Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪

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🗒 If you see a big blank space asking "What would you like to say" and your brain follows suit and also turns into a big blank space - copy formulas are you're new bestie. 

🤔 First - what's copy? 

📑 Copy is any text you use to sell or persuade someone to take an action (like buying cookies). So copy could be the caption on Instagram, the social media text you write on Facebook, the newsletter you send monthly, or the bio writeup you have on your website. Copy = words. 

🤔  Second - what's a copy formula? 

🧮 Copy formulas are different frameworks to help assist you in how and what to write. I mean - we could just write, "Buy my cookies, please - I'm begging." But we can't write that every time without seeming weirdly desperate (but where's the lie though, I ask). 

Copy formulas can help us keep our ⚾ sales pitch interesting by addressing our varying audiences and their different paint points, needs, or wants. Copy formulas are plug-and-play approaches to captions - and I love them. 

There are likely hundreds of formulas - and you may find you like more than others - but in this week's podcast, 🖐️ we covered our top 5 faves. Let's jump in:

1️⃣ AIDA: Attention-Interest-Desire-Action.

Probably my favorite - Corrie's too. You'll find both of us using it a lot in our sales posts. AIDA covers all the peppy sales pitchy-ness I love to incorporate in my write-ups. Look at the above copy and how it falls perfectly into this framework:

• ✍️ A - Attention - Did you know I teach folks just like you how to decorate cookies just like these? 
• ✍️ I - Interest - Check out Sugar Cookie Classes where I teach you everything I know about sugar cookie decorating! 
• ✍️ D - Desire - The classes are 1.5 hours, 6 cookies and tons of fun! Plus - you get my very own cookie dough and icing recipes emailed to ya after class! 
• ✍️ A - Action - March class is filled but my Swiftie Class still has a spot for you! 

Beautiful - 💪 it's fun, interesting, and asks for the sale. 

2️⃣ PAS: Problem-Agitate-Solution.

🩹 This is the 'infomercial' framework - you know, where the screen is grayscale showing someone who trips down the stairs on the way to the laundry in a way so overly exaggerated that you can't help but watch? 🤕 Then the scene switches to rather normal tasks looking ridiculously harder than they ever would be right before we flash over to the solution to all of life's problems - whatever the product is the infomercial is trying to hawk our way. 

Now let's adapt it to cookies. 

• ✍️ P - Problem - Struggle with royal icing consistencies?
• ✍️ A - Agitate - Royal icing can be the most difficult part of learning how to decorate sugar cookies. 
• ✍️ S - Solution - We cover icing consistencies in my upcoming cookie class! You'll get the recipe we use in my class to decorate, and I'll help you work through royal icing issues! 

It's more of a negative learning framework, but I like to drop it in from time to time to capitalize on the segment of the audience who is really frustrated. 😩 They may not be into a "pep rally post" about how awesome sugar cookies are, but will resonate with the "this is hard - I'm almost about to quit" approach. 

3️⃣ FAB: Features – Advantages – Benefits.

Definitely the happy framework, this formula leans hard into the perks. For something as fun as cookies, you can't go wrong bein' FAB-ulous! 

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Okay okay - Corrie and I couldn't agree on the ✨definition✨ of "hobby baker" since most of us are technically a hobby baker - but in reality - I don't consider filing business taxes, updating your LLC yearly registration, and tappin' a lawyer to check for a trademark anything remotely close to "hobbyist." 

So for this Onesday Wednesday newsletter, we'll consider the "hobbyists" folks who don't have to make money but want to create stunning cookies, and the "have to's" the folks who base their mortgage payment off of this month's dough dough (play on words there - cookie money, get it?). 

Here's the crux: as bakers, we often make our "idols" other bakers. Makes sense, right? We see what we wanna be. But... but... sometimes our favorite bakers and our top-selling money-makers don't align. Therein lies the issue: we pattern our goals around the influencer who reaches a hundred thousand likes and not around the goal to beat last year's February sales.

But as a baker (listening to a local business baking podcast), you'll see us focus on the bottom line - not the likes. It's been said, "The twins remove the art out of "edible art." 

And that's fair - because you're right - I'm not going to tell you to spend 4 hours on a single painted cookie you can only barely charge $10 for when I can tell you to take a page outta Corrie's Nintendo customs playbook and pipe ⭐ a gold star with 2 ⚫⚫ sprinkle eyes for $3. She can pump out those stars at two dozen an hour (they're that simplistic) - even at $3/cookie, that'd monetarily compare to $288 in 4 hours. (now finding someone to buy 96 basic star cookies is a whole 'other challenge).

Why? Because our business model applies to teaching local bakers how to optimize for a local bakery business - and not a TikTok content-generating machine (although TikTok does have its place in the local market). And you'll see the goals we talk about and the courses we teach specifically leave out content creator content if it doesn't support making local sales. 

All that to say this: your wishes must align with your goals. And that might mean the less complex, "definitely won't get any likes on Instagram" set - yeah, that's what you're going to bake.

🍪 For example - 🏈  here's the Cookie Class Kits set for 2024 February. It ain't gonna win you any baking awards. But we don't care about awards - our awards are people signing up for your local in-person beginner class. And 👏 that's 👏 okay.

📏 Your yardstick is class ticket sales. Not likes. Not followers.

We came up with a short list to compare the two types of goals. ⬅️ On the left side is the influencer. ➡️ On the right are folks who plan to pay for Disney on cookie money alone. 

(🤑 Note - influencers make a ton too when their strategies are dialed in - but good luck trying to be a full-time influence and a baker - there just ain't enough hours in the day).

• ⏰ Time Difference: Hours per cookie vs. Cute and Quick
• 🔢 Product Options: All the Options vs. Only the Best Bets
• 💖 Free Fame: Open for Compliments vs. Open for Business
• 👍 Notifications: Likes and Looks vs. Sales and Strategy
• 🧮 Complexity: Difficult Techniques vs. Streamline Production (cookie tools)
• 💵 Marketing Metrics: Views vs. Very Much Money 
• ⭐ Simplicity: Show Off vs. Simple Designs 

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Twin2 is back in her "Corporate Girly Era" with Neiman Marcus and "Patrick 2" - and here's what we learned from their customer experience manager that will help you delight your own customers all the way to the bank.

Waiting up in the (fancy) corporate office of Neiman Marcus - a department store so expensive that my hands instantly got sweaty - we had a chance to speak with their CEM - Customer Experience Manager. When I mentioned that it was rather nice of a department store to throw parties for customers with custom cookies included - he said, "No one needs anything at a department store - let alone one this expensive. But what they want is to feel special. And that's what we're really good at." 

You see - Neiman's CEM had placed an order for 8 dozen or so cookies shaped like a $400 bottle of perfume (all praise Eddie the Edible Food Printer for coming in clutch). Here's Corrie's Creed cookie collab (shoutout to Darcie Heater Designs for the stencil too).

🍪 This high-end department store in the heart of Northern Virginia was givin' folks who planned to drop 💵💵💵💵 4 HUNDOS a cookie that cost around $7 (don't forget that Corporate Girly Era + rush fee + customization surcharge, kiddos). And he said they were ECSTATIC over getting this edible representation of their good-smelling investment. 

Why? ✨ Because it made them feel special. ✨

😥 How many times have you felt like a burden attempting to give your money to a business? 😞 How many times has a business left you feeling like you were robbed at the check-out line? Neiman Marcus gets it - by making their clients feel just a little ✨ special✨  spending their hard-earned money, they'll get more of that hard-earned money. 🤑

You know what Neiman doesn't do? 📉 Lower their prices to compete with the likes of Sephora or Ulta (😖 I can't believe I'm even pretending those places are affordable - but comparatively speaking). Rather than compete on price, they compete on customer experience - and they have the check-out receipts to prove it. I didn't see one "SALE" sign during my 🖐️ sweaty-hand-heist at the perfume counter (👃 hey - I absolutely had to smell what $400 was like - for those wondering, it smells like "Heather, you have to file your taxes next month - the answer is no"). 

🤔 So ask yourself this week - how do you delight your customers? We have a few ideas to build on. Heads up - it'll all sound like great marketing tips because marketing and customer relations go hand-in-hand.

• 🎀 Up your packaging game - pretty packaging equals a pretty bottom line.
• 📧 Respond quickly - set expectations with auto-responders and then follow-up as a human as quickly as possible.
• 📦 Have a forgiving return policy - makes you seem like a safe choice when it comes to things going right if they go left.
• 🚗 Throw in a few "car cookies" - probably the most "delightful" thing group members mentioned when asked how they delight their customers - a car cookie is a snack for the order-placer (who often doesn't get to taste test their gift). 
• 🗒️ Have bendable policies - but make policy exceptions. Policies are meant to protect us - but they can also make us look like the good guys when we bend them for the right kind of client. 
• 🎂 Wish them a happy birthday - a good CRM program can help you track customer "big days" and really make them think "wow - this business cares about me." 

Being delightful doesn't have to cost a lot - but it does require being intentional and always looking for ways to set yourself apart. 

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Your business will live and die by the words you use - either words used to make more sales or words used unintentionally to make a sworn enemy whose new purpose in life is to drag you through all the local community groups. 

*shudders*

But in today's podcast, we're talking about words to sweeten the deal, deter an unwanted action towards a desired one, or let the client down niiice and easy (not community group draggin' round these here parts).

That one lil' word substitute made all the monetary difference. Now THAT, my friends, is a marketing t-i-p. And that's what we talk about this week - word substitutions that make a world of difference.

To kick off this podcast - Corrie and I bring two real-world examples:

• Paper Flower vs Eternal Flower
• Used Cars vs Certified Pre-Owned Cars

💥 Corrie, targeted in an ad for perpetually lasting flowers made from paper, 😳 was left sticker-shocked when the papery poppies' price came packed with a punch. $400 smackeroons for these Serbian Bellflower (I had to google "flower that starts with an 's'" to keep the pun game goin' - I have no idea what a Bellflower is). 

She was later re-targeted in another perpetual paper pansy ad but this time, the company called the forever ferns "eternal flowers" - a simple word change made all the difference when it comes to price and associated value. 

• 📜 Paper: cheap, easy to find, we shred it
• 👼 Eternal: sounds luxurious, lasts forever, ethereal vibes

Heather (ahem - me) has also been awashed in a real-world wheely-good example. Waiving the white flag of surrender on my attempt to make a 30-year-old car reliable, I'm back in the car market... the used car market. Or should I say... the certified pre-owned car market (heads up - I do not have a Mercedes budget despite what my hopes and dreams think).

Check out this version of a "used card" - Certified pre-owned. Fancy way of saying, "What someone didn't want, that we washed, and that we hope you buy."

Granted not all of these apply to everyone - but take what ya need, leave the rest.

• 🗣️  "I can't take your order - I'm booked." ▶️ "I can take your order for an additional $10 if that works with your budget."
• 🗣️  Pre-sale ▶️ Pre-Order
• 🗣️ Flash-Sale ▶️ "I overbaked - here are some extras for grabs!"
• 🗣️ "I've only sold 5" ▶️ "Only 5 are left" 
• 🗣️  "We'll have to cancel" ▶️ "BoGo Tickets for a Limited Time"
• 🗣️ "These sold well last year." ▶️ "Back by popular demand!"
• 🗣️ "My class still has a few seats left." ▶️ "We have only 2 tickets left!" 
• 🗣️ "I'm closing my pre-sale" ▶️ "Last day to get your order in" 
• 🗣️ "I Have no orders next week - if you need something let me know." ▶️ "I can take 3 orders next week" 
• 🗣️ "I don't have that cookie cutter" ▶️ "I can save you money by using a cutter I already have" 
• 🗣️ "Here's the quote." ▶️ "Let me know if that fits the party budget?"
• 🗣️ "I don't offer discounts." ▶️ "Because these are custom-made for you, I don't have any wiggle room on price, but we could work on quantity!"
• 🗣️ "Home-made" ▶️ "Made-to-order"
• 🗣️ "The price is X." ▶️ "You're looking at an investment of X."
• 🗣️ "I don't offer delivery." ▶️ "I have flexible porch pick-up options!" 
• 🗣️ "I cannot take your order." ▶️ "While I'm booked for that date, here are three bakers who have the same decorating style as me and may be able to take your order!" 

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🪧 Branding Woes - The process to proceed with the perfect branding.

If your commitment-averse (like yours truly), you'll find branding one of those long-term relationships you may eventually regret. So how do you build a brand when you're not sure of what you're building in the first place?

Fair question. The answer? It's a tricky blend of approaches. Oh yeah - and it's very frustrating. But you know what's more frustrating? Having to re-brand after you've already established a committed following because you didn't follow this approach first and now a lawyer has enforced a trademark you didn't bother looking up before you launched.

Here's our process on checkin' to see if you'll still be able to use that name on the bank account to cash those corporate checks.

😭 Branding Woes - the Legal Ones

Before we fall in love with anything - let's fall in love with the legal system first - because no amount of love is gonna get you out of legal hot water. When it comes to branding - you can check two places to make sure your catchy name is in the clear: the trademark patent office and your local state's database of registered businesses.

🧐 Searching the USPTO Trademark Search

"Generally, copyrights protect creative works, and trademarks apply to brand names, phrases, and logos." So when it comes to logos and branding - we're talkin' trademark law. 

Filing a trademark for a name gives you the right to use that name nationwide for your business's products or services. It also prevents others from using your name or piggybacking on your brand. That also means that you won't be able to violate someone else's trademark just because you thought up the name - so search before you say "I do" to that perfect brand name.

• Search the database here: https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/

🧐 Searching your State's Registered Businesses Database. 

🚧 Now this is going to be state (or country for my outta-country-ers) specific. Meaning, I'm in Virginia, so I'll need to see if someone in my state is registered using the name. "In most cases, a business name registration protects a business and prevents others from using the same name in the same state."

🚧 You may be thinking, "Oh great - so as long as they are outta state, I'm good to go get a name tag!" Hol'up there horsey, we have to think about similar names in terms of marketing as well as legal. You surely didn't think it'd be that easy, now did ya? 

For those subscribed to the email list - here's what a complex rebranding looks like - a Google Business Profile that features both names (and the risk of keyword stuffing). It's a pain.


😭 Branding Woes - the Printed Ones

Okay - so we passed the "legal" vibe check - but we're not in the clear just yet. 🤔 Consider how your brand will look in print. 

🙄 "Heather, it'll look fine as long as I'm not getting sued for trademark violations." 

Fair - but, when logos and business names get too ✨fancy✨ they lead to a printing problem. 🚧 Tiny text - even if it's the catchiest name in the world - will spell disaster on printed materials. I find myself asking these questions when I see the potential for branding broken rules:

• 📰 Could the logo be made more simply? Complex logos make for complex printing issues.
• 📰 Does the logo print well using a thermal printer (the Munbyn test)
• 📰 Does the logo fit on a 3x2 business card?
• 📰 Does the logo fit in the square (cropped to circle) ratio for logos on Facebook / Instagram pages?
• 📰 Is the logo unique? Does it use easy-to-access design elements (think: Canva / Etsy)?

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The typo was intentional (this time) - 👀 it's a play on words when it comes to peeking over the proverbial fence of social media to see what our competition is up to. 

🧠 But staring leads to comparing and that can be a real mind-trip wondering why the highlight reel of your nearest cookie competitor looks like they're one post away from being featured on Food Network while you're struggling for seasonal sales. 

So - are we to blindly wander through business life pretending no one exists but us or are we supposed to have one eyeball glued to the screen pulling up our baking neighbor's latest Instagram post - monitoring each and every like?!

👐 The answer falls in the middle. There are times to peek and times to put on blinders. So what do when? Well - take a peek at this week's podcast for that.

🫣 When to Peek.

Auditing your nearby competition to see what content buckets or posting strategies are working for them is a great way to reverse engineer marketing without having to reinvent (and retest) the wheels. 

🧐 Are they re-investing in their community? 

🙋 I see a ton of bakers make the "me, me, me, me, me, oh yeah, and me" mistake in marketing. A good marketing strategy creates value - then harvests from that investment after it's grown into a lead source. You'll see your competition making resource lists, charitable donations, and strategic partnerships - that's what you'll wanna peek at. 

🧐 Are they creating valuable "about town" content? 

I love this one. Posting endless cookies gets a little... stale (baking pun intended). But diversifying your content strategy can get people hooked. How? By posting things people want to know and read. 📃 Resource lists can include Valentine's Day preset dinner menus 💑, altered hours on Holidays, or a list of dog parks. Peek over at what your competition is trying out - see if it's working for them, then get to gettin' to it. 

🧐 Are they partnering with other businesses?

Strategic partnerships are a great way to get into a "corporate girly era" - and if your competition knows how to do that, it's worth takin' a look at who and what they're doing. 🤝 For example - Corrie partnered strategically with a local Botox injector to make cookies for a grand opening. In return, Corrie posted the Botox babe's cookie order to her local baking page linking back to both the FB, Insta, and website. 💉 You'll never guess who got a free Botox sesh outta it (hint: not me *wrinkles forehead*). 

🕵️ There are times to peek - but it can't be to get yourself worked up - all hot and bothered. Nope - it's gotta be strategic. Facebook knows this too - it's got a built-in tool to take a peek without drowning in jealousy. 

Facebook has a business tool built into Business Manager to help you peek over the fence - it's called Benchmarking. You can find it under business.facebook.com > insights > benchmarking.

😆 When to Blinder.

Just as it's strategic to take a look at the competition - there are some things you need to intentionally block out or else they'll tend to derail your dough deals. 

😌 No peeking at pricing.

Pricing isn't something you can cheat on - because copying your baking neighbor's answers can lead to catastrophic pricing problems. You cannot operate at a loss - yes, even if they are. That's not your problem and it's not something you can compete on either. 

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Giveaways - do you do them? If so, what do you need to watch out for? What should you give away? How do they enter? How do you make the post? How do you choose a winner?

🧠 Giveaways are tempting - I mean, who doesn't want free stuff? Marrying a giveaway to audience growth seems like a no-brainer - 👀 buuut there are a few things you need to watch out for before you pick that winner.

🎁 Giveaways - Things to Know

🆓 Watch out for the freebies. You're always going to hear me say, "How you get them is how you keep them" meaning if you gain an audience through giveaways, you'll retain an audience who wants free stuff. ✨ So use giveaways sparingly.✨ They're a great option to get more reach before you offer a presale or pop-up. They are also a great way to resuscitate a dead page.

⚠️ A warning about your words. There's a new scam running on Facebook (I mean, there's always a scam running on Facebook) that's triggered by using contest-type verbiage in the copy on a Facebook page. Words to watch out for: winner, win, enter, contest, giveaway. There may be more, but those are the mostly-for-sure-don't-use-these ones. A workaround is using dashes or writing the giveaway details in the JPG (image) of your post.

🎁 Giveaways - How to Execute

🪤 Easy Entry. Make entering easy. Having people spin around three times, tag 20 people, do a backflip, 🏅 and then win a gold medal in the Olympics to win a free cookie ain't gonna help you (being sarcastic, but not by much). The takeaway is this: it makes sense to ask people to share a post, tag three people, comment, and like - ✨ that's engagement, right? ✨ But it's also too complicated. 😓 We find that the easier the entry requirement, the more likely more people are to enter - and that's the engagement goal. 

Easy entry ideas:

• ✅ Invite someone to a private group (Facebook will tell you who invited someone - just write their names down before letting the member into the group)
• ✅ Follow my Instagram account (very easy entry - two clicks max)
• ✅ Sign up for a newsletter to win (and then offer anyone who didn't win $5 off their next order)
• ✅ Comment to win (probably my favorite because its the easiest - have them answer a prompt to get engagement going or make it easy by saying comment with a GIF (not jiff, Corrie)
• ✅ Tag a friend - and you both win (skirting around being annoying, both the tagger and the taggee stand to win)

🛑 Cut off the contest. While it makes sense to leave a giveaway open for longer so that more people can enter - it's an energy drainer. ⏰ Keep the contest window short to maintain excitement. Having a contest that ends in 24 hours will get more entries than one that ends in 2 weeks - 🌟 when everyone's mentally moved on to the next shiny object. 

🎁 Giveaways - What to Give

Okay - you know how to run it, you know how they have to enter, but what the heck do you give away?? Give away what you want to grow. As in - if you're introducing cake-pops to your lineup, give away cake-pops (enter to be my taste tester is a winner according to twin2).

🎟️ If you want to grow classes? Give away a class ticket. We donated a class ticket and it resulted in 2 more class ticket sales and a custom order. 

Try not to give away products you don't like to bake - 🚩 you're essentially waving a giant flag saying "CONTACT ME TO BAKE THESE" instead of clearing out the "shelf of cookie shame" like you intended. 

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Let's define some words before we jump into this week's podcast topic:

• ✅ Lead: someone contacting you to secure a potential product or service
• ✅ Qualified Lead: a lead that has been vetted and is willing to pay your price or work with your availability
• ✅ Converted Lead: a lead that has turned into a sale, a sign-up, or a confirmation (ideally this is when money exchanges hands)

️🎯 So - the goal of marketing is to generate leads - ie. get the phone to ring and the inbox to ping. But the goal of sales is to convert a lead (generated from marketing) into money (a conversion). 

🤔 So how do we qualify leads? Ideally, before they even see the lead in our inbox. That's where lead qualification comes into play - doing things to ensure that the lead that hits our Facebook messenger is one that's ready to reach into their wallet and pay our price. 

If you find that your leads often turn into Casper, 👻 you probably need to qualify them better before they reach your inbox.

📠 Lead Qualification:

To qualify a lead before they ask how much then play the "let me ask my husband" card, let your marketing do the heavy lifting. How? 📸 Great question - high-quality photography is a perfect jump-off point along with these other tips to get ya cut out to qualify leads:

📞 Higher end, better photography
📞 Copy that includes high-end keywords (not discount verbiage like "sale") 
📞 Base price listed multiple times / places
📞 Posting in places where the ideal audience exists (not in Buy Nothings / FB Marketplace which is OBO)

🚗 Allow me to demonstrate my point on why photography makes a world of difference. Here's a Mercedes AMG-GLE. I don't own this car, but boy would I love to. It's the same car in two different photos. The top photo - is in an insurance claims lot. The bottom photo? A photo taken from Mercedes' website.

🚘🚘 It's the same car in both photos - but one makes you think, "Wow - that's a $$$ car," and one makes you think, "Hm, maybe I can actually afford this - I'll just need to teach one cookie class every day for the entire year. Easy, right?" 

💰 Another great way to qualify your leads is by having your base price posted everywhere. 

😩 "But twins - what if that drives them off?!" 

Perfect - that's the goal. 💸 When you're just too far apart on price, you've got a recipe for a tire kicker on your hands. If I think you're going to tell me the cookie quote is $20, but you tell me it's $120 - there's very little salesmanship you can say to help me make that monetary jump. 

By posting your "my prices start at" disclaimer, you help people qualify themselves. 🧼 Just like Car Wash Steve, had he said, "Car detailing starts at $100," I wouldn't have been emotionally side-swiped thinking it was a $40 service. 😲

A great way to implement these base price notices is through your Facebook and Google auto-responses.

Here's where you can access your auto-response messages through Business Manager (on desktop). Go to business.facebook.com > click on the Inbox icon on the left > click on "Automations" button on the top right.

📠 Lead Conversions:

📞 Quick Response Time
📞 High-end Customer Service 
📞 Easily Accessible Booking Process
📞 Social Proof (Reviews)
📞 Professional Email / Website
📞 Accepting Credit Cards (Multi Payment Options)

Once the qualified lead hits the inbox, it's time to turn into a salesman. Listen - they already know what your base is. They're even ready to reach into their wallets. How deep they reach is up to you selling them.

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Community groups - you love them, you hate them, you love to hate them, you hate to love them - but they are a lead source powerhouse, and we're not ones to sit on the sidelines when it comes to making that dough (baking and monetary types). 

So what happens when you get banned from a community group? Or when your community group doesn't allow sales? Or if your community group is a dead group plagued by mobile detailing duct cleaners? Well - you make your own community group.

And that's easier said (on the podcast) than done, but here's some tips to get you started in crafting a value-added community group from scratch.

📑 1. Branding

📌 Group Name should be Brand + Location + State
📌 Create a Page + Group
📌 Branded Graphics (Cohesive across Page + Group)
📌 Comprehensive About Section
📌 Group Settings (Private / Visible / Discoverable) 
📌 Add Secdonary Admin + Page as Admin

You'll want your community group to include both your city and state (this will vary depending on the population of your locality), but we need to optimize for Facebook Search (a version of SEO) - so include the city and state (unlike Corrie who has now found how just how many "Lake Ridges" there are in the US). 

Create a corresponding business page - yes, you'll have to run another page, but pages allow for more flexibility in ads and you can also set the page as the group owner, cross-link the page and the group, and run ads as the page (group ads are slowly rolling out). 

Regarding branding - update the group's cover to match the page's cover - pro-tip: find a photo (or go out and take a photo) of a recognizable fixture in your community - it'll resonate with your audience when they see it and think "hey, I live there! I'll join this group!" 

Write a few paragraphs as your About Section. About sections are SEO real estate but they also help your audience know what the group is about. Answer "who, what, where, when, why" to cover all your "about section" basics. 

Your group is discoverable, but we don't want a free-for-all. Set your group to private (this will force people to answer the entry questions - more on that later), visible (hidden groups are invite only and not our goal), and discoverable (Facebook will recommend your group to others). 

Facebook groups no longer allow admins to boot primary admins (awesome), so add one as a back-up (make sure it's someone you trust with strong passwords). You can also set your page as an admin. Any content managers should be set as mods.

📑 2. Content Strategy is a Growth Strategy

📌 Create Value-Added Content
📌 You'll be Talking to Yourself on Posts
📌 Go out and Make Local Videos (About Town) 
📌 Create Resource Lists
📌 Create Weekly Content Buckets 
📌 Post Consistently!!!
📌 Hyper Local - Memes / Videos
📌 It'll Require Monetary Investment 

The hard part of making a valuable group is coming up with the valuable content. It's work - and it's hard work, consistently, over a long period of time, with very little thanks. Trust the process. Build it and they will come... to find out where the local splash pads are. 

For a bit, you're going to be talking to yourself, and it'll feel weird. Get a family member to start a dialogue in the comments (this helps with the group's engagement and the post's reach). Hit the pavement and record local about-town videos! Again - no one will watch them at first. Trust 👏 the 👏 process. 

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Hopefully you've survived the holidays and with NYE being a more muted cookie holiday, you get a chance to breathe, meet your kids you've not seen in 6 months because you've been sequestered in the kitchen, and take a little time to binge some good ol' Netflix. 

During this lull of a week in between 2023 and 2024, here are some easy wins you can knock out to set yourself up for some sales in 2024 (hey - businesses don't get a break, amiright? The salesman never sleeps!). 

📑 1. Update your cover photo.

Some of you beautiful humans be rockin' a cover photo longer than my last relationship - brush off the cobwebs and give that photo-heavy real estate some TLC. Lean into the day of Loooove if you want to signal to your audience that you'll be offering Valentine's Day cookies, or - if you're just not ready to acknowledge 2023 is over, upload something generic that'll tie you over until you're caught up (on Netflix or heart-shaped cutters, we won't judge). 

📑 2. Repost your pinned photo(s).

Even though your pinned content is still valid, Facebook does us dirty by timestamping posts - so that pinned post you made in 2021? It's the first thing your potential clients see when they click to your page. And not all Facebook users are upto-date on how the New Page Experience works in regards to pinned posts - so we recommend reposting and repinning - just for the sake of the timestamp. 

📑 3. Update your email vacation message.

I get to read a lot of your vacation (aka auto responder) messages when I send out the Onesday Wednesday newsletter every week - and heads up, some of them will be out-of-date come the new year. Give your auto-responder a once over and update any mentions of 2023, Christmas, Booked, or Holidays to reflect the new year's information.

📑 4. Update your email signature.

Corrie said to leave this one out, but if you're like me and see your email sig and sell-able real estate too, don't forget to update it to reflect 2024 data (some of you have "booked until X" in your signatures). Also - high five for makin' even our names work for us! 

📑 5. Update your FB auto-responses.

This one is one I always forget. Your auto-responses on your business page likely has some old information. And even if it doesn't, Facebook's newer Merge Tags are pretty neat and something I'd incorporate in 2024 to increase open rates and responses in Messenger. 

People are much more likely to open a message that starts with "Hey Sarah" rather than a message that says "Hello customer." (that is, if your name is Sarah).

📑 6. Update your bios (FB and Insta).

A lot of you smarties use your Instagram bio and Facebook (super way-too-short) bio to sell - so don't forget to update that with 2024 data. If your bio says you're booked until December, you're gonna want to update that lest your audience think you're some superhuman baker who's booked out until 2025. 

📑 7. Edit your Instagram Highlights.

I forget this one - Instagram highlights. If you're not familiar with highlights, it's the row of circles below an Instagram bio, but above the feed grid. These allow the account owner to take stories (that expire after 24 hours) out of archive and permanently attach them to a profile. Make sure you update these. Sometimes the content is just old (like who wants to see a class you taught 3 years ago), and sometimes the content includes your pre-sales for a Nov 2023 pop-up. You'll want to clear that out and update it for 2024 offerings.