get ✨shiny object✨ syndrome when you check out the Best Bakes threads in the Sugar Cookie Marketing Group thinking, "Well, if that sold well for them, it might sell well for me! Let me buy these supplies."
Here's the thing - that's not a guarantee, and it can actually be a distraction, not a sound business decision. And guaranteed it's going to impact your financials. Even worse is if you do get the supplies and never get around to selling that adorable Easter Egg PYO carton - 🥚🥚🥚🥚 you're now stuck with colorful cartons for an entire year - and that's bad for business and your bottom line.
💰 1. Start with 1 versatile backdrop
White matte finish (use code SUGARCOOKIE on thebackersco.com to save 25% - they're one of the podcast sponsors that keeps this content f-r-e-e for y'all) is the most used backdrop Corrie has, citing that it's the one she reaches for 85% of the time. 📸 Know what that means? That's likely the only backer you'll need to get started. Yes, in time, snag a few more options, but when you're just getting started, "one and done" it until you've maxed out your photography skills on that backdrop. Then expand.
💰 2. Learn from the Target trays
If you were in the SCM groups around 2021 - 2022, you lived through the fun (funky) Target trays - 🪵 a wooden tray Target sold in its dollar spot that took the craft world by storm. Specifically, cookiers gravitated to this tray since it made for a high-quality package for about 20 cookies for Christmas - 🎄 talk about a best seller! But such is panic buying, some stocked up on these trays and were left with an unfoldable storage nightmare when they didn't sell out.
The lesson? Find out if your audience wants the product first - then purchase. ️🎯 Overbuying for your clients who never wanted the product in the first place is a bad investment. What's the value of 50 wooden trays if no one will buy them? Hint: it's a negative number.
💰 3. Purchase plain packaging to start
🎀 Cute packaging is a great way to up your customer benefits packaging and set you apart from the competition, but not if it sets you apart from your profitability. There's a sweet spot between really high-end custom packaging unique for every holiday and packaging that's on the plain side but works for any occasion.
🏳️ I'm not saying "cheap white Amazon boxes or bust," but I am saying if you're getting started or you're in "packaging purchasing purgatory" rehab, go back to the basics. Add in fancy when necessary (and buy an appropriate amount - so like, not 50 units when you likely only have time to bake 10), but have the cheaper fallback as your go-to.
💰 4. Cut out overbuying cutters
Have your steel-toe boots ready, but here it comes. Overbuying cutters can cut your profit margins down to nothing. 🔲⚫ Plaques to get started and basic shapes are likely fine in a lot of cases. Client wants something super custom? Offer to bill them that cost or source a cutter you already have in your stash that's super close to their design and can save them a few bucks. Likely, your clients won't care, and you'll be able to stay away from cutter overconsumption.
(🖨 And you 3D printer folks can learn a lesson here too - cutter takes up storage, and just because it was cheaper to print doesn't mean it doesn't have
