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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 183 - No, I wanted to cover the worst best word in the business English language: No.

In business (and in life), we gotta learn to fall madly in love with two little letters: N and O.

But we're trained our whole lives to reject rejection though. No one wants to be told "no" - ew gross, I almost even hate typing it. The thought of someone not wanting us would send shivers up most of our spines.

No is bad. No means you're wrong. No means you're not likable. No means someone chose someone over you. No means you lost money. No means you lost a sale. No means you lost an opportunity. No means sad. No means lonely.

No is bad.

But in a world of fighting for likes, attention, follows, friend requests, and "omg yaaas's," the smart business owner searches out the "no."

Here's my Tinder profile for the word No.

No means you've gotten your direct answer. You wasted no time flirting with the maybe, you got a defined path forward. And it wasn't that one you thought it was before the no.

No means you k(no)w where your weakness lies. It's like a map where X marks the spot to improve. And once you improve? You're more of a force to be reckoned with.

No means less wasted time. When you can get a client to their no as fast as possible, in a world where time = money, you've saved money through the time you can spend cultivating a new sale.

No is actually kind. Hear me out - when someone says, "No, I don't think you fit my budget," that's an act of kindness. If someone tells you no, they are treating you with respect.

Hearing no is hard. But saying no is also hard. Being adult enough to dish out a no - That's respectful (in a season where Caspers haunt our Business page inboxes all too often).

In business, I have to tell a lot of people no.

• "No, we're not looking for podcast guests right now."
• "No, you're not a great fit for the Vendy Blendy."
• "No, I had to delete your comment because it violated a group rule."
• "No, that's not in your contract scope."
• "No, you're not allowed to post that."
• "No, you're not allowed to sell that."

I witness far too often folks that take no waaaay too personally. They see no as an attack - to their character, to their business, to their ego.

Rejecting rejection is not the business approach that'll make you money. It will get your feelings hurt though.

The phrase is, "It's just business. Nothin' personal."

That's what no is. It's just business. It's not saying you're any less of a person. You cannot have a business without the word NO. It's not possible.

No is inevitable.

So the faster you fall in love with the "no" the better the business you will have. No is everywhere. No Is guaranteed. No is delicious. Hearing a no is just as amazing for your business as getting a yes. No is not bad. No is good business.

My challenge for you is to reframe how hearing NO impacts you mentally and emotionally. Stop taking NO personally.

Years ago I read about a workshop where the hosts challenged the attendees to get rejected 30 times in 30 days. It made the news when one person taking part in the rejection challenge asked a Krispy Kreme shop to make doughnuts in the shapes of the Olympic rings and the Krispy Kreme employee actually did it (lol).

But the challenge to seek out the word "no" stuck with me. How fantastic would life be if "no" didn't take us to our knees emotionally?!

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Content categories explained.

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 182 - Content Buckets Debunked, the twins talk all things content buckets - an approach to content planning that guides our posting schedule.

What are content buckets? They're categories or themes that your content falls into. Think of them as the main pillars or sections of your blog or social media presence. Each bucket encompasses a specific area of content interest, helping you organize and categorize your content effectively.

Imagine a conversation like this:

• 😀 Me: Hey Corrie, how are you?
• 🙂 Corrie: Enjoying this cool, crisp fall weather! 
• 😊 Me: Awesome - what are your plans this weekend?
• 🙂 Corrie: Enjoying this cool, crisp fall weather!  
• 🙃 Me: Enjoying the weather I see. How's Archer?
• 🙂 Corrie: Enjoying this cool, crisp fall weather!  
• 😕 Me: Ooookay. This conversation is weird. 
• 🙂 Corrie: I agree, but I'm enjoying this cool, crisp fall weather!  

Like okaaay - we get it! You like this crisp, cool fall weather. Say something else! This is what your social media sounds like when all you post is sales and sets. It's boring and drives engagement away and thus reach goes down.

So let's come up with content buckets for a baker. Pulling from these buckets can help you create a more well-rounded content structure that not only target different audience demographics but drives up engagement as well.

Your content buckets don't have to be pulled from one at a time. There may be a bucket where you grab content from 3x a month, and another where you only snag content from 1x a quarter. It's up to you to build out the buckets you both enjoy consistently posting from and that your audience also resonates with. 

Content buckets require testing repeatedly over time to see what works - ain't that marketing for ya?

🪣 Memes

Always an easy bucket, memes are low-hanging content fruit, but the key is to either keep them baking-related or hyper-local related. You can check out a ton of baking-themed memes on the Sugar Cookie Marketing Page. Hyper-local memes can be memes about never-ending traffic on a popular road or a mention of the northern lights (like Corrie did here). 

• 🫗 Baking Related (check out the SCM page for free baking memes)
• 🫗 Locality Related (linked above)

🪣 Behind the Scenes

Behind-the-scenes content always performs really well while still keeping your page focused on baking. For example, Corrie's cutter storage photo garnered a lot of engagement, but still pushes the page's agenda: I sell sugar cookies. Letting folks into the back end of your baking business can add a bit of personality to your bakery - just keep in mind the cleanliness of your home (aka no cats on counters in these pics, my guys).

• 🫗 Cutter Storage (linked above)
• 🫗 Large Bags of Dough / Flour (people like seeing this for some reason)
• 🫗 Large Orders - like 1000 cookies prepped for Christmas corporate orders
• 🫗 Pic of Class Attendees - any info you gathered about an attendee can be a great BTS feature

🪣 Get To Know Me

Pics of people simply perform well - no other way to describe it. Corrie used a photo of her kiddo's first day of school to thank folks who ordered from her because with their money she was able to enroll Archer in a safer learning environment. 

• 🫗 Pics of you and fam at a pumpkin patch
• 🫗 Kiddos first day of school
• 🫗 Thankful for Spouse

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 181 - Correlation and Causation, we wanted to talk about the dangers of misassigned reasons why you think your marketing isn't working.

Let's define things before we jump in:

• Correlation: a mutual relationship or connection between two or more things.
• Causation: the relationship between cause and effect.
• Coincidence: a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection.

So here's the hot take: you must understand the correct cause of something before you make a correlation to its results.

😿 For example, let's say it's raining and my cat, Frank, throws up. I could make the correlation that whenever it 🌧️ rains, Frank throws up, right? I mean - I watched it happen - pitter-patter of rain. Violent cough of gastrointestinal distressed cat.

Wrong - 🚫 because yes, while those two events happened at the same time, they were unrelated (not correlated). They just happened to well... happen at the same time. Other than coincidences, they have absolutely zero relationship.

🐈 Now let's look more closely at Franks' eating habits. Frank tends to upchuck (haven't used that word since I was in middle school, but here we are) when I feed him wet cat food. 🍛 Every time I've ever attempted to feed my little furry friend a sauce-covered pate, he has regurgitated on my carpet a few hours later.

This has been proven 100% of the times I've attempted to feed him wet food. 💯 I can now safely correlate the serving of wet foods to causing Frank to throw up.

Let's bring it back to marketing. Making the incorrect correlations in your marketing strategies can spell long-term disaster. 😨 "My posts do better when there's a 70% chance of snow" is a feeling, but the data proves that despite Jack Frost's potential appearance, ❄ your Facebook post reach is more than likely related to the closing of local school systems forcing parents to stay home rather than frozen water falling from the sky. ☃️

🚫 Incorrection Correlation: "I posted an unstaged photo and my reach on Facebook increased. Thus, staged photography is not ideal."

✅ Potential Questions to Find Correct Correlations:

• ✅ Did you post when the algo was favoring your content? Algorithms giveth and taketh - post in a slow time? Welcome to better reach. Post on election day? Enjoy your new pet crickets.

🚫 Incorrection Correlation:  "I sold nothing at a market I attended recently, but when I flash sold the unsold product from the market on my page, I sold a ton. Thus markets are not for me."

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 180 - Reach 4 Q4, we cover reach in a hard-to-reach moment in time: Quarter 4 of the calendar year.

And not just any calendar year - it's a Q4 including an election, economic policy shifts, major weather disasters, global wars, port strikes, and black Friday.

🖐️ Talk about a reach ruckus! All of these major events competition for one really tiny phone screen? You're going to be in the trenches trying to get eyes on your cookie classes, platters, and customs. But rest assured - this is how marketing works. It's how it always has worked and will continue to work.

This is what separates the "marketing men" from the "marketing boys," and of course, we have some tips to guide your socials for the next three months.

A big part of this is adjusting expectations. Yes - your reach will look different. Yes, we'll still play ball with Meta. Yes, that will be frustrating. But yes, it's still our busy season and we may not even really notice as we're elbow-deep in dough. But having a strategy to guide us in confusing times is always a solid move.

🖐️ 1. Shift the type of content you're posting.

We're no longer posting "loved making this set - Happy second bday, Timmy" and expecting likes or reach. That won't cut it in this cut-throat algorithm of Q4. We're going to dig into hooks, emojis, copy formulas, better photography, MORE eye-catching images, selfies, behind-the-scenes... basically, we're going to be more interesting for the algo.

🖐️ 2. B-e D-i-r-e-c-t.

This feed is BANANAS - b-a-n-a-n-a-s! So don't make your already distracted audience jump through hoops to buy from you. Yes, in a perfect work, we as perfect sales-bakers are perfectly able to get someone into our sales funnel and land the coveted conversion. But baby, this is Q4! Rest is for the weary and time is fleeting! We only have their attention for 3 seconds, use that to your advantage. Posting the price in the caption - or maybe even in the photo - for DIY kits and classes and stop the back and forth-ers from sucking up time (and losing interest).

🖐️ 3. Be annoying.

Corrie's got a PhD in being annoying, so consider her a knowledge expert. But on that note - channel your inner Corrie and post consistently and frequently. Corrie suggests doubling your posting schedule. Remember - reach is DOWN, you're not being annoying, you're barely even reaching 2% as is. They're not seeing any of your posts. You're not being annoying, you're barely being noticed.

🖐️ 4. Contest / Gi-veaw-ays / Memes

This is low-hanging "content" fruit, but it does create increased reach. Use the increased reach to grow another medium (like email) that doesn't compete with crowded news feeds as much. Content buckets help diversify this type of content: meme, informative, sales, prompt, back to a meme, etc. I tend to hit up the meme bucket on "big event" days - more on that next. Note - please give the podcast on g-ive-a-ways a listen, there's some stuff to be cognizant of.

🖐️ 5. Follow big events and plan content accordingly.

For example, November 5th is ELECTION DAY. Your cookie content will perform extremely poorly this day. Don't launch your presale on that date. Frankly, don't launch your pre-sale from Nov 1 - Nov 8th. Let the political stuff die off a bit, then launch your Elfie on a Shelfie pre-orders. We have a lot of "big days" coming, be aware of what's going on and how it'll affect your content schedule.

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 179 - 2 Busy 2 Business, we wanted to talk about good communication (or the lack thereof... ahem... Bev).

Corrie led with a personal story where she left her client, Bev, in communication purgatory wondering when or if Corrie had gotten her inquiry. See, Bev was a referral from another client, Ashley, who loved a 4 day waiting period for cookie communication. But unlike Ash, Boss Bev needed a confirmation within 24 hours or not a happy camper she was.

And Bev was totally right in feeling like she got ghosted (too early for Halloween costumes, my twin sister). So thus we audited the 10 avenues we typically get bogged down with when we get too busy - and added some tips on how to sharpen up the communication skills ahead of Santa's sleigh.

(ps - do you know we have a Baking it Down Instagram that stores all these lil graphics for quick reference?)

A lot of this stuff we've covered in past podcasts, but the goal here is to optimize these communication channels for the busy season. 🚿 You know - where we're too busy to even shower let alone check our after-hours auto-responder. 🤗 The better the communication = the happier your clients. 💵 The happier your clients = the deeper their pockets.

👍 Rule of thumb: good communication means more money. It's as simple as that (and much easier said than done, oh do we know).

🤹 1. Autoresponders / Away Messages

• 🔴 Set a response window - setting an expectation of when you'll get back to someone buys you more time. Be liberal here, if you know it'll take you a while to reply, give yourself 48 hours. But ensure you're definitely getting back to them within the time frame or risk a bad review.
• 🟡 Have your booking form in your auto-responder - Your auto-responses can include clickable links to your website or form that way you're spending less time "back and forthing" and more time making money while your website does the labor in the background.

🤹 2. Google Business Profile

• 🔴 Use Maps app to reply to questions / get profile updates - Google Business Profiles are hooked to Google Maps - so having the app on your phone can give you immediate notifications of communications and reviews.
• 🟡 Remove phone numbers if you can't handle phone calls - if you simply don't communicate over phone calls, remove that from your GMB listing. While I'd like to think I'm good at answer the phone, it's just another avenue to potentially miss a lead, detail, or order change. 

🤹 3. Website Forms

• 🔴 Ensure you gather all needed information in your form - audit your form. Are you gathering all the info you need there? Because if you're not, you're adding more back and forth which can be a stumbling block come busy season.

🤹 4. Facebook Messenger

• 🔴 Have in your notes app a readily available copy/paste for quicker response times - most smartphones have built-in notes apps. Use these to paste faster replies. I like to leave [BRACKETS] for info I can quickly replace to make my "copy pasta" seem more personable.

🤹 5. Social Media Comments

• 🔴 Replying to comments as soon as they're posted increases engagement - when someone comments on your posts, reply immediately, and ask questions. This gets people back to your post, replying to your question, and thus increasing engagement.

🤹 6. Reviews

• 🔴 Reply immediately to reviews - this shows you care about past clients and gives future clients a warm fuzzy feeling as well as

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 178 - Reading the Cookie Room, 🍿 Corrie jumped in with the Tiktok flavored popcorn to tell us about a viral series of posts made this week by a wedding make-up artist who was guilty of not reading the room... er, well, cathedral.

What started as an innocent disclaimer in the contract that allowed the make-up artist to gather content for their social ballooned into an uninvited (and intrusive) extra guest to the wedding - complete with drama, tears, and an upset bridal party (did I mention a 3-series long TikTok vent sesh to boot?).

So we wanted to talk about "Reading the Cookie Room." Hey - whether we like it or not, our businesses put us face-to-face with clients daily. Knowing how to read subtle hints from body language and speech can allow us to be better salespeople - and just better people in general.

🔎 We've come up with a list of conversational potential pitfalls and blind spots you might want to consider if you don't feel like you've got the gift of gab. 📖 PS - if you're looking for supporting reading material, check out the books "What Every Body Is Saying" and "How to Win Friends and Influence People." 

Here's the takeaway: not all of these may apply to you. If only one does, you're probably reading the "cookie room" full of your clients just fine. But if you find yourself wincing at a lot of these - then take a minute to assess the situation and slowly learn what you can tweak. Blind spots are hard to see - that's why we call them blind spots. This podcast is just a hint towards lookin' over you conversation shoulder and making sure you're not missing the closing curtain.

🙏 Your bottom line (and your neighbors) will thank you.

👀 1. Are you constantly having to find new customers?

Do you constantly find yourself running through clients (🏃‍♂ churn is the buzzword here)? If so, you may be the one scaring them off (and just in time for spooky season too). Talking too much or too personally can run off clients, so ask yourself how often you see similar names comin' back to order.

👀 2. Are your female clients sending husbands (to avoid conversation?)

Oddly specific, but Corrie says she finds herself sending out her "husband of few words" to deal with the neighborhood's chatty Cathys. 🧍‍♂ If you find that your pick-ups are generally with wall flowers, consider that perhaps someone is avoiding long conversations with you. 👨 Again - more of these have to apply to you than just one to be a blind spot - but it's worth mentioning the men (this can be either gender - the takeaway: if someone's sending the "quiet one" to pick-ups, it may be a tell).

👀 3. Track the average length of pick-up conversations. Are they over 5 minutes?

"Time just flies when you're playin' hostage." Do you keep your clients hostage on your porch? ⏰ A "tell" is tracking how long conversations last. If you find them averaging over 2-minutes - maaaybe ask yourself if you're keepin' people past the normal length of porch-pickup courtesy convos. 

👀 4. Release the Cracken - are you giving people options to exit?

Corrie's husband Nate has an affinity for ending conversations by saying "Welp, it's time I hit the ol' dirt road," 🛣 and while hilarious, we can all take notes (and wagon rides apparently). Adding "exits" to your conversations can help people pull the release ripcord. "Well, I don't want to keep you." "So, that's it on my end, any questions on your cookies?" "I can let you go - traffic is going to be bad for you in about an hour." 🚗🚗🚗 These are all release points to let people out of conversations with you.

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 177 - When Marketing Isn't Working, we wanted to talk about both mindset and methods to reboot a sluggish marketing season.

🧠 In the Diary of a CEO podcast on YouTube, brain doctor, Dr. Daniel Amen who has scanned 250,000 brains, says he was asked to scan the brain of author Noelle Nelson who was writing a book on The Power of Appreciation. 🤗 She wanted to see how positive thinking affected brain function.

The doctor then asked Noelle to return the next day after 24 hours of negative thinking to understand how the brain's baselines changed. 😥 The results? 📉 Lower functioning in the pre-frontal cortex - the part of the brain responsible for decision-making, reasoning, personality expression, and other complex cognitive behaviors.

The takeaway: 

• ⬇️ Negative thinking culls cognitive performance. 
• ⬇️ Inhibited cognitive performance creates more negative thinking. 
• ⬇️ Thus we're in the death spiral of bad news blues.

🤔 "How does this apply to my marketing not working?"

Great question. You'll hate the answer. Marketing works because it just... works. The more people that know about a product to buy, the more people can buy said product. 💭 The how to get them to know there's a product to buy is marketing.

✅ So the good news - your problem is fixable. ⛔ The bad news? The problem is you. "No one is buying from me" dulls your strategic thinking. "Everything I post doesn't get any likes" is an easy way to never have to strategize why your posts are reaching your intended audience.

Shift your mindset by running through these cognitive questions:

1. 🧠 Is your messaging confusing? Focus focus focus - switching product offerings too often can confuse your audience
2. 🧠 Are your goals dialed in? Too much of everything is nothing
3. 🧠 Do you have enough campaign runway? Think: run a campaign for at least 3 months to see if something works - yeah, that long.
4. 🧠 Are you being consistent over long term or only energetic in short spurts?

But - if you're marketing truly isn't working and you're in no mood for brain games, Corrie and I came up with a list of six tasks you can implement this month - that, with the right attitude, should turn your marketing numbers around a bit.

1. ✔️ Work the campaigns backwards: here is launch date, so where is pre-sale end date / pre-sale launch date / photography date etc. Come up with three campaigns for the rest of the year.
2. ✔️ Invest in better camera / photography gear and take one photography course (ahem - the Cookie College has a photography course)  - plan photography days.
3. ✔️ Start adding consistent posting in community groups - make 2 posts per week (non-sales) for 1 month.
4. ✔️ Work on a local likes campaign. Grow your page numbers - you'll never reach 100% of your page likes, so increase the page likes to increase potential eyes on your content.
5. ✔️ Audit your sales funnel - is something somewhere driving people to your competition.
6. ✔️ Audit your competition - if you can handle not comparing yourself, competitor analysis is a great way to see where you're lacking.

Try these 6 suggestions out. Hey - your marketing isn't working, you probably have a lot of spare time. What do ya have to lose? Except the yips that is.

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 176 - Cookie Crime Scene, Corrie wanted to talk more cognitively about approaching "bad experiences" in business.

As a business owner, 😓 you will face difficult clients. 😢 You will have someone demand a refund. 😢 You will experience broken cookies, icing bleed, cookie spread, soap tastes, stale cookies - it's business.

😭 And you will also have to deal with clients who had a less-than-ideal experience with your business. BUT - you can harness the tools now to change that experience from a bad one to a 😌 "hey, it wasn't the best, but we made it right" one.

That's why this week's podcast is called "The Cookie Crime Scene" - because oftentimes the damage is already done before you run to the Sugar Cookie Marketing Group asking for validation. 😤 "I told them to get lost in the woods, they have terrible taste in clothes let alone cookies! 🥺 ...do you think I worded it okay?"

Uh - nope. 🚫 No, ya didn't do okay on that one. But you responded with too much emotion too fast without considering the ramifications, and now you get to pick up the pieces (and those pieces are often in the form of bad reviews).

Ask yourself, "do I just want to be heard or do I want to be helped?" 😤 Let me break that phrase down: when you want to be heard only, you want to rant and vent and be angry. 😠 You want people to lambast your client alongside you. You want bakers to validate your aggressive, dismissive response.

Why ask us? You already sent the email. 🍪⚠️ It's a cookie crime scene now.

But the baker who wants to be helped - they word their posts much differently. ✍ "Hey. I think I handled this run-in with my client poorly. I responded way too hastily. I may have limited my options for recourse here, but can anyone help me make this okay with this client?" Yeah - now that's someone who wants help.

Listen - we're going to respond poorly to clients eventually. ☕ We're humans. We run on emotion and coffee, and when coffee runs low, emotions run high (amiright?).

🫖 Corrie told a story she experienced with our grandma, Ruth Ann, this morning. Ruth Ann dropped her favorite coffee cup shattering it into a million pieces. 💥 "It's okay - let's clean it up! Can't unshatter it now. Can't be mad it's broken. Being mad doesn't fix the cup - but we can channel that energy into finding a replacement online."

You can't unshatter the cup. But you can work on being a better baker despite bad experiences with clients. 💭 You just have to accept that you're here to get help - not just be heard.

Quote of the week: "🙄 Stop, Drop, Roll your eye before your reply"

👂 Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or your desktop) by searching for Baking it Down - Episode 176 - Cookie Crime Scene.

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 175 - Wedding Vendor Recap, Corrie signed us up for a Wedding Expo - and here's our tell-all - what we did right, what we did okay, and what we wouldn't do ever again. 

The event was complex, to say the least. Conceptually - it's genius. Execution - it's lacking. ✌️ The event was two days consisting of two "faux wedding receptions" - one upstairs (🪵 earthy forest theme) and one downstairs (🛼 retro theme). 

So both themes had completely different vendor groups - meaning there were two photographers, two event planners, two florists, two bakers, two couple models... you get the point. All vendors were assigned a theme - the vendors didn't decide it. 

1️⃣ Day 1 was a photo shoot. All the vendors set up the two themes and the photographers and models got to work. This is where they got the photos of the faux receptions (one upstairs in the venue and one downstairs outside).

2️⃣ Day 2 was a vendor expo, fashion runway, and after-party. This day was open to attendees - there was some ticketed component, but we never really figured out what that was exactly? More on that confusion later. But you get the idea of what this event looked like. 

1. 👰 Marketing Prep - Build the Funnel

So we needed to start the marketing prep to get Corrie's "funnel" dialed in. 🖼️ Here's what she did in the week leading up to the Wedding Expo. Keep in mind - this is a wedding expo, 🤵‍♂ so she'd want her content to be wedding-specific if we drove traffic to her socials during the event. Always think in terms of funneling people to a desired action (aka purchasing for their weddings).

• 💒 Getting socials ready (reposted / pin for new timestamp)
• 💒 Posting wedding sets daily leading up to the event
• 💒 All comments / reviews responded to
• 💒 Matched energy on Instagram
• 💒 Updated forms / website 

We decided we'd take Eddie - the edible direct-to-food printer from Primera (also a podcast sponsor). 🤔 I asked myself, "What would get someone to stop at a cookie booth" and 🖨 the answer was "print them on a cookie - live - as they watch." So this meant we needed some specific supplies to make Eddie work.

2. 👰 Source Your Supplies

We haven't done a vendor expo for Corrie's company before, so I had to order all the custom printed things - which meant the start-up costs for this were high (ideally you'd repeat these events and bring the cost-per-use down considerably). 🪑 I needed a custom Tablecloth (TableCoversNow for $216.60), a Step and Repeat as a photo backdrop (VistaPrint for $338.14), and an A-frame sign (Best of Signs for $128.43). We borrowed a 6'x2.5' table from my mom. I had a Sony A7C mirrorless camera with a 24mm lens. Corrie brought her Dell XPS computer, and then we had Eddie (all already purchased a few years ago). 

• 💒 Ordered custom tablecloth, custom circle a-frame sign, custom step & repeat
• 💒 Purchased add-on carrying cases for easier transport
• 💒 Pre-baked 45 Eddie blank cookies + 1 sleeve of Mom Pop pre-dipped cookies (for backup)
• 💒 50 QR Code printed cookies + business cards

3. 👰 Do a Setup Dry Run

I'm a planner - so a dry run for setup and workflow was a must if I wanted to get any sleep the night before. I build out the dimensions in an app called Whimsical. We were limited to a 6x6 event space, so lemme just say - it was gonna be tight. 

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📧 Know Newsletters - What to send to who and how often.

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 174 - Know Newsletters, we talk everything you need to know about newsletters. These powerhouses in digital marketing are some of the most untouched real estate in the cottage world - and why? We're not sure - but if you capitalize on it now, you'll be cookin' (baking?) with fire come the busy season.

Jumping straight into it - in the Onesday Wednesday newsletter, I included the 90-day line chart of our weekly newsletter (this is a Sendgrid report). It's sent on Wednesdays, and you can see I missed a Wednesday a few months ago (the dead zone where there's no peak) and again last week (fam stuff). 

The big takeaway in this chart isn't the number of people receiving our emails. It's the consistency at which the newsletters are sent, how many emails reach an inbox (deliverability), how many get opened (open rate), and what gets clicked on (click-through rate).

So let's break down the making of solid bones for a newsletter. Before we jump into the content, we gotta actually have a list. So let's start there and build.

📨 1. Creating an Email List

You've got to generate a list. Review the CAN-SPAM laws, but my take - you can email people who have purchased cookies from you in the past as long as you follow all the other rules. Ideally, your list is compromised of opt-in emails (people who intentionally signed up for your list). Newsletter senders often include free landing pages and sign-up forms to grow your list as well. Giveaways are a great incentive for quick sign-ups.

📨  2. Selecting a Sender.

You won't want to use your personal email to send out newsletters (CAN-SPAM laws require an unsubscribe button and an address), so selecting a newsletter sender is integral to a healthy newsletter campaign. Big names in the biz are Mailchimp, Flodesk, Square, Sendgrid, Constant Contact - there's about a million to choose from so find one that fits your needs, your budget, and your workflow.

📨 3. Preview Content

When you go to write your email - the preview content (the "from," the subject line, the preview text) will help you get that ever-coveted opened email. In the preview content, I like to attract attention with the subject line then draw them in with the supporting preview text. Imagine my Halloween email's subject line reading: "👻 I've Got Something SCARY To Tell You" and the preview line is "🎃The 10 closest pumpkin patches to Fairfax".  Preview text isn't available in all inboxes, but always think about drawing folks to the "email open." That subject line is a lot more eye-catching than "September Offerings." 

📨 4. Body-yody-yody-yody

The body of your newsletter - the meat and potatoes - is the content your readers are clicking to read. Corrie came up with a cute poem to guide you, "something for me, something for you, but no more than two." Basically - keep it short, sweet, and skim-able. Header tags, bolded fonts, and bulleted lists are your buddies here. Pictures are worth the thousand words you don't have to type out. An example of the "something for me, something for you" is a list of local cideries in your area + your back-to-school offerings. Another example is your January "Build a Snowman" cookie class + a list of local sledding hills the kids love. You get the point. Don't jam-pack a newsletter with a million different offerings, 4 CTAs (call-to-actions), and a billion photos - you're making that poor newsletter do too many things and thus it does nothing really. FOCUS on one initiative per email. 

We cover more tips in this week's podcast like templates, how nested header tags work, an ideal schedule for someone getting