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 🍪
250. Baking it Down - 1,000 Word Photography
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
📸 1,000 Word Pictures - Why photography really *really* matters.
In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 250 - 1,000 Word Pictures, in preparation for this week's Cookie Photography Bootcamp, photography is on the brain of the twins, and that's because a huge part of food sales comes from great photos.
Consider yourself - do you tend to order things off the menu that have pictures? A study shows that restaurants saw a 30% increase in sales when pictures were included on their menu.
"Restaurants with high-quality photos can see up to 30% higher sales on average — showing just how powerful great menu photography can be. In fact, nearly half of Gen Z diners (46%) say food photos influence their decision to try a new restaurant, according to the DoorDash Delivery Trends Report. "
🖼️ Photography's marketing value
Better photos, better ingredients, better pizza, Papa John's. Only kidding (Heather can't resist), but better photos do increase the perceived value of a product. Doesn't matter how good the product is, if the photo screams "this was baked in a dark dungeon," you're not going to move product.
And great photos are a great way to flex your skillset. If you live in an area of stiff cookie competition, photography can put you a cut(ter) above the rest. By being able to really dial in on your details with great photos, you can push product faster than the next kitchen.
Corrie adds that investing in your photography skills now can allow you to use current photos for years to come. "I got really good at photography years ago. Now those cookies from 4 years ago? I can use them to sell quickly even today. Good photography pays it forward."
🖼️ Lighten up!
In the Bootcamp for Cookie Photography (you can sign up at www.thecookiecollege.com for $13), we focus a lot on lighting. Photography = photon = light. Photography is the capture of light, so good lighting sets the stage for a great photo. Finding good lighting is a must if you want to fall in love with your photography.
Light boxes, three-point lighting systems, and overhead lighting are fine in a picture pinch, but bakers should really focus on indirect, natural (sun) light for pictures that pop off the newsfeed.
🖼️ Back up that background
Your kitchen's granite countertops are designed to distract (from your husband's inability to clear the crumbs from the toaster). As such, using them as your backdrop is distracting. Investing in a backdrop can clear the clutter and make for some clean product shots. Don't overspend - a matte white finish (or marble if you're feelin' fancy) is all you need to start leveling up your photography game.
🖼️ To the big stage!
Referring to the "pyramid" worksheet, build from the bottom up. Pyramid style staging keeps it simple: a backer, a tea towel, a baking tray, a plate, and your cookies. Sprinkle some props in the periphery (and don't be afraid to crop the prop), and you've set the stage for cookies that create a want in your clients.
Not sure if you nailed the staging? Take your photo to the nearest unbiased friend (or twin) and ask, "What did your eyes see first when I showed you this photo?" If the answer ain't "them cookies, giiiirl -wooohooo," rethink the set and take it back to basics.
👂 Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or watch it on YouTube) by searching for Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 250 - 1,000 Word Pictures.
