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 🍪
236. Baking it Down - The Most BORING Podcast Ever Recorded
☝️ Private Class Pt 2 - A BORING podcast.
In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 236 - The Most BORING Podcast Ever Recorded, I paid my nephew (Corrie's son, Archer) $10 to do the podcast intro (and just when you thought no one could talk faster than Heather), and we recapped the private in-home cookie class we taught last week.
Also, (hilariously and probably not totally wrong), someone texted into the podcast that it was boring - ergo the name of this week's episode.
👩🏫 The Private Cookie Class - Pt 2
Of course, not everything went according to plan, and I think that's the value of the podcast - listening to what not to do and what to take into consideration. Here's what I'd consider more closely if we did this again:
- 🎟️ Lead acquisition - Turns out, this lead came from a referral that turned into a failed custom order (Corrie was out for that cancer surgery), that, through cross promotion of cookie classes, was reacquired through consistent marketing.
- 🎟️ Room Configuration Issues - Dining rooms mean heavy furniture and carpeting, so there was no ability for attendees to swivel and face, and single direction. This created a bit of frustration since folk had to wait for me to walk the laptop around. There was no room for a TV, and the document camera was a no-go.
- 🎟️ Technical Difficulties - Would it be a cookie class without tech problems?! The IPEVO document camera that was working mere minutes before class suddenly couldn't be read by the laptop on location, so we dropped the concept completely. Thank goodness Corrie had those display cookie stands - they loved referencing those.
- 🎟️ Parking and Logistics - Private classes mean private driveways - and this one was super tight. I wish we'd considered this before, although I'm not sure there was too much we could do about it.
- 🎟️ Class Flow and Student Engagement - The class was longer than anticipated due to interruptions like serving food and increased chatter among friends versus in a public class where we have a bunch of strangers in a room together (wine, anyone?). We didn't have as much power since we were just the hired teachers in someone else's home - maybe I wish we had something to amplify our voices?
- 🎟️ Financial Aspects - Was it worth it? Yep - we cleared $85/ticket and one $35 take-home kit (I wish we had called these "practice kits" and not DIY kits). Plus, teaching in a private home means no venue fees, and we didn't have to fill the room - Mary did that all on her own (saving us marketing labor costs).
- 🎟️ Piping Practice - Still a huge fan of spending 15 minutes on a piping practice sheet. We do this in all of our classes, and it really sets the students up for success. Remember, a student who liked their results = a potential for a future returning ticket sale.
- 🎟️ Communication Importance - Remember - organization is key for private classes. Staying on top of the host to ensure everyone's on the same page keeps us all on track.
🟠 The Vendy Blendy - Pt 2
The Vendy Blendy is just 16 (basically no 15) days away, and we've got a really stellar lineup (list below). You can find out everything you need to know here:
- 🟠 https://www.sugarcookiemarketing.com/vendyblendy
If you missed my Facebook Lives - catch the replays here:
- 🧡 Live 1 - Vendy Blendy 101
- 🧡 Live 2 - Pre-Shop the Vendys
- 🧡 Live 3 - Secrets to the Vendy Blendy
Tomorrow, Thursday, 🎓 I'll cover the Vendy Blendy Deals for The Cookie College - it'll be a great sale, and one we've never run before *and probably won't again until next Black Friday.
