182. Baking it Down - Content Buckets Debunked

Summary

Episode Summary: 182. Baking it Down - Content Buckets Debunked

In Episode 182 of the Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing podcast, hosts Heather and Corrie (Cory) Miracle delve deep into the concept of Content Buckets, a strategic approach to organizing and diversifying social media content for bakery business owners. This episode, released on October 15, 2024, offers actionable insights, practical examples, and valuable conclusions aimed at helping bakers enhance their online presence, engage their audience, and ultimately boost sales.

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1. Introduction to Content Buckets

[00:27] Cory: "Corey wanted to talk about content buckets, which is something she's actually focused on."

Heather and Cory begin by addressing the common challenge faced by bakers: overly promotional content can lead to audience disengagement. They introduce Content Buckets as a solution to create a balanced and engaging social media strategy.

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2. Understanding Content Buckets

Content Buckets are categorized themes or pillars that guide the creation and distribution of social media posts. By diversifying content types, bakers can maintain audience interest and foster deeper connections.

a. Memes

[05:26] Heather: "Yeah, One memes now within memes."

• Purpose: Lighthearted and easily digestible content that resonates with the audience.
• Example: Baking-related jokes or local humor that aligns with the bakery's brand.
• Notable Quote:
  Heather [05:27]: "It's easy to digest. There's no caption that really goes along."
  Cory [05:48]: "Memes kind of sell themselves."

b. Behind the Scenes

[07:55] Heather: "Talking."
[09:13] Heather: "They do."

• Purpose: Offers a glimpse into the daily operations, showcasing authenticity and building trust.
• Example: Photos or videos of cutter storage, dough preparation, or class setups.
• Notable Quote:
  Cory [11:26]: "For every set she's Baking, there's a cookie cutter involved. So it still adds to the story of like, hey, I'm a baker and I'm making cookies."

c. Get to Know Me

[13:46] Heather: "Yeah."
[14:33] Heather: "She's trying to bring a personal touch."

• Purpose: Humanizes the brand by sharing personal stories and moments.
• Example: Posts about family events, personal milestones, or hobbies.
• Notable Quote:
  Cory [19:00]: "To see a face behind the brand. It's easy to get mad at a logo, at a brand name, at someone you've never met."

d. Set Features

[21:52] Heather: "And that goes like how we started the whole podcast."
[23:09] Cory: "Here's what I'm Baking."

• Purpose: Highlights specific products or creations, serving as the primary sales tool.
• Example: Showcasing custom cookie sets, themed pastries, or seasonal offerings.
• Notable Quote:
  Cory [23:08]: "Here's what I made this week. The lowest hanging fruit."

e. Sales Posts

[24:03] Cory: "It's your bread and butter."
[27:05] Cory: "We separated set features, which I see a lot of bakers do like."

• Purpose: Directly promotes products, services, or upcoming events.
• Example: Announcements for classes, DIY kits, or special discounts.
• Notable Quote:
  Heather [27:30]: "Things that have an expiration date, like a class ticket. That's gonna. You're gonna have to get people in there."

f. Prompts and Polls

[30:32] Cory: "Prompt posts. You'll see that if you go to the sugar cookie marketing Facebook page."
[32:38] Heather: "It's so controversial."

• Purpose: Encourages audience interaction through questions and polls.
• Example: Engaging questions about favorite flavors, decorating preferences, or seasonal themes.
• Notable Quote:
  Cory [32:21]: *"Prompt posts, polls. They do as once everything at."

g. Giveaways

[37:07] Heather: "But when you got to group rules."
[38:22] Heather: "And things like that."

• Purpose: Incentivizes engagement and rewards loyal followers.
• Example: Free recipes, cookie samples, or exclusive merchandise giveaways.
• Notable Quote:
  Cory [38:23]: "But if you can use the money you saved from the vending money to 25%, go to an Eddie."

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3. Implementing Content Buckets

a. Frequency and Distribution

Heather and Cory emphasize the importance of balancing content types based on posting frequency:

• Example Strategies:
  • Three Posts a Week: Rotate through memes, behind the scenes, and set features.
  • Two Posts a Week: Extend the content buckets over a longer period.
  • Five Posts a Week: More robust rotation ensuring all content types are regularly featured.

[17:15] Cory: "So just because the bucket's there doesn't mean you have to pull from it in order."

b. Balancing Engagement and Sales

Maintaining an 80/20 ratio ensures that 80% of posts are engaging content (memes, behind the scenes, personal stories) and 20% are direct sales. This balance prevents audience fatigue from constant promotion.

[43:39] Heather: "Everything but the sales."
[43:48] Cory: "Here's the thing."

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4. Real-life Examples and Case Studies

• Cookie Room Meme:

  • [06:17] Heather: "It was like my dream layout at the moment."
  • Showcasing a humorous take on bakery spaces, relatable to local audiences.

• Behind the Scenes - Cutter Storage:

  • [09:25] Heather: "So people are like, oh, the amount of cookie cutters you have is insane."
  • Demonstrates organizational prowess and the scale of baking operations.

• Get to Know Me - Family Posts:

  • [14:21] Cory: "We have pics of your family at a pumpkin patch."
  • Personal stories that connect the audience to the baker's life.

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5. Common Pitfalls and Solutions

a. Over-Promotion:

Constant sales posts can lead to decreased engagement. Diversifying content through various buckets mitigates this risk.

b. Irrelevant Content:

Posts unrelated to baking (e.g., political opinions) can alienate the audience. It's essential to keep content aligned with the business's core themes.

c. Neglecting Audience Interaction:

Engaging with comments and fostering conversations enhances visibility and rapport with followers.

[46:37] Heather: "You reply to your mom right now."

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6. Upcoming Events: Vendee Blendy

Heather and Cory introduce Vendee Blendy, a one-time annual sale where vendors offer significant discounts. This event aims to drive engagement and sales through exclusive deals and giveaways.

[50:08] Cory: "Our next sponsor is Acor Backers which has rebranded to the Backers Co."
[52:36] Heather: "No catch."

• Details:
  • 24-Hour Duration: Limited-time access to discounted products.
  • Vendor Participation: Over 55 vendors offering varied products.
  • Group Dynamics: Exclusive Facebook group for participants.

Notable Quote:

Cory [56:37]: "It's a really marketing opportunity. It doubles Corey and my email list. It grows our Instagram by thousands."

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7. Sponsor Highlights

The episode highlights key sponsors critical to the podcast's operations:

a. Royal Batch

• Product: Meringue powder used for icing.
• Discount: 10% off with code TWIN; 25% off during Vendee Blendy.
• Feature: Ensures high-quality, bright white icing.

[66:14] Heather: "If you want to score 10 off now, you can just use Code Twins at checkout."

b. Acor Backers (Backers Co.)

• Product: Backdrops for photography, essential for showcasing baked goods.
• Discount: 20% off with code SUGARCOOKIE; 30% off during Vendee Blendy.

[68:05] Cory: "So the backers company you still can go to aecorebackers.com it'll redirect you code sugar cookie that's 20% off."

c. Eddie the Edible Food Printer

• Product: Edible printer for personalized cookie decorations.
• Investment: Approximately $3,000 with available payment plans.
• Benefit: Enhances product customization, driving sales.

[70:02] Cory: "Eddie is expensive, but he pays for himself very quickly. It's one of those risk it for the biscuit, get paid back in dividends as long as you actually market it up."

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8. Listener Engagement and Feedback

Towards the end of the episode, Heather and Cory encourage listeners to engage by:

• Submitting Questions: Via text at 571-556-5644 or through podcast messaging.
• Joining Groups: Participating in the Vendee Blendy Facebook group for exclusive content and interactions.

[48:20] Heather: "If you want to see what it looks like, I have Heather putting it up with my husband."

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9. Practical Takeaways and Conclusions

• Diversify Content: Implementing Content Buckets ensures a balanced and engaging social media presence.
• Engage Authentically: Personal stories and behind-the-scenes content build genuine connections.
• Strategize Sales Promotions: Limited, well-placed sales posts maintain audience interest without overwhelming them.
• Leverage Events: Hosting events like Vendee Blendy can significantly boost engagement and sales.
• Utilize Sponsors Effectively: Collaborating with sponsors provides value to both the podcast and its listeners through exclusive deals and high-quality products.

[47:05] Cory: "It's not an overnight thing you might post. When are you putting over your Christmas tree and your mom comments tomorrow."
[47:05] Heather: "It's all about strategy, but come with patience as well."

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By embracing the Content Buckets strategy, bakery business owners can enhance their social media engagement, foster a loyal community, and drive consistent sales growth. Heather and Cory's comprehensive discussion provides a roadmap for implementing these strategies effectively, ensuring that bakers can "rise with your reach" and "make that dough" in their online ventures.

Transcript

[Cory]

Um, sorry. Cory didn't know it right from her left a second.

[Heather]

We never do.

[Cory]

Hey, Heather, how's the weather? It is great. It is a crisp fall morning. I've been waiting for this weather for a while.

[Heather]

Oh, well, what are your plans for today?

[Cory]

I'm going to enjoy the crisp fall weather. I've been waiting for this weather for a while.

[Heather]

Well, what's for lunch?

[Cory]

After the pod lunch, I figured we could walk through the crisp fall weather, and wherever that walk takes us is where we could. I get it.

[Heather]

That's great.

[Cory]

So Corey wanted to talk about content buckets, which is something she's actually focused on. And the reason for that weird skit was to prove to you guys that when you go to talk to somebody, if all they talk about is the sales that they want to make, it becomes a pretty one sided, boring conversation where everyone's like, yeah, I'm not interested in this at all.

[Heather]

Everyone knows someone who has this hobby and they won't shut up about it. And you're like, okay, if I hear about this one more second, I might just die.

[Cory]

But the question is, what are we supposed to talk about? This is my job. Making sales increases business. And that's what social media is for, is to increase business and make more sales. So why wouldn't I talk about the things I want to sell? And it's. Frankly, the answer is because it's boring. It's just boring. And it's hard for me to want to go to a page. And you can do everything right. You can have the best copy in the world, you can have the best photography in the world, you can have the best consistent posting schedule in the world. But if your content is really boring and one sided, all that really amazing effort still goes to waste.

[Heather]

There's only so many posts. Someone can be like, you're so talented on yeah.

[Cory]

And. And you're like, thank you so much. Buy from me. And that feels right. I mean, you're using your social media to produce really great content to increase sal. Yeah, but what that issue comes about is your reach starts decreasing despite all this great effort, because the content is not interesting. And that's where content buckets come into play. They are. It's just a theory. Like, it's not an actual bucket.

[Heather]

And you might be saying twins. Haven't you covered podcast on content buckets? What we've been seeing in the group lately is people are like, hey, there is content buckets. I get the premise, but I don't actually know how to implement that. I Don't understand it.

[Cory]

So let's take it back to bucket one.

[Heather]

Bucket one.

[Cory]

And just kind of break down what this theory is. Now, it's not a theory. It's an approach to generating content that works as, like if you go to, I guess, training wheels of sorts. When you go to bowling and they put out the bumpers, this is that so. And eventually it'll become second nature to you. But the buckets really help force your hand here. So I made AI tell me what a content. I thought you said you wrote this. When I used a crazy word, encompasses, you knew it was AI. I would not have used the word encompasses, but I figured chrome updated, now you can just talk to it all the time. I was like, how are you doing? It's like the weather, crisp all day. So I said to AI, what are content buckets? And it said categories that your content falls into. It's probably the most simple thing. And then, you know, AI is not AI without word salad. So it adds. 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 or categorize your content effectively. I want to be like AI if it starts with an E, encompasses effectively. Just drop it out.

[Heather]

I was actually shopping for vanilla the other day. Vanilla beans. Everything on that website was written by.

[Cory]

AI and you can tell. Oh, in the weirdest way.

[Heather]

It was like in our secret family formula. You'll never know.

[Cory]

So let's now let's translate AI into a content bucket. I'll give you my definition, then you can give me yours. To me, content buckets are, I'm going to say five to 10 categories. I did like what AI said there. That guide your posting schedule. So if you say I post three times a week, you're going to hit the first three buckets the first three times and the next week you're going to hit the next three buckets. If you post two times a week, your content buckets are going to stretch a lot longer, but you have a lower posting schedule. If you choose to post five times a week, your content buckets are going to be great. Yeah, because otherwise you're just posting whatever idea you have and that's not always guided.

[Heather]

My definition is content that keeps your audience engaged.

[Cory]

There I'm going to say content that keeps your audience engaged mixed with content that you know doesn't engage in, but you have to post it. So. So let's. Corey and I, we pulled up her social media profile today and we went through her content buckets. And you said you had some weaknesses, so.

[Heather]

Yeah, I do have some weaknesses. But this past month I said, you know what, let me try to incorporate things I don't because at the end of the day, if you're new to baking, you don't have a ton of content to share. So you'll be like, I made a set and I posted about it. Now I have nothing to post anymore. So how can you make your social media engaging without having so much content that I've been baking for many years. I've. I just uploaded how many photos I have of cookies onto my hard drive thing. 53,000. Cory, you can delete never ending. Never ending social media content.

[Cory]

Where did you put this? An external.

[Heather]

My external hard drive.

[Cory]

I have your external. You got another one.

[Heather]

I've always had one. You just got another.

[Cory]

This one's three terabytes. I can't tell you what it's full. It's what it is. So content buckets. In terms of. Let's talk about the ones we categories we came up with. So think of buckets, think of pillars. It's just categories. Yeah. And I know people. This is a part where they get kind of lost in the sauce. They're like, okay, well like here's my set. What category does it fall into? And it falls in a set called a category called set features. So here's the categories we came up with that we thought would be pretty healthy. If you stole these, you'd be set.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

One memes now within memes. And I know, I know people are like, oh, memes, that's such a low hanging fruit. That's exactly why it's a bucket. It's a great Coyle. And I'll be like, we're running out of content post. To me it's like just that little hail Mary Place.

[Heather]

1. It's easy to digest. You're not having to invest in a huge caption because there's no caption that really goes along.

[Cory]

Memes kind of sell themselves.

[Heather]

It really sells themselves. So a lot of people will stop and engage with the meme. I think even more so instead of just a random meme, Cory has two.

[Cory]

Subcategories, a baking related meme which you posted. 1. I know. You actually stole it from me. Maybe you made it. Maybe we made it. Cookie room one. Okay, so there's this one where it's a layout of a house, like the schematics of the floor plans and the biggest room in the house, which is technically, I think, supposed to be the garage or something. It's his cookie room. And Corey said like my dream. What was your caption?

[Heather]

It was like my dream layout at the moment.

[Cory]

Right. Dream home. So it was a baking related meme. Now it's funny because your baker would want the biggest cookie room. So Corey's audience is obviously a hyper local Northern Virginia audience. Audience and some cookiers who fail to respect boundaries. But. But that meme was very low hanging fruit but still applicable to baking. So it's not a meme, just a funny thought you have because that throws off the content bugs as well. Cory and I went to this local French restaurant. We do fancier than we are, that's for sure.

[Heather]

It was delish.

[Cory]

But when we go to tag the page, you can tell that the owner is probably an older man. And he's using the French restaurant Facebook page to post funny captions. Funny things he finds online.

[Heather]

Yeah, Nothing to do with French restaurants, food.

[Cory]

He only posts about once a month. So 12 posts a year, which is nothing. And only about two of those posts about closing early.

[Heather]

It's off putting.

[Cory]

It was off putting. It wasn't about putting. It was off putting. So again, we want those memes to still deal with our content. Now Corey adds this caveat. She says hyper local memes are excusable here. And I have to agree because while the baking related still hits our target audience, hyperlocal does as well. So those northern lights that most of America saw.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

Corey found a meme where, you know, I think it was cloudy here, so we never saw him. And then Cory's not going to get out of bed even if we could see them. So she had found somebody had scrawled onto the meme and says my version of the northern lights. So Cory's like, hey guys, I saw him. It was funny because it was hyper local. And that night everyone been posting these northern light pictures. So I would hit the baking bucket. The baking meme bucket more than the locality bucket. But if you do hit the locality bucket, make it hyper local.

[Heather]

Yeah, talking.

[Cory]

We have a lot of toll roads here. If it's a joke about the toll roads, maybe there was a crane. They were building a bridge last year, a couple years ago. And the crane kind of looked like it had a head and arms. So the whole of the Northern Virginia, which is millions and millions of people, they named the crane.

[Heather]

Cause everyone was sitting in traffic staring.

[Cory]

At him, staring at him. And he kind of looked like a guy. So they named him Steve the crane. And then it just became this Local joke about this crane, which is really hard to get millions of people in on a joke like that. I know, but when he was sitting there snarling traffic for months, I guess we could. So Corey says, have one of your buckets be memes. And I agree with that. You'll see that it's one of the major heavy hitters for sugar cookie marketing page. We lean heavy into that bucket. Okay, then the next bucket. So it's bucket one is memes. Bucket two is behind the scenes. Now. So these are content categories, right? Within these content categories, you can post these in different places. So we actually have two dials working for us. We have the type of content and then we have where that content is posted. So when I say where, it could be a feed, it could be a story, it could be a live, it could be a reel, it could be a group post, which is different than a feed post. It could be a shared. So there's a lot within that. But behind the scenes you can have the option of photos or videos. Videos do really well as reels. They do really poorly as feed posts.

[Heather]

They do.

[Cory]

But photos do really well as feed posts and less as Instagram posts. Right then. So Corey posted one as an example. She took a picture of her cutter storage, which is very comprehensive expound.

[Heather]

So people are like, oh, the amount of cookie cutters you have is insane. But when they, for some odd reason, when they see the way that I store these cutters, they imagine every box in this storage unit is if you.

[Cory]

Guys are big into Ikea furniture, those it's Talax. They have these bins, you know, they're perfectly squared and they have 1, 2, 3, 4. I think they have 8 total areas for bins. And Corey stacked them up to down so they're taller than they are wide.

[Heather]

So there's probably five of them across. So eight times five is.

[Cory]

And then she has whatever that is.

[Heather]

They're not filled to the top, but you would just. People when they see those boxes think that they're filled to the brim of cookie cutter.

[Cory]

So they're like, oh yeah. So she doesn't have translucent boxes, although I think translucent boxes would have been better.

[Heather]

I wouldn't have liked to look at that.

[Cory]

Oh yeah, it is an eyesore. But it helps you know what's in there. It's always that, you know, fine line. So Corey posted that the other day and a ton of people said, wow, because it's so behind. It's so relatable to her business. For every set she's Baking, there's a cookie cutter involved. So it still adds to the story of like, hey, I'm a baker and I'm making cookies. But it is a different type of content that isn't buy for me, buy for me, buy for me.

[Heather]

I know. It's more of a conversational thing.

[Cory]

And you said, I got a lot more engagement on that post because it was so interesting. So again, these buckets can add a level of interest where it might feel awkward otherwise. But when the content bucket says, listen, be interesting, then you're going to say, I'm going to find a way.

[Heather]

If you're hurting for comments on your social media, it's probably because you're selling constantly. So people are like, well, if I.

[Cory]

Come, unless it's like, I'm selling. Oh, yeah. Like when you pass the kiosk at the mall.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

They're not there to ask you how your day went. They're there to sell. And you say, if I talk to them, I will be involved in a sales pitch. Right.

[Heather]

Or if you are posting your sets constantly and people are like, you're so talented, you're so great, and you're never coming back to them. They'll. They'll.

[Cory]

They'll hit the road. Jack. I agree. So again, the cutter storage is a great behind the scenes. Corey said, oddly, this is her take on behind the scenes. Large bags of dough in the freezer.

[Heather]

Like as we get. One time I shared how many we were prepping for that December where we pretended that we were just bakers and nothing else. And I did all the bags of flour because you divide them out for each batch. And there was probably 16 bags of flour, but people would like that. Oh, they were like, oh, my goodness. That's how much.

[Cory]

So keep in mind with the behind the scenes that you are letting people into your house. So have that house clean.

[Heather]

That house is very hard for me, so that I don't like doing it Right.

[Cory]

So have your house real clean. We don't want the cat on the counter in these photos. Yeah, you don't want your cat on the counter behind the scenes. You don't want to introduce more problems with these buckets. So again, we're going to be strategic here, but we're going to let people in. Even teaching people, like, hey, guys, an ingredient. I use meringue powder. People don't always know what it is. Here's the one I use. Here's where you can buy it from. Just kind of, again, this behind the scenes of what goes into these sets is an interesting content bucket. If you typed meringue powder, people would feel free to comment because they're not being sold.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

Another one, Corey says, just pictures of really large orders. I see it around Christmas time where people are doing thousands of cookies and they take a picture of so many DIY kit boxes, so many stacks.

[Heather]

Your dining room table is filled with boxes.

[Cory]

And people are always fascinated. I think there's something about it. I love seeing lots of one thing.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

So, but again, keep your house clean. You got to make sure that the perimeter of your photo looks really dialed in. We don't want to say, ew, gross, but that's a lot of cookies. We don't want the conversation for this content bucket to be like, yikes. So taking pictures of larger. Corey has a great one behind the scenes of picture of people taking a class. So Corey and I will always take pictures during class. And then the caption there can again be behind the scenes. Like, here's what goes into creating the set. Or here I like to say, like, here's this couple. This is their date night. You know, they're 70. And this is. She makes him go to these things.

[Heather]

You're almost showcasing this students. And it's still behind the sales. And it's after the fact of the class. So it's not like, sign up for this class. I see a lot of people use that content to get more sales for the next class, which that would fall.

[Cory]

Within a different content bucket. So when we say here's the behind the scenes, look at Mark and Carrie and they're having a blast here. And here's a little bit about them. Or you know, here's. Sometimes we have people who are cakers and they want to start offering cookies and they'll give us their business card featuring their business. Still behind the scenes, you're not selling to them. And it's interesting content. It just adds a more round approach to your content. Like when I look at your feed, I'm like, wow, this is diverse, but it's still focused.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

Another content. So we have memes. We have behind the scenes. We have get to know me. And I think Corey hits this bucket pretty well. People love to see faces. They do.

[Heather]

I posted a picture of my son.

[Cory]

I know.

[Heather]

First day of high school. That post did phenome.

[Cory]

It really does. Well, now this is the probably the bucket that's least about cookies.

[Heather]

It is.

[Cory]

This is. This is saying, I'm a human. Don't be mad at me.

[Heather]

There's a person behind it. I did tie it back into cookies. It was like every order you give helps this kid go to this little private school that he goes to. So thank you for putting him through.

[Cory]

You leaned headline to the bullying on that one. It was what I said. You crazy. So get to know me, Corey. Yesterday Heather brought me out, said I'll.

[Heather]

Dangle a little photo in front of me.

[Cory]

I said to Cory she wanted to go to a pumpkin patch. I said, let's take a photo of you and Arch in front of this. They have this pumpkin wall. It's really cute idea. But let's take a photo and then you can use that as content again. It has nothing to do with cookies. Corey didn't even bring a cookie. That'd have been cool if she did. But it's just about her and her son now. Everyone sees that picture. It's like, oh, he's so tall.

[Heather]

I know.

[Cory]

Yeah. So we have pics of your family at a pumpkin patch. It's just going to do well. It'd have to be posted in October.

[Heather]

But you could also do pictures that thank for Thanksgiving. Here's what I'm thankful for. My family.

[Cory]

Large family photos. I'd like to see that. I love to see that. Even if you are a baker. So I follow a local mechanic shop. He'll post pictures of the employees on their birthdays. It is much more interesting to me than a picture of a wheel. Yeah. But all of it encompasses this as a mechanic. So it's still about the business. Now what I wouldn't post in my get to know me section is like your opinion pieces. I would never post anything about politics. I wouldn't post anything like, oh, I'm annoyed today. That's too personal.

[Heather]

It is.

[Cory]

Still need the formality of the business aspect of it.

[Heather]

A lot of times Heather says how you. How you get them is how you keep them. So if you make dramatic posts like, can you believe someone in a local community group said this to me about something I made. You're bringing people to the drama and you are going to get a lot of engagement from it. Because we love drama.

[Cory]

We love it. I love to read it. I hate to follow.

[Heather]

It's a hard content bucket to fill because it's constantly being empty.

[Cory]

Yeah. So if you. If you build a content bucket based off of drama, it will easily do best. But it'll be hard to maintain. And then when anything ever goes wrong, those people will turn just quickly on you. So I would say away from dramatic content as far away as possible.

[Heather]

And I would say that slow Growth of these more consistent, approachable content pillars. While you're not getting the drastic comment section.

[Cory]

50 chairs in two minutes. It's the safest bet.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

If you. You post a lot of content and it gets angry, reacts to me, you're going in the wrong direction again. Your business, how you want to run it is up to you. I just wonder if you'll still be in business in a couple years. Okay, back to the behind the scenes to get to know me. I'm sorry. Corey does this one. It does. Again, these are the farthest rum baking. But you can tie it in like Corey did with her caption. Because every sale goes to sending her kid to private school. She said she's thankful for her spouse, and she ties it in. So her husband's a police office. I think he took a picture of him eating a sandwich and it said, hey, I know some of you guys when you come to pick up your orders. You have met my husband Nate. You know, he's so supportive of the business. Here's him eating a sandwich. Like, just. It's still about cooking.

[Heather]

You can tie it in.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

I would say just sprinkle those throughout the year. Not necessarily. Like, you're like once a week. Yeah, once a week. That's a lot. That's a lot to ask.

[Cory]

So just because you can have a bucket doesn't mean you have to pull into it in order. You can say, okay, I have. My meme. Bucket's gonna be a once a week or once every two weeks. My behind the scenes gonna be once a week.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

My get to know me is going to be once a month.

[Heather]

Quarter is what you had said.

[Cory]

Yeah. So just because the bucket's there doesn't mean you have to. You have to pull from it. But you'd want to pull from it.

[Heather]

I love on National Dog's Day to share a picture of my dog because my dog is constantly looking at people pick up these cookies, and I'm like.

[Cory]

Sorry, my dog right there. People are gonna be like, I don't want to admit I have a pet, and this is up to you. And some bakers love to put the animal away. Some bakers are not allowed to have animals. It's cottage law specific thing. But Corey's dog would die if he couldn't stare at you walking up. So she's like, I like to incorporate.

[Heather]

Him a little bit.

[Cory]

So instead of pretending he doesn't exist at all, she does it in this, like, National Dog Day feature. And I think she actually turns them into a couple Cookies.

[Heather]

I've turned them into cookies. On National Dogs Day, I'll ask people to post the picture of their pets in the car.

[Cory]

That always does well.

[Heather]

That does very good.

[Cory]

So again, your own personal approach. These are just ideas. I could use a Frank Day. Meet the baker. These ones always do real solid. Again, once a quarter, a picture view and a cookie. A lot of people invest in getting photo shoots done. You can barter with a photographer saying, I'll give you cookies for your event if you give me headshots. Bring them into your kitchen. And they do really, really well. Because everyone wants to know. They did a study. I think it's called a heat map on a website where they track where the mouse clicks go and the eyes go.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

So they're reading people's eyes to see where they're at. And they said whenever there's a face, the eyes naturally go to the face. So it just is really a marketing free space. I know it's so obnoxious to post selfies.

[Heather]

It is. You really. I hate photos of myself. Right. But it is so nice to be able to connect with people.

[Cory]

I like seeing it.

[Heather]

To see a face behind the. The brand. It's easy to get mad at a logo, at a brand name, at someone you've never met.

[Cory]

Personal target is a bulldozer. Yeah.

[Heather]

So you can be like, oh, Target didn't give me my money back. But if you could see my face and like, she looks pleasant most of the time, then you're less likely to get lambasted in a group.

[Cory]

And it's just that method of connection. Like, I've seen this person before when I pick up my cookies and I like this person and I want to support this person. That content bucket will do really well if you feel. If you've taken a bit of a hiatus, picture of yourself. So always going to perform the best. Yes. I'd say go. The higher quality that photo, the better it will.

[Heather]

Yeah. I will swear that's something that's an investment in your business. I think it's great. It could live on your website, on your about you page.

[Cory]

Very nice. They're very useful, usable photos. And then people just really like those family events. So here's an example that Corey had. Our grandmother tripped last year and broke her wrist or something. I. I think it was actually just a ligament injury, but Corey made a funny set of cookies for my grandmother and then took a picture with her and then explained the thing. It was nothing about sales, but it very much incorporated two content buckets. A set Corey was capable of doing. I think it was funny. It was like. It's just like playing words, right? Yeah.

[Heather]

Like sorry you about your tibia and it'll tibia. Okay.

[Cory]

Something really funny. But it's a picture of our grandmother who's adorable and 85 and people are like oh that's their grandmother. That's so fun. And she's holding a cookie. And then Corey said oh, my grandmother tripped and I thought this would be fun. So again that's a get to know me but still circling back into cookies.

[Heather]

And that wasn't a professional photo. That was snapped with an iPhone.

[Cory]

Yeah, you and Cory and I talk about all the time professional photo. Who doesn't love a professional high end photo? But.

[Heather]

But sometimes something is relatable about an iPhone photo and I think it's because we're all taking photos with our iPhones. Except for you Android folk out there.

[Cory]

Sorry, your potatoes. Yeah, come here. Bring me my Idaho.

[Heather]

Sometimes a quick snap of behind the scenes. I do think a very non staged iPhone photo is great.

[Cory]

It's almost a content bucket. A high end stage photo and low end phone quality photo and they'll both perform uniquely differently. What? Like if you kind of think this I wouldn't take a really high end photo of my delicious meal and then lambast the restaurant. No, I would. If you wanted to do like a restaurant review and had a bad experience, take the cell phone photo. That's gonna match better with I didn't like this. So just kind of think of what lines up there. Now the next. So we have memes behind the scenes get to know me set features. Now this goes back to where most of us naturally find ourselves. This is probably the most posted from content bucket for everybody. Sometimes when people are like I just can't get reach or I can't get sales, I can find that they've only sat in this bucket. Yeah, not for any. They followed everything got great copy. They're using hashtags on Instagram but just enough they're engaging in the comments. They're harding their own posts. Right. They're doing everything right. But this is the only bucket they speak from. And it gets really that one sided weather.

[Heather]

And that goes like how we started the whole podcast. It gets boring to talk to someone.

[Cory]

Who'S constantly saying these are so cute. Yeah. But we're not buying from you right now. So we got to just. Just lay, you know, lay praise lot and honor on you.

[Heather]

I know you have to think how many people buy custom sets. Maybe one once or twice a year. So you only have two times a year that they're actually physically buying from you. So what do you do for the rest the 50 other weeks of the year to keep them engaged?

[Cory]

Right. So you're. Well, I post the other sets, but those people, they. They like to fall in the other buckets until they're ready to reveal themselves as a buyer again. So. But with the sets features, we absolutely need this to be a bucket. This could be a bucket you pull from the most as long as you're also pulling from other buckets. But this can be your standard bucket. When in doubt, Corey and I for the sugar cookie marketing page because it's pointless to post sets because we're not selling that well. Our. Our foundation guy is a meme. A baking. It is. But this one would probably be my recommendation for a cookie or. So Corey had posted an interesting set. It was inspo with versus what they got. And it was like somebody saying, I want this color palette, but I want this set. And then Corey turned it into that. Or somebody said here's my invitation. And Corey turned it into that. And I think someone had a kid's book and he turned into a. So I thought that one did really well because it goes back to what your capabilities are. It's not so much sales, but it shows what you're able to do.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

Here's what I made this week. The lowest hanging fruit.

[Heather]

Well, it's the.

[Cory]

But it has to be there.

[Heather]

It does.

[Cory]

Right? Again, this is where I'd work in the other marketing things we talked about, like better captions, more interesting captions, better photography. This is where that's going to rely heavily on those other skills to make this content worth it.

[Heather]

Yeah. And you need some sales posts within there. When people tag your business in a Facebook comment and those silent clickers go click over your page, we just don't want them to have to.

[Cory]

Like, they shouldn't be all memes, it shouldn't be all selfies or what you can do. It should be a majority of sets. And those other things are supporting us to create more interesting and diverse content. But again, these set features are the go to.

[Heather]

It's your bread and butter. That's what's going to make you the money. We're surrounding those with high engagement posts so that when you do post those sales or look at me, here's what I can do for you, you're more apt to get more comments on that because people have commented before.

[Cory]

You see this as like a comprehensive strategy. When All Married Together creates a better platform for these set sales when it's.

[Heather]

Not Married Together and you only choose one bad strategy.

[Cory]

Set features. Corey had one said feature different products. So her big thing was she's only posted cookies because that content performs well. But now people don't realize she does macarons because she doesn't post that content because it doesn't performs well. So nobody orders it. So you see, it's this cyclical thing.

[Heather]

So I'm like, oh, don't you want to post stuff that gets more engagement, more comments?

[Cory]

Okay.

[Heather]

That's usually custom cookies. Okay. But I do sell macarons. I haven't sold a ton, but so.

[Cory]

Then in a little. How to make macarons more interesting. Better photography.

[Heather]

Yeah. And flavor profiles, things like that.

[Cory]

Sprinkles, red one. A lot of sprinkles on. Or those towers. They make that aesthetic. Right. So Cory's like, yeah, I got a little too heavy into cookies. I noticed my macaron sales lowering. And someone's like, I didn't even know you did it. Yeah. Cory's like, oh, that's my indication to go back to that sub bucket of set features to pull up. So she was posting sourdough and. Which is a little departure from your typical that you like the sourdough.

[Heather]

I'm enjoying it. It brings my joy.

[Cory]

Brings you joy. Does it bring sales? We don't know. Commercial client bio. So we were going through Corey's page and she had sold to a yoga studio. She posted the cookies from the yoga studio. But give us gives us a bio about this studio where you can find them. Who contacted her. They had a big event.

[Heather]

It was their two year anniversary. So I said what you could expect at the event.

[Cory]

Again, the copy being more interesting, the content still saying, hey, these are where. I think she put them on Eddie as well and did them last minute real quick.

[Heather]

The point for that post is I want that local yoga studio to share that post to their page so then I can tap into their audience.

[Cory]

So great. Corey's tagging the yoga studio. It's like says mixing bowl is at yoga. Yeah. She's giving us information in the caption to sell that company. In return, that company's going to want to share that content.

[Heather]

If I posted about that company and I was like, I can make your corporate cookies and if you're a yoga studio, contact me today. They're not going to share it, but if I can take myself out of the equation myself sales, I technically want to reach their local audience because they are hyper local. To me. They're just a hop, skip and a jump away. So if I can take the. I can make your corporate orders and just say, hey, look at this amazing studio right down the road.

[Cory]

Here's what they offer, here's the franchise. So imagine how many other yoga sixes are following this Yoga 6 and would also. And I think that's a great way to kind of monkey bar from one commercial client to many.

[Heather]

Right. And if they share it, odds are other yoga studios are following that.

[Cory]

They're going to. Yeah, we all like to see what neighbors doing another. Oh yeah. So that was set features. That's more of like those. Here's what I'm baking, here's what I'm working on. You know, like we say thanks to me for turning to sales posts. Like going right for this. Now. I did separate this as its own bucket where it's directly a sales post. I needed to commercial clients hire me. Christmas is coming.

[Heather]

My DIY kids. I hate having those boxes left over at the end of the season because then you have to hold on to them, especially if they're themed boxes. So my sales last week was like, I have this many DIY kits. I need you to buy this many DIY kits.

[Cory]

So we separated set features, which I see a lot of bakers do like. Oh, Timmy, thanks for turning to again. I challenge you to be better at copy and photography for those. But the sales posts are like, you get your wallet out, get some money, hand it to me and I'm gonna hand you.

[Heather]

That's where pre sales fall in there.

[Cory]

Yeah, we have customs classes, DIY kits.

[Heather]

Things that have an expiration date, like a class ticket. That's gonna. You're gonna have to get people in there.

[Cory]

Vendor expos. Here's the vendor show, here's where you'll find me. Here's what my booth number is. So these are pretty direct. These are kiosk level posts. Like it's important that we have them. Right. We can't just dance around asking for the sale.

[Heather]

I know some people are dancing around and you, you're like. But your content buckets are dancing around it. It's dancing around it till you need.

[Cory]

It to lob the one that says buy from me.

[Heather]

And the point of these content buckets is to build up the engagement, the reach for those sales posts. That's really the strategy behind it is one, creating engagement for people who aren't ready to buy from you or have bough now are in the sleeper mode.

[Cory]

Right.

[Heather]

I'm not going to buy from you. But it's to really get as much reach. The thing is, you have to realize the more you engage with the page, the more that page shows up in your newsfeed.

[Cory]

So we go to the pumpkin patch yesterday, right? They have one of those, it's called a Smurl, like counter S M I I R L. I think they're from France. We actually bought one. They're way overpriced. Don't even recommend it. The thing startles me all the time. What you do is you connect this counter, this likes counter to your social profiles. And the concept being that when you're standing in line at checkout, which is exactly what I was doing, Archer sees the Facebook logo and it says, if you want to watch this counter change, go like our page. Archer's begging Corey. She's like, absolutely not. I have a 10 pound pumpkin in my hand. Arch is like, yeah. Can you do it? Yeah. So I bring it out. We're just staring at it, and then it counts up my like. Yeah. And so that the gimmick worked. Yeah. The line was long enough that we could all liked it. They had. They had like tons of likes from this. They did, yeah. So then for the next two hours, Facebook's testing that content and shoving in my face. You guys can actually check out the produce stands called Nahla's Produce. They have amazing content buckets. So every morning, whoever's in their social media will hit their various content buckets. Throwback Thursday. This produce stand's been there for 60 years. Then it will do best times to come to avoid traffic because we live in such a populated area. And then it will feature some facts about some of the pumpkins. I don't know what a peanut pumpkin was. Yeah, it's a pumpkin so full of sugar, it creates little issues on his outside, but it means he's delicious. Right?

[Heather]

And they're not selling in every.

[Cory]

Every single post, in fact. And then they'll. They'll sprinkle in. Hey, we're having a sale on this produce set we have for this week. So it was a great bio of, like, content buckets and how well it.

[Heather]

But then you said it showed up in your feed constantly for the next few hours.

[Cory]

And I was like, well, this is super interesting because they have a pumpkin. It's called Large March. Yeah. Large margin. It's a 1400 pound pumpkin, right? And they're saying, hey, we're gonna rename Large Marge. Everyone vote for the name change. And I was like, oh, that's really interesting content. So I was reading what all the names were. Then Facebook's like, well, you expanded that comment section. Here's something else.

[Heather]

So what they're doing and this you'll see. If you join a new Facebook group, if you like a new page, they're gonna throw that content from you. It's trying to see if you'll engage with that content or if some. That'd be something you scroll by. If you scroll by that content, it'll be less and less than your feedback. Same is happening to you when people go and like your page.

[Cory]

Right. So they're going there. And if. Let's do. Let's say you're like my set. I did. Thank you, Timmy. Thank you, Timmy. Thank you, Timmy. Thank you, Timmy. Right. Then you're the people are like, well, this is what I expected. It's not what I didn't expect. But when I went to Nalls, I was expecting like, our pumpkin hours are today from 10 to 6. But instead I got large Marge, I got a pumpkin. Fact I got. They shared somebody's photo. There's a potbelly pig that meanders through there. A cat.

[Heather]

You saw pig? Yeah, he was there.

[Cory]

No way. How did I miss him?

[Heather]

He was by where I parked.

[Cory]

No way.

[Heather]

Yeah, he was away from the.

[Cory]

There's also a pet chicken and a pet cat that meow. And this is what the page is telling. So I'm like, wow, this is so neat. It's telling us about the history. So you can see all these content buckets really captured me after. I liked the page.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

Did I engage with the page?

[Heather]

Yes.

[Cory]

Did it start showing me even more? Never known as much of the produce stand as I do now. So that is what this is. So we have memes behind the scenes. Get to know me set features, direct sales posts. And then this one. This one's actually Cory and I have been testing it. Prompt posts. So posts that are questions without images. I know. Risky click. Because you always do. Have you seen Preached and preached and pick for attention. So a lot of times in the algorithms, it seemed like questions or comments. Text only posts performed poorly because there was no. They call them creatives. There was no picture. There was nothing to catch your attention.

[Heather]

When you were scrolling by.

[Cory]

So a lot of times people will say pick for attention or p. Pfai.

[Heather]

Pick for attention.

[Cory]

Attention. Oh, pfa. Yeah. People be like, what is pfa? Pfi. What does PFA mean? Pick for attention. Meaning, hey, here's a question unrelated to the picture, but I would need Pick for attention because I just need an answer. But on pages, Pages specifically is where we're testing this. It seems like asking a text question does really well. So you. You were testing it.

[Heather]

I said on a scale of 1 to vary. How weird would it be to show up to trick or treating with my Christmas tree up.

[Cory]

Right. So again, she posts this on her baking page. It has nothing to do with baking at all. It has to do with putting up a Christmas tree too soon. Right. Which is triggering to a lot of people.

[Heather]

It's so controversial.

[Cory]

It is. For some reason.

[Heather]

And the post wasn't worded in a controversial way.

[Cory]

No, it was worded in a humorous way.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

So people listen. People humorous replies.

[Heather]

People like, oh, my goodness, Dewey makes you happy.

[Cory]

Because Cori has cultivated her audience through positivity. Again, if you cultivate your audience through drama, those types of posts will perform dramatic and not probably to your favor. So prompt posts. You'll see that if you go to the sugar cookie marketing Facebook page, not the group, I've been testing this. So I said, besides vanilla, what's your number one bestseller or what mixing mixer make and model have you been using?

[Heather]

The reason why you wouldn't say to other people, what's your mixer make model? The problem is sugar cookie marketing is followed by bakers.

[Cory]

So you can ask, kind of think of your target audience.

[Heather]

So think of your local audience. Like if you're have a local pumpkin patch that's super popular, how many people are going to so nalls pumpkin patch this year? Something that's super relatable to your audience that they can really connect to. Not every time will this post pop off.

[Cory]

No.

[Heather]

Sometimes you're like, I'm talking to myself.

[Cory]

Sometimes you'd be like, I feel like deleting, but it does really well. So I'm going to just go through some kind of the content buckets. I pulled up the sugar cookie marketing pages. You guys are free to look up and like, you have. Let's package and order a video. Did pretty. Okay.

[Heather]

Did pretty. It didn't do great.

[Cory]

I did Happy Thanksgiving. Canadian cookies.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

Because you guys have your Thanksgiving so darn early. You're like, tricker. Happy Thanksgiving. Then we did a vendee blendy insider info video. So again, video text post. Corey did another video. Videos seem to be the flavor of the month, but I'm seeing a little shift.

[Heather]

I want to say videos are still popping off on Instagram. Not so much on the pages.

[Cory]

I do my weekly countdown. Worst bucket. Everybody like it? Yeah. Some people it's been shared two times whereas my behind the scenes vendibly anything didn't get shared at all. So it's hitting these different types, audience types within your thing.

[Heather]

You would think Heather sharing the behind the scenes vendee blendy insider info that's not going to get shared a lot because it's so niche to people who are in the sugar cookie marketing group.

[Cory]

But the countdown to holidays get shared by cook years because they want their audience to experience that fomo. So you can kind of see that these buckets are going to hit different parts of that audience. But when you get to the sales bucket it'll hit more people.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

So prompt post polls. People love to vote. They do. Candy corn is going to low hanging fruit. Post it now. I can already feel the defrosting of that. Wendy put up the Christmas tree image that always goes viral. I'll be tuning that one up soon. Yeah. Don't we have it?

[Heather]

I'm sure we do. Yeah.

[Cory]

No, I have it. But does one include Halloween by Halloween?

[Heather]

I think so.

[Cory]

The options determine when you post it. Yeah, that's true. Then about town questions. Okay, this is a little deviation from baking but like hey guys, it's my anniversary. So again we're hitting kind of get to know me. What's your favorite local restaurant to celebrate? Yeah, that is a big departure. Now we're getting real personal here. And that's why I'd use these sporadically. But it allows your audience because who's gone to a restaurant? A lot of people.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

That will be get high engagement and.

[Heather]

You could do a double for that one. You go to one of the restaurants that was listed, take a photo of you and your spouse there and that's a get to know me. Here's my spouse and tag the other business.

[Cory]

Yeah, thank you everyone who told me that would do really well.

[Heather]

Yes.

[Cory]

Again, we'd still be going back to the set features. We'd be going back to the sales post. We pushing our classes. We're doing behind the scenes of our baking. But then when we sprinkle in these really personal things and we get our audience involved in deciding, remember this, choose your own adventure books and you can go right or left.

[Heather]

Loved em.

[Cory]

Because we have a say in how the book ends. I died constantly.

[Heather]

The thing is when someone likes a page and they have no say in what they're sitting in for, it's boring.

[Cory]

It's boring.

[Heather]

But the more you can incorporate them their opinions.

[Cory]

Think of NAL's produce. It's selling pumpkins Buy my pumpkin. Buy my pumpkin. Pumpkin, you can turn around. Where's my baby pumpkin? I got one yesterday. I don't know where you put them, but you can turn around and say, can we see pictures of the pumpkins you've decorated?

[Heather]

Yeah, that's a great one.

[Cory]

Right? So it's again getting the audience, but it's still about there. But it's pretty departed. Like they've already bought the pumpkin. The sale has been made, but we're bringing them back in. Again, we have another one. Value content. Now, I posted this to Corey's local page. We went to that pumpkin patch. What great content. I said, here's everything you need to know about this pumpkin. Barely patch lots of traffic. Parking's hard, but it's directed. Don't bring your pets you're not allowed to.

[Heather]

Older kids will be disappointed by the play area.

[Cory]

There's tons more than just pumpkins that they're selling. So we did this kind of bio on there. But it adds value because again, who are we selling to this hyperlocal content. Now, if your entire page was just about town content, I'm going to think you're a real estate agent.

[Heather]

Yeah. Yes.

[Cory]

You need to keep baking being the primary and the secondary buckets support the baking.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

One, huh? Right.

[Heather]

Me and Heather are making a lot about town content for that local group. But I'm not cross posting that to my page as much because I don't want to be seen as this just.

[Cory]

Food critic, pumpkin critic, pumpkin patch raider, so that. But Corey will post the photo of her and Arch to that page that we took at the pumpkin patch. And I bet you she'll tag the pumpkin patch.

[Heather]

Absolutely.

[Cory]

Because there's that chance that somebody says, oh, I love nahl. Even my mom commented we have a insta thing going on. So I posted and mom's like, is that nahls on Beulah Street? Yes, mother, yes. The only nulls around link to my three followers on Instagram. Yes, it is nulls. And then finally we have the last content bucket. Again, you can have more or less than these, but these are things that we find really work for us is giveaways. Cory, now you're like a contest. No, no, actually Corey's tested giving away family recipes. Right. We've always made these cookies called haystacks.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

And we're not the ones to invented them.

[Cory]

No, but it's like what Lo mein noodles?

[Heather]

It's lo mein noodles, butterscotch and chocolate.

[Cory]

I mean, really, it's a three recipe. I hate the Cashew make it cheat. But Cory's like, my family loves these. And here's a recipe if you wanna use them, which I have a cute photo of these haystacks, which are the world's ugliest cookies, but they're so delicious. And then she'll give away that recipe. I think you did it with some.

[Heather]

Kams had a recipe that I made.

[Cory]

A chocolate chip cookie.

[Heather]

So again, the recipe I really liked and tagged the recipe developer so they could go straight to the link.

[Cory]

It was a free recipe. She wasn't giving away some paid product. Yeah, but you can do giveaways in that capacity. Which. Okay, saying here's my grandmother's recipe is also from the behind the scenes bucket. It's about baking, but in a way that now your audience can make these like haystack cookies.

[Heather]

But you're probably like, no, I want them to buy from me. Here's the thing, not everyone's gonna be buying from you all the time. So how can you keep them engaged age when they're not something is easy at haystacks, which I don't even offer. I just eat them. That's something easy for me to gift too.

[Cory]

Didn't you put peanut butter blossoms out there? Which is awesome. Again, these are recipes. Everything's gotten from home and garden years and years ago. Contest. You don't run a ton of contests. But when we do, they do well, Again, be very cognizant of spam.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

When you post a contest giveaway in the top right corner of that post say, who can comment? Established followers only immediately change that. You know, it's funny, on the sugar cookie marketing page, I've been doing those prompts and people are like, I use a Bosch mixer, right? Universal something. And then like, probably a week later it'll happen so fast. And I know it's a bop, but it'll be like, hello, miss, I've been looking for the love of my life. And I feel like megamy. Like, if you've been romantically propositioned on a sugar cookie marketing post, you're entitled to financial conversation. But it happens so funny. But I have to go and change that setting. And it happens delayed. Almost like. Like I don't have to like, what post is this possibly on giving away free cookies. Free free baked items really brings it back to the content. Corey will do that.

[Heather]

If I do like your do your pre sales, you make those about a month in advance. People still want free stuff. They don't care if they're eating Halloween in July.

[Cory]

They love Free stuff.

[Heather]

But that can help you one not waste anything to give away.

[Cory]

To ask a part of your audience that really likes free stuff. And there's people who like to pay and there's people who like free. They're different people.

[Heather]

I like to ask for a review if I give away something free. Nothing's free in this world.

[Cory]

So let's go through our buckets again. Memes behind the scenes. Get to know me. Set features, sales posts, prompts and polls and then giveaways.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

And that is a really.

[Heather]

That's a really healthy recipe.

[Cory]

So you could say, well, I post five times a week. Am I supposed to post from each of these buckets? Consider where you can post is also part of this strategy. So let's say I post a meme to my feed, but a behind the scenes video to my reels.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

I've hit two buckets and I've hit two types of content that triggered two different types of audiences. Corey loves watching stories on Instagram. I never watch stories on Instagram.

[Heather]

I just go.

[Cory]

We just really watch. That's the point.

[Heather]

If something catches me. Sometimes people are sharing their posts.

[Cory]

Yeah, that was at the beginning.

[Heather]

That's not what I signed up for.

[Cory]

Behind the scenes and stories and reels go really well together.

[Heather]

Yeah. If you're talking in your stories, I will stop and listen.

[Cory]

Yeah. You know a great one and I know everyone hates this one is going live. You can do it on. Isn't it Post kind of the stories area. Where do Instagram lives live?

[Heather]

You can do on your feed, but they don't have to live on your feed.

[Cory]

Right. So that one man talk about behind the scenes there. Behind the scenes can also be a cookie decorating video. I know a lot of people are getting into that with their kids.

[Heather]

My behind the scenes that I like to do. The problem with cookie decorating videos is it's asmr. So a lot of times it lands in the feeds of people who just like to watch it.

[Cory]

I'm really into people cracking soap bars.

[Heather]

I know. And that's. You're not buying them.

[Cory]

I know, but I like to hear that.

[Heather]

I like to do me packing my DIY kits. That really shows people like, oh my goodness, look how much is going into the DIY kits.

[Cory]

The get to know me. These ones are great. If you're feeling like your page is lagging or if you took any kind of hiatus, you don't need to say, guys, I'm back. I know you took a break or I know he shut down. You can just say hey babies is me and reintroduce myself again. Keeping that content kind of you holding a cookie, holding a rolling pin. Stuff like that really is like, oh there's my baker versus you know. Huh. Was this just a random lady?

[Heather]

You're gonna see me a random lady with a random son in front of a pumpkin wall.

[Cory]

Right? So that is Corey. She wants to bring it back into that really is behind the scenes kind of you know when kid and stuff. And then you can do like thankful for my spouse because you see them when you pick up cookies. But people really like to see spouses. I do too.

[Heather]

I love seeing inside your families.

[Cory]

I love it. I love it.

[Heather]

I want to sit at your dinner table.

[Cory]

Invite me over visually set features again. Here's what I did inspowors is what they got. Here's what I made this week. Hey guys, here's a macaron set I did. And then the sales post, buy my macaroni. Yes. You know really that's the one that this all kind of supports. We don't want it. It'll be. If I looked at your page, I should see 80% of that content should be having a cookie somewhere in it. A cookie or a baked product, whatever you're selling. 20% of that can be, you know that about town stuff. 20% can be like involving the kid, the husband, the dog day, things like that. But 80% of it should be cookie centric or product centric.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

And the sales post should be just go right to it.

[Heather]

You might be saying, well girls, what you just said 20% is what sales. And you just did 80%. Everything but the sales.

[Cory]

Here's the thing.

[Heather]

You have to think how often you post. I try to aim for two to three times a week. So if Heather's scrolling from one week of content, one needs to be like buy this then one a meme one a prompt post. You know, if you posting once a week.

[Cory]

Well let me, let me expound on it because it's a great point. 80% of your content needs to be cookie ish. 20 needs to be like around the cookie. So you posting a picture of Archer going to school. Not cookie related at all. Your caption though brought it back into cookie ish.

[Heather]

Yeah but if you didn't read the.

[Cory]

Caption, you'd be like you didn't read the caption. So I'm going to say that falls in the 80%. The 20% is national dog day. Let me see a picture of your dog. If the dog's not Turned into a cookie. That's completely unrelated to baking. It's about yourself. The meme about the northern lights. That's the 20%.

[Heather]

True.

[Cory]

Did well because it was locality. So 80% of the content is cookie centric. But it falls within either of these. So that's your sales post. You're selling your classes, you're selling your customs. You're selling your DIY kits. You're saying, here's how to order. You're saying I have this many left.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

Order by closing sales. These are just that. Hey, I'm not here to mess around. I need your money.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

Then prompt posts, polls and stuff like that. About town questions of value added content. Here's the best. Corey had a great example. Best haunted houses in the neighborhood.

[Heather]

People love those.

[Cory]

I can see in that group. If you read group. If you're always wondering what content could I make that's value added. Go to a group and see what the questions are.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

People are saying, does anyone know where the houses are locally? I can drive my kid past if somebody created a map.

[Heather]

And very hard to do.

[Cory]

Very hard to. A lot of work in that. If you created a map of the best haunted houses to drive by on.

[Heather]

The third, someone has made an interactive map for the best Christmas lighthouses.

[Cory]

Does really well. A lot of work.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

A lot of work. A lot of work each year. List of pumpkin patches. I did that one.

[Heather]

Yeah. Apple orchards. Yeah.

[Cory]

Pyos. Pick your owns.

[Heather]

Pick your own.

[Cory]

Paint your own. See your bell and then giveaways. Recipe giveaway contest. Free cookies and stuff like that. Hits a lot of your targets.

[Heather]

Yeah. And the reason why we wanted to.

[Cory]

Bring this back into play.

[Heather]

A lot of times we're seeing people come. I'm not making any sales. I'm posting all the time. What am I doing wrong? And you're not necessarily doing anything wrong. It's just you dwindled down the attention span of your audience and we need you to create more engagement so you can end up in those feeds more often. So you ne. Not necessarily you're selling on a page that sells stuff that's not wrong. But when you're like, I don't know.

[Cory]

I'm never getting comments.

[Heather]

No one's sharing my stuff. I'm the only person liking my own stuff. That's what we see most common. That's that people are frustrated with. So incorporating some of these strategies can help resuscitate a page that maybe has fallen out of feeds. It's not an overnight thing you might post. When are you putting over your Christmas tree and your mom comments tomorrow. And you know what? That's one more comment than you had yesterday.

[Cory]

You reply to your mom right now. You tell her, thank you so much, I'll help you put it up.

[Heather]

So you have to come with it with strategy, but come with it with patience as well. If it was all overnight, we'd all be doing it making bazillions of dollars. It's not. So just start incorporating that. Asking your friends and family, maybe if you know another cookier that you're friends with, hey, can you comment and say you're promoting your tree up in two days so I can comment back to you? Those are ways that you can kind of build this up and kind of give it a healthy start versus just being like, well, that didn't work.

[Cory]

Yeah, really focus on this. I think this is an untapped strategy for a lot of people who are doing really great photos and really great captions and they're like, why am I not getting traction? It's not cuz you. It's not cuz you're not good. It's cu. You're kind of boring. And it's like the biggest compliment I can pay you because like, being boring you can fix. If you're bad, that's a different thing. If you're boring and be like, hey, post this funny thing, take less time, do less effort and you're going to get more engagement. Sometimes when I'm talking to my husband.

[Heather]

I'll say a whole story and he'll be like, what did you say? And I'll be like, you know what? It was so boring. It wasn't worth repeating.

[Cory]

You know what, that one's just, I'm boring. I don't even. Because they were not needed. Moving on to texts. Actually got a re. A follow up. We never get a follow up to another message from an earlier podcast. Hey twins, I wanted to give a little update to you and let you know that I took your advice and won for it. I brought my Eddie to my sister's friend's wedding.

[Heather]

No way.

[Cory]

I printed photos of the guests during cocktail hour with the help of my husband who took the photos and the videos for content. Bless that husband because that was me. Good friend, me and that husband and sister.

[Heather]

You were. Yeah.

[Cory]

While there are definitely some things I would do differently next time. Same vibes as us. Overall, it was a major all caps success. Success. Tons of people took business cards and guests were obsessed with the Eddie. Some even suggested using it at a kid's Birthday parties, which I never even thought of. Thank you. And thank you for giving me the idea in the first place and encouraging me to try it out.

[Heather]

I want to say someone commented this on our Instagram when I posted our. If you don't. If you're wondering what she's talking about, I just posted a reel to our Instagram showing you this wedding vendor event where we had Eddie print. So if you want to see what it looks like, I have Heather putting it up with my husband. It was so crazy.

[Cory]

It was funny. I love that you called it a bus, because it was.

[Heather]

Someone commented, what do you do with the pictures after the event? And you know what? We had hired a photographer for that Cookie Con event, and he said, if you leave us a review, we'll send you the photos that we took. Like the whole.

[Cory]

No, he said it was genius. Yeah. He was like, here's the photos you paid for. We deleted photos we didn't think were great. But if you want those, you can buy them for $99. Or if you leave us review, I'll just give them you.

[Heather]

Right. So I thought if you wanted to. The people who would. You're going to delete those photos after because they're no value to you. You don't know anyone in there.

[Cory]

You could all.

[Heather]

You could create a package that say, hey, I'll give. I'll send you these photos for $99. Or you could do what he did and say, if you leave us a review, we'll send you all these photos that we're not going to do anything with anyways for free, because you're going to delete them, but why not maybe get a review? They're going to love the photos of whoever they know that are in there.

[Cory]

There.

[Heather]

They will want them. You know, the. The cookies have been eaten, so where can they have the photos of their fun wedding event?

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

So I thought that was a good idea to make a little package, a little dealing. Yeah.

[Cory]

If you guys want to text into the podcast, I think on most podcast players now it says send us a message. You can just click that button and it becomes a fan mail. Or you can text in 571-556-5644 and we will happily read that on the.

[Heather]

Podcast Bendy Blendy Vendee Blendy is coming up. It is. I want to tell you, the days are. The days are short, the years are shorter.

[Cory]

Thank you. I'm going to be teaching some Facebook lives. Yes, Vendi Blending. And those are coming at you faster.

[Heather]

Than one's On Wednesday, I do believe.

[Cory]

Yeah. Yeah, it is. These are. If you've experienced Vendi Blendy before or if this is your first time and you just want to know. These are really casual. I'm not going to do them for 30 minutes. Minutes. But I have one one a week until we get to the Vendee Blendy. Which means there's only five. I can't.

[Heather]

I will be tuning into everything positive.

[Cory]

So tomorrow at 6:00pm Eastern Standard Time, we're just talking about what the Vendee Blendy is, how it works. This is for somebody who's like, I do not know why you guys keep using that weird word. Yes. If you are returning, might be worth a listen again. I'm only gonna take 30 minutes. Just run through some slide decks. Kind of tell you who, what, where, when, why and how. Now the next week, the live number two, let's pre shop the Vennies. I love this. I have a list of all the vendors and their top three bestsellers. So we're gonna go find that on each of their websites. That one usually runs longer than us. Yeah.

[Heather]

Because you have a lot of websites.

[Cory]

There's a lot of websites and I'm. I'm a nosy guy.

[Heather]

You are nosy.

[Cory]

I'll even be kind of going through people's shipping options on that.

[Heather]

Oh, good.

[Cory]

So yeah, this year I collected all the shipping information that will be provided to you during the Vendee Blendy event as well. Live three the next week. Secrets to shopping. The bendy blundy. Yeah, so again we'll kind of go through focus less on the websites, more on shipping shopping thresholds and our giveaways and stuff. Things that I since I run it, I'll tell you my favorite and these will all be left in the group until the vending closes and these all get deleted unfortunately. Live for the cookie college and the vending blade. So Cory and I will be vendors as well and we like to tell you what's on sale.

[Heather]

Yeah. If you're just hearing these words and.

[Cory]

A lot of ease, you need to come to that first slide.

[Heather]

The Vendue Blendy is a a one time a year sale where we bring your favorite vendors to you at a discounted price and you get a shop for 24 hours.

[Cory]

This is our first year where the discount has been upped to 25%. Yeah, it's always been 20%. This year we said if you want to be in the Vendee Blendy, you have to offer 25 and pay a fee. It is Literally these shops paying you to buy from them. Yeah, that is exact. It is the reverse vendor expo. So you guys get it coming. There's no cost to join. You just show up. It's a 24 hour day again. I'll cover that in that Facebook Live, which is on Wednesday, which is the 17th. Oh, no, I'm sorry. 16th. That day final. Mom, it was two days ago yesterday. I'll cover that. But it's this one day event. Everything's 25 off. There's no catch.

[Heather]

No catch.

[Cory]

There is giveaways though. And you're like, what? I have to buy something? No, the giveaways are not a lot. The vendors bend over backwards to get you. Guys, guys, here's the thing.

[Heather]

It's not in the sugar cookie marketing group. It's not in the cookie college. It's not in the baking group. It is only in the Vendy blendy by sugar cookie marketing group on Facebook. No one is in there right now.

[Cory]

Except for me and Corey into our.

[Heather]

Pages and our pages. But what you want to do is go and pend right now and you'll pen till November 29. But pending guarantees, you'll get into that group and access to all the giveaways and door prizes and things like that. If you forget to get into the Vendy blending, you won't be able to see the dwarf prizes because you won't be in that specific group. So what you want to do is get on the Facebooks and you want to look up Vendi Blendy by sugar cookie marketing. It's actually called the Vendi Blendy by sugar cookie marketing.

[Cory]

How many pennies do you think we have?

[Heather]

I know it was 2,600 the other day.

[Cory]

2,714. Wow. So my goal, my goal is to have in that group on that day. And this would be. We got to 8,200 last year. I'd like to have 10,000 shoppers.

[Heather]

10,000.

[Cory]

Never seen that. But thank you so much for ruining my hopes and dreams. Absolutely never seen 10,000. Okay. All right, all right. But yeah, it is. There's no catch. Even if you're like, well, I don't want to spend any money, you can still enter those door prizes.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

And they'll all have to be an outside day because a group gets deleted at the end of the day, you.

[Heather]

Might be saying, what kind of things can I expect? I want you to sell it to me before I even go.

[Cory]

Pending Facebook lives.

[Heather]

Baking related T shirts. Yep. Love that. Food, photography, bathrooms.

[Cory]

You actually collected their Categories. I'm going to read you the categories. Sure, they had a pick from my predetermined list, but still works. Let's see. Category Baking classes and courses. That's us. Cookie cutters, Cookie cutters, Shirts and apparel. Physical baking supplies. Cookie cutters, Physical baking supplies, Cookie cutters, Physical baking supplies, Cookie cutters, Photography and staging gear. Software app Packaging Small business plan. Small business business plan. Physical baking supplies. Someone added some information here.

[Heather]

They should.

[Cory]

There's an emoji. I don't know how I got there. Christina from Bouti Makers alive. Cookie cutters, STL files, Cookie cutters, Digital downloads, Packaging, baking ingredients. Physical baking supplies, Baking supplies, Cookie cutters, Packaging packaging cutters, cutters, Gift items. Cookie cutters, Physical baking supplies supplies, Baking classes and courses. Cookie cutters, physical baking supplies, Seasonal blend seasoning with Digital downloads. Cookie cutters, packaging, baking supplies, Cookie cutters, baking supplies, Cookie cutters, baking supplies, Baking supplies, Tote bags, STL files. Baking supplies, STL files, Baking supplies, Baking ingredients, Cookie cutters, cookie cutters, ingredients.

[Heather]

Okay, what I know is going to be baking supplies and cookie cutters, baby.

[Cory]

You said, you said. I want.

[Heather]

I know, I know.

[Cory]

Baking supplies. So we have stressed this so hard and it is coming together so that first Facebook Live. You can find these all in the sugar cookie marketing group under the events tab. But I'll pin it in the main section. I'll put it in live itself. I'll remind you the day of each. I've got those posts scheduled out. But again, this all takes place in a group on Facebook called the Vendy Blendy Parentheses Sugar cookie marketing and it exists for just a 24 hours. You get in and then you're booted.

[Heather]

Get in, get out.

[Cory]

It'll be fun. Get down, get dirty. We have 55 vendors. I have a couple more I'm working on. I'm working on the door prizes. It's all coming together.

[Heather]

It's all coming together.

[Cory]

I'll have to start the announcements and they're going to come at you like the speed of light.

[Heather]

I can't wait.

[Cory]

It's my favorite part of the year. It's probably going to be just starting today and there's going to be multiple ones.

[Heather]

But tune in tomorrow. In the sugar cookie marketing group, Heather will be going live. I love when Heather goes live. They are unpolished, they are raw.

[Cory]

You're seeing behind the scenes lots of.

[Heather]

Diet Coke sipping and dripping.

[Cory]

You know, I was listening to a YouTube video and the interviewer's like, you got to love going. So take a Drink. Oh no, I'm a. You gotta take a drink. So that is tomorrow and then we'll do one. There's one week. There's no live for you guys because I'll actually be going live for the vendors and that's where we do it in the vendee blending group.

[Heather]

We gotta get them primed and ready as well.

[Cory]

Now this week also I'll be posting that harass. I mean tag the shops not in the vendors list that you'd like to see. That does really help. That got Whipsy last year. I think it got a couple of them. It did. People really went all out and for forced their hands.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

But beyond that, for these shops it is a huge marketing opportunity. I did the math. Around 4 million impressions you'd get over the entire duration of how we promote this. And that doesn't include those Facebook lives or these spam posts. Just the stuff I could calculate. So it is a great way to reach a new audience. It doubles Corey and my our email list. It grows our Instagram by thousands. So if you're thinking like well why would a vendor sign up? They have to give you a discount and pay to give you a discount because it's a huge marketing. It's by far more reach you'll ever get than a Facebook ad.

[Heather]

All of our content pillars have built the audience of what you allow our.

[Cory]

Pillars to build up your business. I actually think I'm going to start running and I did this last year. Now that you can promote groups of then blend a group ad.

[Heather]

Can't wait to have people say what is this?

[Cory]

Is this made up word? It's a blast people. If you haven't experienced it, you're going to see people say like it's a vibe. It's a vibe.

[Heather]

Heather gets crazy around 10pm Cory goes to bed.

[Cory]

I'm left to my own devices. I've been up for 24 hours and I do not stay up for 24 hours. Sometimes I watch Christmas movies, sometimes I watch Love is blind. Now tell us about the cookie college.

[Heather]

If it's going to be on the vanity.

[Cory]

Actually don't you have your cookie college Christmas class teeing up?

[Heather]

Teeing up.

[Cory]

So the cookie college actually teach a Facebook live on the cookie college in the cookie college every second Monday. So that was last night. I wish Corey chimed. Listen, I'll always be there. You said here. I said here.

[Heather]

I have always said here for the last.

[Cory]

Yeah. Did you realize you did it on last month's Live Live.

[Heather]

No.

[Cory]

Yep. Sorry. That's because you were here three weeks later.

[Heather]

I was actually in the grocery store.

[Cory]

She's here from the past. But Corey always tunes into these ever loving lives. But they're good. They're good. But anyways, so since I just taught Alive on the Face the Cookie College on Facebook, what you get is a lot. It is more than just one class. It's more than just a large grouping of classes.

[Heather]

Every time I.

[Cory]

What'd you learn yesterday?

[Heather]

82 courses. Stand up.

[Cory]

82 courses for the cookie college. But you also get everything. So you get the digital downloads. The digital downloads this. This month. Cory and I work together. This was an idea. I don't know if Stephanie sent in. She's in the college, but she's also local to us. She. She loves handy printed. Her and her husband work together. She was like, hey, I know. I see the pyos. You know the pyo screen printing. Corey always offers those as freebie photos in college. She's like, can we do Eddie ones? And I was like, oh, that's an interesting idea. Like to create the graphic as a PNG and print it on a white pumpkin and sell that. That would be the fastest pyo in the world. So we got an Ann Clark pumpkin cutter. I created the graphic. Corey printed, baked and flooded the cookie and printed it with Eddie. So it's a whole set to do Pyo. Eddie printed pumpkins. But they're very cute faces. I had to make those in Illustrator. Illustrator's like, girl, do you know what you mean?

[Heather]

You're like.

[Cory]

But even if you didn't have the Ann Clark cutter, I created my own pumpkin cutter that still fits the same print. So you can print that stl. It's included in the digital download this month. And also transfer sheets that matches pumpkin face. Yeah, it's a lot of little things.

[Heather]

For you, but in the college, you get all the digital downloads. Which digital downloads really? Got a revamp this year.

[Cory]

It was a snooze fest for the last three. We took our own advice. We use a defibrillator.

[Heather]

So if you signed up for the digital downloads, you get a cute business card that looks like an Instagram feed.

[Cory]

Oh, we did an email signature. We did Halloween cookie tags.

[Heather]

Ye.

[Cory]

We did the pyo pumpkins. It's been very interesting. There's some more stuff I can't remember, but very cute.

[Heather]

Better than the past years.

[Cory]

The past years were Instagram grids and people like those.

[Heather]

They did.

[Cory]

And you can still actually access those because we don't delete those. Yeah. So if you Sign up for the digital downloads. You get digital downloads since September 2021. You get all the courses in September 2021. And the cookie college, you get the baker's business foundational courses. You also get the $2 transfer club, which is. It's gotta be over 190, almost 200 transfers for two bucks. But it's included in all our memberships, actually. And then you get the cookie class kits, which is what. But I wanted to dial in. The cookie college is priced so that it makes the most sense to just sign up for that. I see a lot of people sign up for a lower tier and they say, listen, I just want it. All right, upgrade. And you can do that easily from your account. But the cookie class for Christmas drops the first week of November. So it gives you enough time to promote it.

[Heather]

It's on its way to me. But me and Heather sat down and we went over.

[Cory]

Can you. I was included in this. We created every 2025 class basket set. And the cutter designs. Yes.

[Heather]

Concepts we have to discuss February. Because I did, I wasn't happy with it.

[Cory]

It was heavy. Right.

[Heather]

Galentine's. We need a different design.

[Cory]

Not happy with mine. Yes. Okay.

[Heather]

But I'm going to read you the 2025 cookie class kits themes.

[Cory]

So keep in mind. So the January class drops December 1st.

[Heather]

Yes.

[Cory]

First week of December.

[Heather]

You'll get it the first week of this December. But it is a New Year's theme.

[Cory]

Class kits. Just to kind of tell you how the structure. The class kit membership gets this year's classes. The cookie college gets all year's classes. Yeah. So on the 1st of January, the class kits will become only 2025 classes and the 2024 classes will go to Archive.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

In the cookie college.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

Okay. February.

[Heather]

Galentine's people were excited about that one. March puppies. Because this past year we have a cat's class.

[Cory]

Cute. It's a dog class. Loved it. It was very counterpoint the dogs.

[Heather]

April, Mother's Day.

[Cory]

I thought that was good because we had done Easter and then last year.

[Heather]

We did like a springy kind of thing. Yeah. So this one is Mother's Day. May, Cinco de Mayo.

[Cory]

Fun. Cuz I think last year we did the football.

[Heather]

Yeah. I can't remember.

[Cory]

Oh no, we did. Was it St. Patrick's Day?

[Heather]

Yes, it was. Yes.

[Cory]

And the year before that? Well, actually I just pulled up.

[Heather]

I know June is going to be Father's Day.

[Cory]

I like that because we've never done these before. So last year in June we did sand and sugar.

[Heather]

We did because it was first like, like.

[Cory]

Oh, sorry. That was two years ago. So you get this in the college last year in June we did May. June grill and chill. I really like that one. Yeah, that was fun.

[Heather]

It was.

[Cory]

Okay, let's go back back to Jan because I have a. Sure, sure, sure. So what's 2025? Jan?

[Heather]

January 2025 will be New Year's.

[Cory]

January 2023 was winter warm. Yeah. January 2024 was build your own snowman.

[Heather]

I recall him.

[Cory]

Very cute.

[Heather]

February 2025, it's Galentine.

[Cory]

February 2023 was we go together Valentine's. Those are really cute. So it's like a coffee and a donut.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

February 2024 was football.

[Heather]

That was because clearly I have no.

[Cory]

Idea when the NFL is on there.

[Heather]

March of 2025 will be puppy slash dog theme.

[Cory]

Love that because we did the Cats class this year. 2023 was spring has sprung fun.

[Heather]

I love that one.

[Cory]

2024 was luck of the icing. So that was a St. Patrick's it.

[Heather]

Was St. Patrick's okay. So may will be Cinco de Mayo.

[Cory]

You skip April.

[Heather]

April, Mother's day.

[Cory]

This is April. First year was jumping and Easter, so it was very cute. Easter set. And then last year was sweet sugar singer, which is Taylor Swift. Oh yeah.

[Heather]

That was what it was. Okay. So May, cinco de Mayo, May 2023.

[Cory]

Oh, honey. It was a honey themed bear class. Very cute. And last year this year it was Congrats Grats. Oh yeah. Cuz it was the end of the year.

[Heather]

Okay. June, Father's Day.

[Cory]

June 2023, sand and sugar.

[Heather]

So it's like a pool getting ready for the this summer vacant.

[Cory]

This year it was grill and chill, which was one of my favorites. Cuz I like we did.

[Heather]

And that was like a play on Father's Day without being so direct.

[Cory]

It wasn't very direct, but it was definitely grill.

[Heather]

Yeah. So July this year we'll have Independence Day.

[Cory]

This is our first year for a.

[Heather]

And mostly just people were begged.

[Cory]

Yeah, they begged. We tried to teach on ourself years ago and never took off. But the designs are a lot cuter. 2023, it was under the sea cookies. And 2024, it's Christmas in July, which is very cute.

[Heather]

Oh, they were both very cute.

[Cory]

So now you'd have for each of these months three options. Right? I know.

[Heather]

August.

[Cory]

We've never done this one. Back to school. That's a good one. Oddly, the first year when we're doing our major holidays, we actually did Totally groovy.

[Heather]

That wasn't a major holiday at all.

[Cory]

And then this past year, which is one of my favorites, we did Sugary Shrubs, which is a plant based class that was never on baked. I think Amy came up with that.

[Heather]

Amy came up with that.

[Cory]

Okay.

[Heather]

September. This one is another begged for one. Just a generic birthday theme.

[Cory]

That's a nice free spot for private classes especially. Or if you want to, you know, that would be a private class setup. So 2023 we did fall Favorites, which is one of them.

[Heather]

I really like that.

[Cory]

And this last year we did Cat's Cats.

[Heather]

Okay. And the next three are going to be the same as this last two years.

[Cory]

The major holidays, we go back.

[Heather]

Yeah. Just because they sell the best.

[Cory]

They sell the best and we give people more elbow room. So last year or 2023, we did scary Sugar. Gobble Gobble. And Christmas. This year we did Sweet Skeletons. Thanks for cookies. And then this Christmas one, of course we're gonna Ash doesn't come out yet. So that is the cookie college. We'll be running deals on this in the Vendee Blendy. That's what you'll learn in that Facebook Live. That there's a last Facebook Live. It's a Q, a final Q and a. We just take your questions. Wait, I know Cory. I'll have a ton of them. These are really impromptu. They're really relaxed. But I'll leave them. You can re watch them because I know you love my voice. I just like listening.

[Heather]

Listening to things as I work.

[Cory]

I think we enjoy ads. You don't like listening again, so go pend in that group. There's no cost to join. You only pay less if you want to buy something. Otherwise you can enter in the giveaways of which last year I think we reached 20,000 in giveaways. $20,000 worth of stuff. And this year we're already past 10,000, I think. Nice. So it will be fun.

[Heather]

Next up, we're going to a sponsors because without them, you would not have have this podcast. First and foremost, I want to say I did see that she signed up for the Vendi Blendy Courtney post.

[Cory]

She did. Okay.

[Heather]

Thank goodness.

[Cory]

I actually got it. She overpaid. I got everything.

[Heather]

Okay, so if you wanted to know, one of our podcast sponsors is Royal Batch. It's the meringue powder that I use for my royal ice cookies. But she.

[Cory]

This is a.

[Heather]

We didn't know if she would offer.

[Cory]

25% off because this would be narrow boundaries.

[Heather]

But she signed up for the Vendy blendy. So she will be offering buying royal batch at 25 off. Here's the thing. She sells out. She's in high demand.

[Cory]

People love it.

[Heather]

People stock up. If I had to give you some Vendi Blendy insider info, you need to put that at the top of your list if that's something that you want to stock up on. She's never offered 25 off. So a lot of people who have not tried her stuff are going to try it this time. Which means people like us who use it all the time, we're going to be fine and against new users. So you want to stock up. If you're like that is stressful, I don't want to do it. You can actually score 10% off right now using the Code Twins at checkout. Oreo batch has ingredients that are already in it that typically a lot of bakers add to it. So it saves you on that. It already has vanilla food flavoring in it.

[Cory]

Tastes delish.

[Heather]

White food coloring. So it whips up bright white. None of that little off color. Yellow cream.

[Cory]

Yeah. You don't like the color of the cream?

[Heather]

I don't like my icing looking dirty. And then last but not least, it has corn syrup in it. But you can check it out. It's Royal batch by Bakety Bake. She will be in the Vendi Blendy. But if you want to score 10 off now, you can just use use Code Twins.

[Cory]

But speaking of vendors, we just had a vendor sign up. As I sit here today, sheer celebrations that Rebecca will be selling. I think she does stencils. I'll have to pull up more information here. I'm just flying a little bit blown. But I love when a vendor signs up. She's a squares website. I love to see what people use the website. So that will be fun.

[Heather]

Okay, go to our next sponsor.

[Cory]

Our next sponsor is Acor Backers which has rebranded to the Backers Co. Same great backdrops, same water resistant, food resistant, stain resistant backdrops. New fun name.

[Heather]

Yes.

[Cory]

And they are actually a vendor for the Vendee Blendy. I almost want to say she's done it every year.

[Heather]

I think she has.

[Cory]

And she, she's like 25%. I'll do 30%. She's always done 30%. It's the only day I've ever seen them run 30. They do run like quick, like clear the shelves. Discounts, but never on the whole shop. Never at 30. I know, but if you're like that, she does sell out.

[Heather]

She does people.

[Cory]

There's some like backdrops where these are like staples. Like get these, you'll use them forever. So those ones typically sell out. So if you want 20% off to ensure that you get it, you could use code code sugar cookie all caps possibly. And that'll get you 20 off which is still a huge great discount. But she is in the Vendee Blendy at 30 off.

[Heather]

Here's my strategy with this. The L brackets. I use them all the time.

[Cory]

You do. We're like some height on her.

[Heather]

Sourdough.

[Cory]

Your sourdough needed it.

[Heather]

Macaron photos and cake pop photos.

[Cory]

Here's the thing, she also has different sizes. So the smallest board I typically say cookies buy but when you're talking cakes and sourdough you're gonna have to up the screen. And that might be the. If you're thinking about getting into cakes this year or sourdough maybe get the 30% off backdrops at the larger size. Yeah but right now maybe get the 20 off of these standard sizes of the highest purchased ones that sell out.

[Heather]

I've never bought a big one so I only have the 23 by 23.

[Cory]

Which is the standard size. You never got a big one?

[Heather]

Never have.

[Cory]

I don't know how big that cake people have to operate in a bigger world.

[Heather]

Right. So I have just absolutely loved them. If you've seen a photo I've taken it's probably been on one of those.

[Cory]

Yes.

[Heather]

Love them.

[Cory]

So the backers company you still can go to aecore backers.com it'll redirect you code sugar cookie that's 20% off. They will be a vendor in the vendy blendy at 30% off. Just like post bakey bake 25% off.

[Heather]

You're going to want to put the one that you want at the top.

[Cory]

Of the list because when she sells.

[Heather]

Out there's no brain chops in my life.

[Cory]

Secrets to the Vendy blendy. I am going to tell you to wake up at midnight.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

Snag it. Midnight eastern standard time which is also known doing for the people you're probably.

[Heather]

Like oh well it's just people in the vending vendor group. The little sales page gets leaked.

[Cory]

I love it. I love it. Leak that far and wide. However that means selling them.

[Heather]

That means there's a lot of people that are buying that might not even be in the group.

[Cory]

They're just buying from that by the group. I'm hoping for 10,000 pending in the group that isn't just mean that 10,000 people in the Group who want to get the door price.

[Heather]

So you need to put your things that you need. That's why pre shopping is so smart. And Heather includes the links to pre shop shop so you can see what you is on your must have list.

[Cory]

Thevendies.com will take you to the current list of vendors but I will be making those announcement posts as well. They'll be coming at you.

[Heather]

Last but not least, we have Eddie the edible food printer. I have loved Eddie for my corporate girly era.

[Cory]

Really? Eddie and corporate girly era are a match in heaven.

[Heather]

If you have been a good person this year and Santa agrees with you, I would put put Eddie the edible printer on your wish list.

[Cory]

Maybe someone like meet me halfway. Like I'll do my half. He's $3,000. So we're not taught this in you.

[Heather]

Can do a little payment thing.

[Cory]

Like they have a lot of options is a payment plan. There's interest because you're not paying. That's fair for everybody. But it does make it more affordable. Yes, Eddie is expensive, but he pays for himself very quickly. It's one of those risk it for the biscuit, get paid back in dividends as long as you actually market it up.

[Heather]

If you heard our little voicemail fan mail thing, she's talking about bringing Eddie. She brought him to a wedding event.

[Cory]

Where'd you post that? Wedding vendor.

[Heather]

I did it on our page and our Instagram.

[Cory]

So sugar cookie marketing Facebook page and sugar cookie marketing underscore on Instagram. If you want to see how we used Eddie at a wedding expo and who that caller was like, I did the same thing. Yeah, it did really well. It was very like she said, some things I do differently. I'm saying things I do differently. But it was just a great. Yeah, it was a great attempt. I was happy to do it.

[Heather]

If you're like, you know what? I'm more of an introvert. Eddie is great for replacing any airbrush system that you might have.

[Cory]

Victoria has a bone to pick one.

[Heather]

Unfortunately, I was baking before Eddie existed and I have an ungodly amount of stencils that I hate to organize. I never go through them. I don't know what I have. I've ordered the same one 52 times. Eddie replaces that there's now because shops have become privy to Evie. Privy to Evie, pretty to Evie, Pretty to privy to Eddie. There are a lot of them are coming out with with cutter shapes and files, PNG files that you can use and just print Eddie on them. People absolutely love them. If you were Wondering when Heather was talking about the digital downloads and Eddie Print. She's created Eddie Print. So you just print on him and he is the pyo. I love Eddie.

[Cory]

I love Corey Lavin.

[Heather]

I really do.

[Cory]

Cool machine. It's a really cool machine. So you can learn more about Eddie on Eddie's Printers user group. People are like, you get 25% off.

[Heather]

No, no.

[Cory]

They. I've asked every year and they're like, I love Mark and Jen. They're like, hey, girls. Absolutely not. Not no. Still. Oh, another vending money. Still no. But if you can use the money you saved from the vending money to 25%, go to an Eddie. I think that's a great set. Moving on to Twitter. We actually have a Facebook live. It was just submitted today. Who is, you know, Bonnie Bradley. Sweet style treats.

[Heather]

I love head to death cake pops are an enigma to me. They look easy and sound easy in theory. They're not.

[Cory]

Here's her live. It is on 1025. So right before Halloween. Let me tell you what day that is.

[Heather]

1025.

[Cory]

That's nice. It's a Friday. A Friday. Cozy Fall cake pops with Bonnie. She's very comprehensive. She gives you her recipe.

[Heather]

I think the recipe she pinned the one. I actually go to it all the time. She actually taught a live before and she pinned her recipe in that event. So if you want to go find it, it's just in there.

[Cory]

This you're gonna like. So if when people submit lives, if you want to sign up to teach a live, you absolutely can. It's great. And know Bonnie actually sells the packages. But we say if you want to sell the group, teach us something. Give something for free and knowledge and then you can pitch us at the end. So she actually takes advantage of this and I love it. So I make them tell me their three talking points. This is what it is. How to create s'mores cake pop dough. Oh, dipping s'mores cake pops and then decorating a s'mores.

[Heather]

That means we're getting a s'mores recipe. So she actually does these boxes. She has a November one and a Christmas one coming out. I just did the Halloween one one. There was a whole mold in there. A whole ghosty mold in there.

[Cory]

Yeah.

[Heather]

And I made little ghosts.

[Cory]

So that'll be October 25th. I'll post about. I gotta make the event listing because I like to everyone have the information and then she usually puts in the discussion. So she actually sent me the recipe for the s'mores thing. So I'll pin that in the event. Nice.

[Heather]

Nice.

[Cory]

And so going on a twin turmo.

[Heather]

Do you have one?

[Cory]

Oh, no. I was hoping you would inspire me.

[Heather]

Oh, do I have one?

[Cory]

What have I been doing? I went got. I went and switched out. You know that old car that cost me so many problems. I recall I picked it up from the mechanic shop and you make has said as long as it's been there. Forever.

[Heather]

Didn't you just see someone had to help you jump it yesterday?

[Cory]

Yeah. So I'm sitting at Coastal Flats.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

Which has like, they're. It's a pretty neat restaurant. Their windows open up. So there's no window in front of me.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

And in front of me parks a 1957 Volkswagen Bug.

[Heather]

Oh, nice Beetle.

[Cory]

And this couple gets out and you know, they're probably around 70, 80. And this, they're just impact. This car is their child.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

And they're so excited. So I just, you know, because I'm sitting there looking at them and they're parked in front of me. I was just like, oh, you know, what's that thing on your car right there? And they bring out a leather bound Shutterfly printed book on this car.

[Heather]

Oh, they were waiting.

[Cory]

Yeah. We go through the whole book together. They end up saying, can we sit with you? So then I'm like, well, I said, that heap of junk behind you, that's me. And he was like, let me hear it start up. Of course it wouldn't start up. How embarrassing. How crazy. How embarrassing.

[Heather]

How did it already break?

[Cory]

You've had it for four days. Yeah, he'll find a way. That car said, listen, you want to teach me a lesson? I'll teach it to back.

[Heather]

So he jumped it with his old.

[Cory]

Leave that old car.

[Heather]

There's no way.

[Cory]

Yeah. The hood opens and it creates such a spectacle. And he kind of put his fingers in the wires and it turned over. I don't know. He didn't have to jump it, actually. He just helped me with it. Not before I got the restaurant involved security over to provide his. His butt. His Beetle.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

Okay. My car. Sports car, but 30 years old. It has 450 horsepower. How much horsepower do you think the Beetle had?

[Heather]

I'm Gonna Just say 336. 36.

[Cory]

He's like, I can't jump you. It'll eat my car. I said, no air conditioning. Right. 1957. He's like, absolutely not. He said, but if I had air conditioning turned on, it would feel like I was downshifting. It would eat most of the power, 36 horsepower.

[Heather]

Do I have anything to interest in.

[Cory]

My own, you know, here's my toen dress since we kind of do it. Much better. I feel like you spend money.

[Heather]

I just had one with your car right there.

[Cory]

I was not interested. I was asking what devastating mine was. These. My grandmother. Okay. When you find the right pillow, I just kind of. You enter into a long term relationship with this pillow. You protect that pillow with your life and your neck. Because that's what's on the other side of a bad pillow is bad sleep. And the problem with pillows is if you have one bad night, you have a bad month because you're not gonna. It's not gonna fix itself.

[Heather]

Right. Right.

[Cory]

Like neck pain caused by a pillow is devastating. So I saw a TikTok. I was like, do you have to turn your whole body like Batman because your neck hurts so bad? You know?

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

So Ruthanne accidentally got trapped in a YouTube funnel and finds this pillow. Of course it's linked to on Amazon. It's the funkiest shape in the world. I want to say this one's a.

[Heather]

Topic of twinteresti Capone, but it gets.

[Cory]

More interesting because it was too big. They had a small one. I got the small one. It's great. Yeah, small one is much better. Ruthann likes a big one. I like the baby one. Maybe it's because I have a giant head, but there's an ear hole.

[Heather]

An ear hole.

[Cory]

So when you get ears pierced.

[Heather]

Yes. Yeah. Because I'm making my own makeshift ear hole right now.

[Cory]

I know it's pretty good. I'm a fan. I'm keeping it.

[Heather]

I don't have a twin twist. I did nothing entertaining. I did. There was this wall cleaner.

[Cory]

Oh, you've been really into that and you won't shut up about it. It's because it's just helped. Corey got targeted in a TikTok ad, but she finds it on Amazon. A steam cleaner. What was it like?

[Heather]

It's just a heated steam cleaner thing. I hate dirty walls. I also hate cleaning them.

[Cory]

So it's a steam cleaner to clean off walls. Turns out you gotta clean your walls.

[Heather]

One time when I was very good.

[Cory]

For shower doors, I'm sure.

[Heather]

Except for I got the little paper.

[Cory]

Kind, the one that grabs your leg. When I was younger, I was went to this friend's house and his mom.

[Heather]

Was on the ground. I was like, what are you doing? She's like, I'm cleaning the baseboards. I was like, what? I said, that's what that's called. The Baseboard. She's like, once you discover that they.

[Cory]

Need to be cleaned, you'll never not see it.

[Heather]

I have never stopped cleaning baseboard. They're dust collectors.

[Cory]

But if. If a room doesn't have a baseboard, you're like what's wrong with this room?

[Heather]

But if it has baseboards, it's a.

[Cory]

Little shelf of dust.

[Heather]

A little. And that's all it's to clean it.

[Cory]

Goodbye to your lower spine.

[Heather]

Oh. And for some odd reason on a baseboard is un. Like any other destination.

[Cory]

Before you guys text in and say take a dryer sheet. I've tried that dryer sheet load of cor.

[Heather]

And if you say take a magic eraser one. I don't like to see the little pillies when you rub it and then.

[Cory]

It puts the little.

[Heather]

You have little pills of dead stuck.

[Cory]

Cuz you have to dampen giveth and take it.

[Heather]

Yeah. So the reason why I have always cleaning.

[Cory]

The melamine sponge is from Anadol.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

Melanin, melamine.

[Heather]

I have been using those sponges on the walls. It does eventually take the paint off when you've used it.

[Cory]

It's actually a very, very low grit sandpaper. That's what it actually is.

[Heather]

So eventually it will eat.

[Cory]

One time when we were in the house in Clifton.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

Or Sterling.

[Heather]

Oh, I remember this.

[Cory]

Yeah. There's an island. And it was whatever. The ch. Cheapest thing I'm confessing to these people. You know what's that? Laminate lamb in it. And it was like a weird pinkish thing. The house was probably built in the 90s.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

And I was like, well let's clean it. So we took a. This is when magic erasers first into the market with Mr. Clean.

[Heather]

And they were very expensive and we.

[Cory]

Were like really adding some friction there. And it was cleaning it right up. No, it was taking off the fence. Yeah. So we had to clean the whole thing. So it was very painful and it wasn't supposed to be.

[Heather]

But yeah. This little steam cleaner had a wall attachment cement. My back broke.

[Cory]

It's. There's no way. There's no way. It has to clean that. There's no easy way to go about it.

[Heather]

My husband came up, he's like wow, you did some good work.

[Cory]

But nobody comes in your house. Be like my goodness, the baseboards are sparkling.

[Heather]

But they would say oh my goodness, your baseboards are dusty. But they wouldn't ever notice if they were clean. And that's the depressing part about cleaning a home.

[Cory]

It never is good enough.

[Heather]

Never ending. Never noticed. Never. I said, look, honey, I cleaned off. You know, like when you enter the threshold of a home, there's a little threshold plate.

[Cory]

Oh, yeah. That's always dirty.

[Heather]

I cleaned it.

[Cory]

That's hard to do it.

[Heather]

I'm gonna be honest. I didn't even know we had one.

[Cory]

I know Ruthanne has glass shower doors. She's got a house remodel. The bottom of the glass shower door had what I consider, like, not an epoxy, but like a. Like a caulking sticky. A caulking glue to keep that. That. But I don't think that's supposed to be Ludon. According to the Internet, it wasn't. But it captured mold and mildew. I spent hours replacing it because I had to get a scraper, I had to get the liner. I had to clean this up. It was disgusting. And then I'm like. I'm, like, looking at this like as if I'm a new job as a professional remodeling plumber.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Cory]

And nobody's ever noticed, but it took so much effort to get it to look. Listen, not like any thankless job. It is true. And it has to be done. It does.

[Heather]

It's so annoying to clean. Well, gotta go clean.