Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪

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🏡 Movin' and a Shakin'.

🏡 Tips we suggest implementing when you plan to move your bakery (and your home).  

Okay - yeah. We're mostly home-based bakeries. But what happens when the "home" part of a home-based bakery needs to move? Whether a military family, cashin' in on the housing market's cash cowness (interest rates, say whaaaaa?!), or simply relating just because - it can wreak havoc on the marketing you've worked so hard for. 

🤔 So what do then? 😶 Start over? 😯 Delete everything? 🤐 Don't Tell Anyone? 😬 Tell Everyone? 😭 Cry? 

Well - yes, always cry first. But then - strategize. Here are 5 tips Corrie suggests when moving - something she's experienced up close and personal over the last 2 weeks.

1. Right now - Join the local groups where you're relocating to. There are many awesome reasons to get involved in local groups - from actually using them as a resource when you're trying to get the lay of the land to assisting you in finding new clients on weekly and monthly sales threads. Warm up your audience - you'll get a nifty "I'm new here" waving hand next to your name for 2 weeks after your joining date. Ask questions! Add value to the group, make a spreadsheet with links to sales dates and posts, and help the mods by adding more value to their group. 
2. After you find your new home, stalk the neighbors. Okay - not stalk, but get to know the lay of the land. Minivans? Kids. More than three cars? Possibly high school kids. Work van? Commercial cookie orders. New kids? Birthdays. And when your new "neighbs" do somethin' nice for you - thank them in cookie currency. People love having a cookie dealer nearby.
3.  As soon as you move in, join Nextdoor.com. This one will require you to be able to receive mail under your name to your new location, so this is a post-move-in-date marketing task. Nextdoor is a networking app based on your zip code. You can only join your Nextdoor neighborhood if you live nearby. You can also create a business profile that allows 2 free posts each month within a 2-mile radius of our business's location - which just so happens to be your new crib. 
4. Dress the part in a branded / funny cookie shirt. Corrie has a shirt that says "COOKIE DEALER" and always gets someone to ask "what the heck is that?!" Take that logic to the streets - well, the walking path. Whenever you walk the doggo, snag a funny, well-branded cookie tee (Bakery Tee Co has an awesome selection) and start marketing. Nosey Nancy (like me) will eventually just have to ask you - and guess what? You've got a new potential client who just loves to talk. 
5. If you can stomach it, join your HOA. Being involved in your community puts you as a natural POC for other community members. Plus - hey, maybe you can help make the neighborhood a more enjoyable place for everyone. And guess what the HOA board will think of come holiday gifting time? Chet-you-betcha. 
6. Curb and Cookie-a-peal. Get your curb appeal dialed in as a cookie baker. Cute, clean, and inviting. Nice signage - heck, even a flag or yard flag that subtly suggests you're the place to get great goodies. 

Hope this helps. Would Corrie delete her page and start over with each move? 🤔  No, she says. She'd let current fans know their support really helps her and ask that they continue engaging with her cookie posts. Offering a "hard end date" for pre-move orders will keep people in the loop and may snag a few of those FOMO sales. And always, before you depart - thank those who have supported you in your old stomping grounds. 

Got any more ideas to help with relocation hesitation? Feel free to start a thread in the Sugar Cookie Marketing (Group). 

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🧠 Playin' the Imposter.

🚧 What is imposter syndrome?  

Here's the textbook definition: the persistent inability to believe that one's success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one's own efforts or skills. 

I mean - let's face it - there's someone out there better than us. 😒 They bake better than us. 🙁 They ice better than us. ☹️ Their house is prettier than ours for photos. 😞 They probably have a better customer service experience. They teach better than us. 😖 They...

... well, that's what our imposter syndrome brains would like us to think. 🧠

But guess what - your client? Yeah - they called you to bake their custom dozen. Not anyone else. 

So why are you doubting their decision with self-doubt fueled by imposter syndrome? 

We end up letting our imposter syndrome help us design and build the self-made roadblocks keeping us from trying new things. On the Happiness Lab Podcast, one of the guest psychologists says that people who attempt something and fail are actually happier than people who don't attempt anything and never fail.

🤔 Why?

Because we get the "but." Yeah - I didn't fill a cookie class, but I met 4 new potential clients! Yeah - I didn't sell out in a farmer's market, but I know what to bring next time! I didn't nail that custom set, but I had a refund policy in place and we all ended up winning.

🚧  People who never try? Yeah - they also never get the but - and that makes you more unhappy than if you tried and missed the mark a bit. 😩

🚧 🚧 🚧 🚧  How to deconstruct your self-made roadblocks? 🚧 🚧 🚧 🚧 

That's going to take work - hard work - in fact, as much work as you spent building those roadblocks. It starts by learning everything you can - watching the free Facebook Lives, joining The Cookie College, or asking a question in the group to get more information.

And then it 👏 requires 👏 actually 👏  doing 👏 the 👏 thing. 

Movement is best when it's forward - not side to side. "I'll do a cookie class... in a few months." Dude - do it now! Figure it out now! Make the mistakes now! We'll figure it out as we go along. 

This podcast has been listened to over 240,837 times as of the writing of this email.

🚧  What if we'd let imposter syndrome talk us down from starting it a year ago? 🤔

Got any more ideas to counter imposter syndrome? Feel free to start a thread in the Sugar Cookie Marketing (Group). 

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🍪 Anatomy of a Cookie Class.

🤑 Simply put - cookie classes are high margin offerings - and we love 'em. 

Plus - let's be honest, if you're okay with talking in front of groups, cookie classes can be really fun. You get the date nighters, the girls-day-outters, the mom and her kiddos, the mom trying to get away from her kiddos, the bakers looking to expand their offerings, the bakers looking to hate royal icing consistencies - and just about everything in between. 

💸 And at $75/ticket here in the nation's capital, it's not a bad way to spend 1.5 hours on a Saturday! 

So let's bake down... I mean, breakdown, the anatomy of what one of our cookie classes looks like. Now - if you teach a cookie class, it could (and probably will) look different, but if you're new to cookie classes or it's been on your list of things to try - then you might learn a few things from our mistakes and the pro-tips list below!

• 🎟️ We use Eventbrite for tickets. It's not free, but it saves a lot of admin work. You can pass the fees along, but we absorb those. 
• 📬 We send 2 reminder emails before class (in addition to Eventbrite's reminders), and one email after class with tips, shopping lists, recipes, and a link to social review sites. 
• 💵 We have a full-refund policy that ends 7 days prior to class. After that, it's a class credit. No refunds on the day of class if you're a no-show.
• ⏰ Baking day starts the day before typically. We build out a spreadsheet to do the cookie math. 
• 🍪 Each class has 6 - 7 cookies, 4 icings bags, and 1 sprinkle condiment cup.
• 👀 We create a PPT (PowerPoint) presentation before class to walk people through the steps.
• 🕐 Show up an hour early to set up. Worst case, someone shows up early and you're ready to go. Best case - they show up on time leaving you ample time to generate some marketing content (heyo Reels!).
• 📺 Corrie brings a 32 inch cheapy-cheap tv and HDMI connector for her computer so we can project the PPT for attendees.
• 👥 Use nametags and place groups towards the back and singles towards the front - it'll help with noise control.  
• ️🎶 Snag a Google Home or a Bluetooth speaker for some ambient music (think: piano tracks). It'll help with the silence.
• 📍 We don't let them take the scribes home. 
• 📃 Add a piping practice sheet! It eats up a ton of time and lets people practice a bit. We laminated them so we can reuse them each class. 
• 📦 We do provide a take-home box + a ziplock baggy for them to snag their icing bags. Hey - less cleanup for us!
• 🗯️ We don't decorate live in front of them. Corrie walks around while I narrate (annoyingly), but people seem to like it!
• 📸 Bring a DSLR for photos - but tell everyone they have to check your Facebook Page to find them - heyo growth strategy! 
• ❌ We only cancel classes that have 4 or fewer attendees. We offer them to be rolled into the next class or a full refund. 
• 🗓 We call a class cancelation 5-days prior to class. 
• 💰 We offer discounts for seats we can't fill or for last-minute class credits requests - these are offered to past attendees or Corrie's client list.
• 🎄 Holiday classes are the easiest to fill. Summer seems to be the slowest time for us.

Hope that helps some of you considering teaching classes. It's a blast. In fact, we give you everything we use in class in The Cookie College (a membership plan we offer as an addendum to everything you get for free in the Sugar Cookie Marketing Group. You can find out more about that here. 

Got any more ideas to add to this list? Feel free to

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👍 Rule of thumb - two clicks to purchase. 👎

You see - when someone clicks to your website, they're, on average, about one or two additional 🖱 mouse clicks away from quitting the entire buying process out of frustration. In our distracted world, there's a lot fighting for the eyes and ears of our audience - and we need to get them from "interested" to "invoiced" in the shortest amount of time possible.

The more clicks we separate our clients from separating from their money, the higher the odds that they'll fall out of our funnel. 👣 Each step we add into our purchase process increases our funnel. The more funnel steps, the more people we're losing - and we may not even know it. 

Imagine if you went to purchase a cookie-cutter. 

1. 1️⃣ You go to the website only to read that if you want that cookie cutter, you'll need to go to a second website. 
2. 2️⃣ Okaaay, you click over. Except that specific cookie cutter is actually a collab cutter and you'll need to order it from a third website. 
3. 3️⃣  When you get to the third website, you see that on the product listing, it's sold out, but you can sign up for an email to get notified when it will be restocked. 
4. 4️⃣ You begrudgingly hand over your email digits only to get a form error and 
5. 5️⃣ a pop-up saying that you'll need to email the website owner to be manually added, except when you send that email - 
6. 6️⃣ you get a mailer-daemon response from GMAIL that the email address hasn't been correctly configured.

❌ You tell me - at what point would you have given up on the cookie-cutter?

3️⃣ If you're like most humans, it would have been when you needed to click to the third website. You wouldn't have clicked at all, but rather returned to Etsy to find a similar cutter from a seller who is more reliable. And that's because the funnel was simply way too long.

How about your business? Where do you have phantom funnels growing slowly and secretly eating at your bottom line? 🤳 A great way to identify funnel faux pas is by getting a self-proclaim tech-illiterate friend or relative to attempt to buy from you. 👀 Watch their every move (and try not to show your frustration) as they click here, there, and yonder further and further from your "buy now" button. 

Then optimize your funnel. Delete, reword, tweak, and move around - whatever it is that is throwin' your audience - help make it REALLY clear and REALLY easy to click any button that ends with dollars in your pocket. 

🚫 So long, long funnels! 🚫

Got any more ideas to add to this list? Feel free to start a thread in the Sugar Cookie Marketing (Group). 

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You've been there. You have an idea. A great idea. You're going to start selling macarons and that'll translate into insane smack-a-roons (money). It's easy. You'll buy the mac baking sheet. You'll snag the almond flour. You'll watch a Maradee Martin Live on the topic. Oh - don't forget the windowpane packaging. Bows - bows always look nice. Well, gonna need that Munbyn erry'body is talking about - you know, for stickers and branding. Ah - don't forget photography - aeCore backers launched that new Rose Marble too - that'll really make these macs pop off the page. Oh yeah and... and... and...

📋 Welcome to your secret to-do list. 

A secret to-do list comes from a simple idea hiding behind it a multitude of tasks, costs, mental processing power, and even storage space. It's what takes a good idea and makes it a terrible experience. It's everything attached to an idea that we forgot to account for. 

Secret to-do lists are hiding everywhere. 

🌱 Look at my (Heather here) venus fly-trap experience. What started as a Wegman's impulse buy (my entire buying experience at Wegmans is summed up as an impulse purchase) turned into a planting pot, potting soil, a mister, gardening tools, and time... so much more time than I considered whilst standing in the self check-out. 

Consider that each purchase or idea comes with the following strings attached:

• The time needed to execute and implement
• Physical storage of the supplies needed to create
• The mental power needed to conceptualize and learn
• The financial investment to acquire the necessary tools 

That's... well, that's a lot more than the good idea we started off with. And that's why we always must consider the secret to-do lists attached to ideas and purchases in our business (and frankly, in our lives (ahem - corrie's closet)).

It's not to say that you should never have an idea or purchase something for a new hobby or product offering. No no - I'd never encourage that. Frankly, I love buying things. But consider what else comes attached to that idea or hobby - and make a list. See your secret to-do list before you buy into that hobby.

🤏 Then come up with your MVP - the minimum viable product you can invest in (time, money, and mental) to get the idea out the door. It'll be a trimmed-up to-do list that will let you taste the concept before you're too knee-deep in the thick of secret to-do-list-ness. 

Or better yet - budget for it. Spend time watching a Facebook Live about the idea before you invest anything further. Ask questions in a group dedicated to the idea and see what others' feedback is on the 'secret to-do list' associated with the idea, product, or purchase. 

And if you tried something and it didn't make the cut? Cut it out.

Secret to-do lists have an even more hidden string attached - 😔 the guilt trip of not having completed the idea, hobby, or product. That box you have sitting with never-used cookie cutters. Those Amerigel food colorings you have more than you'll be able to use before they expire. That label printer you just never found a true use for? Yeah - get your tickets ready - we're on a guilt trip. 

Let that stuff go. ♻️ Donate, sell, or trash. If you're not going to use it, don't let it continue using your mental mind space. Donate your cutters to cookie class attendees, sell that label printer and roll the proceeds into your business (or an experience), and trash (and recycle) boxes you don't have space for.

🚫 Take the power back from the secret to-do lists! 🚫

Got any more ideas to add to this list? Feel free to start a thread in the Sugar Cookie Marketing (Group). 

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There's a marketing buzzword that I really love when it comes to content management and creation.

It's 🌳 evergreen content. 🌳

Much like the name insinuates - it's referring to "evergreen trees" which last all year round - no matter the season. The same goes for that type of evergreen content. It refers to content that can be posted whenever without seeming out of context.

😍 Why do I love it? 

It makes marketing that much easier. Building a content bucket full of evergreen posts, pictures, blogs, etc. means that, even when you're too busy, you can have evergreen content scheduled to go up regardless. 

Types of evergreen content ideas for bakers:

• A blog post with your favorite brownie recipe
• A meme that's baking-related or location-related
• An email about things to bring / expect at an all-year farmers market
• A link to an article on local places to take the kids in your area
• A blog post on the five best dog parks for locals in your area
• A Facebook post tutorial on how to get gooey drop cookies
• An Instagram Story (saved to highlights) on your favorite local markets
• Throwback to a story about a favorite bake along with a picture
• Content featuring great reviews left by past clients

Evergreen content is not only awesome because it lasts forever, it can also be very value-added content too. Yeah, sure - maybe reviews aren't as valued-added as a list of local restaurants that are perfect for date nights, but it does provide additional social proof. That "hey, other people like me - you might like me too" proof. 

Using evergreen content to pad your social calendar means that, even if you get busy, your profiles don't get abandoned. I love scheduling out evergreen content to go up once or twice a week, then jumping back in when I have time to add more current content, that way my feed is a mix of old, new, value-added, funny, and interesting = which all equals reach. 

Got any more ideas to add to this list? Feel free to start a thread in the Sugar Cookie Marketing (Group). 

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I mean, Families. It's the Baking it Down Podcast with Sugar Cookie Marketing, and we're talkin' communication - but not just client communication - family communication.

• Intro - Pinned Post
• Business of Baking - Relationships and Baking Businesses
• The Cookie College - Spring Bake is April 21!
• Voicemails - Conversions, Comment Spam, and Upcoming Moves
• Group Stuff - Upcoming Lives
• Twinterests - Fitbits
• Sponsors!

The Business with Baking - Relationships and Baking

It's no lie - working for yourself is a full-time job, and sometimes that "full-time" can be closer to 24-7 rather than 9-5. 👀 That's why keeping an eye on the health of your business as it relates to those most important in your life is simply - good business.

Hey - business ownership is hard, and it can also feel lonely. But we don't think it has to. Using effective communication strategies, time management tools, and business boundaries is a recipe for relationship success - or at least put you on the path in that direction. 

Voicemails: 

• Voicemail 1 (Text) - "While not official, it's likely that I will be moving my business within the next year once my husband finishes up PT school. I still want to keep growing my business here and invest in the community for as long as we stay, but I know this town isn't our long-term home. I'd love to start a group, but am worried about all the people that are local to me now becoming that dead weight you talked about once we move. Would you recommend starting a group now? Or would it be better to start in our new place where I will be starting to build a client base all over again? I'd love your input on the best strategy to make this effective! Thanks for all you guys do."
• Voicemail 2 (Call): - Missy in NW Ohio - No conversions on her new website. What gives?!
• Voicemail 3 (Call): Marjie - Handling spam comments on Instagram. To delete or not delete?

Group Stuff: 

Past Lives: Facebook > Sugar Cookie Marketing Group > Events > Past Events

• Mar 24 - Turning a No into a Yes with Gina Marie Burke
• Mar 10 - Live Facebook Page Audit + The Cookie College
• Mar 6 - No-Plan Oreo Cinnamon Roll Photoshoot with Toth

Upcoming Events: Facebook > Sugar Cookie Marketing Group > Events

• 04-07-22 | Tour of a Cookie Trailer + Room with Christina Cernera
• 04-18-22 | Brick and Mortar Tour and Q&A in DC with Elisa Frost
• 04-21-22 | Buttercream 101 (for cookies) with Ashley Gonzales
• 04-21-22 | Cottage business to Brick and Mortar with Lauren Hammond
• 04-28-22 | How to Smooth Buttercream on Sugar Cookies with Katie Holtz
• 04-30-22 | Cake Decorating with Buttercream Flowers with Sarah Reyes
• 05-01-22 | Procreate Design Sketching with Marja Beltrami
• 05-06-22 | Recipe Costing with Mara Buckle
• 05-09-22 | Cookie Contracts: FAQs about the Legal Side of Selling Cookies
• 07-25-22 | Christmas in July! Gingerbread Houses with Heather Brookshire

Twinterests:

• Totally digging FitBits right now!

Sponsors: 

• Eddie the Edible Food Printer
• BaketyBake -  save 10% with the code TWINS at checkout 
• CastIron - Websites for Foodpreneurs

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