217. Baking it Down - Video Marketing for Local Small Bakeries

Summary

Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪 - Episode 217: Video Marketing for Local Small Bakeries

Release Date: June 24, 2025

In Episode 217 of the Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing podcast, hosts Heather and Corey Miracle delve into the realm of video marketing tailored specifically for local small bakeries. This comprehensive discussion provides actionable insights, practical tips, and strategic approaches to help bakers leverage video content to boost their local business presence and sales.

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Introduction to the Importance of Video Marketing

Heather kicks off the episode by addressing a common pain point among bakers: the reluctance and challenges of creating videos.

Heather [00:00]: "I've gotten pummeled with asking, how do you make videos? I need to know how to make videos. I hate making videos."

Corey emphasizes the dominance of video content in today's social media landscape.

Corey [00:27]: "But I realized we're photo people living in a video."

Establishing the Necessity of Video Content

The hosts discuss the sustained importance of video over the next five to ten years, highlighting the continuous consumption of video content on-the-go and the pervasive presence of social media.

Heather [00:22]: "Right now, what's really big on social media is video content."
Corey [00:27]: "It's the only thing."

Setting Up Your Video Environment

Lighting

Heather shares her preferred lighting setup, advocating for natural light over artificial sources to enhance video engagement.

Heather [02:58]: "I get more reach, more engagement when I'm using natural lighting versus artificial lighting."

Corey explains the technical aspects of lighting, including the impact of inadequate lighting on video quality, such as graininess and noise.

Corey [05:35]: "When there's not enough light... creates something called noise. And it's very distracting."

Equipment

The discussion transitions to essential equipment, with a focus on the Canvas Lamp and the Inshot app. Heather prefers using natural light and manages lighting effectively using the Canvas Lamp for flexibility.

Heather [08:44]: "It's got so many spring systems, so it's easy to move up and down."
Corey [03:55]: "Inshot is the app I use... I probably produce 10 videos a week."

Corey also introduces the concept of using a secondary 'dummy' iPhone to manage recording without overloading the primary device.

Corey [10:44]: "What you guys don't realize is Corey is actually using an extra iPhone... it only connects to Wi-Fi."

Content Strategies for Local Engagement

Customer Testimonials

Heather and Corey advocate for transforming traditional text-based reviews into engaging video testimonials that tell a story.

Corey [14:37]: "What you want to produce is content telling people social proof... ask the client to share their experience in a narrative form."

Heather suggests adding context to testimonials by detailing the specifics of the order and the customer's experience.

Heather [15:22]: "Tell them like what the order was for, what the colors they wanted, how it ended up turning out..."

Local Event Coverage

The hosts encourage covering local events such as farmers' markets or new restaurant openings to connect with the community.

Heather [18:19]: "Real estate agents show the surrounding areas, but bakers can tell people about local happenings."

Corey shares examples of how covering local events can build relationships and enhance community presence.

Corey [19:00]: "I can only read so many reviews. Let me tell you about things to do in our area."

Storytelling in Series

Heather and Corey discuss the power of storytelling through episodic content, making viewers feel part of the baker’s journey.

Corey [20:58]: "Creating a series where people can connect with you on a deeper level more local based to you."

They highlight the importance of maintaining authenticity and relevance in storytelling to resonate with the local audience.

Heather [22:07]: "If you want to do a series about your breakup, that's very broad... connect it to your bakery business if relevant."

Behind the Scenes

Offering a glimpse into daily operations or large orders helps build transparency and trust with the audience.

Heather [24:48]: "Show them that the icing mixing each and every color took you an hour and a half."

Pre-sale QVC-style Videos

Adopting a dynamic, high-energy selling style inspired by QVC can effectively promote upcoming events or sales.

Corey [27:18]: "Pre-sale QVC style videos... high energy is what you have to maintain."

ASMR and Decorative Content

While acknowledging the appeal of ASMR and decorative videos, Heather and Corey caution against over-reliance on such content, emphasizing the need to balance with promotional material.

Corey [32:45]: "Baked decorating videos are easy but don't make them the primary content to avoid influencer territory."

Best Practices for Effective Video Marketing

Authenticity

Staying genuine in all video content is crucial for building a loyal, local audience.

Corey [37:09]: "Be authentic. Don’t lie or borrow drama from others."

Heather reinforces the importance of providing valuable, authentic content to convert views into sales.

Heather [38:01]: "Your post has to be concise and answer a question... capture that attention, I can turn those local views into local sales."

Captions and Call to Action

Effective use of captions can enhance video engagement by providing essential information and reinforcing messages.

Corey [38:04]: "Make sure your caption has the date, time, how to sign up... optimize for it."

Both hosts stress the importance of including clear calls to action to guide viewers towards desired outcomes, such as attending classes or visiting events.

Heather [40:27]: "Hey, my pop up is tomorrow at 10am... Save this video so you can come back to it later."

Vertical Video Optimization

Prioritizing vertical video formats ensures better visibility and engagement on mobile-centric platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.

Corey [40:57]: "Optimize for vertical video... Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook."
Heather [41:10]: "Take up more of the screen when it's vertical... make sure you are a distance away from your camera."

Overcoming Common Challenges

Heather and Corey address common hurdles such as camera shyness, the learning curve of video production, and maintaining consistency. They advocate for practice and gradual improvement.

Corey [45:25]: "Find the objective, stay the course. Practice makes perfect. You're going to hate it, but find."

They also discuss the balance between creating engaging content and avoiding burnout from constant video production.

Heather [47:27]: "Stay the course and practice... incremental growth is solid."

Conclusion and Key Takeaways

The episode wraps up with a reinforcement of the strategies discussed, emphasizing the importance of authenticity, strategic content creation, and leveraging local connections through video marketing. Heather and Corey encourage bakers to experiment, stay consistent, and continuously refine their video marketing approaches to effectively engage their local audiences.

Notable Quotes

• Heather [00:22]: "Right now, what's really big on social media is video content."
• Corey [05:35]: "When there's not enough light... creates something called noise. And it's very distracting."
• Corey [14:37]: "What you want to produce is content telling people social proof..."
• Heather [38:01]: "Your post has to be concise and answer a question... capture that attention, I can turn those local views into local sales."
• Corey [45:04]: "Hook development help, you can use AI or find these."

Final Thoughts

Episode 217 serves as a valuable guide for local small bakery owners looking to harness the power of video marketing. By focusing on authentic storytelling, effective use of technology, and strategic content creation, Heather and Corey provide a roadmap for bakers to enhance their online presence, connect with their community, and drive sales through engaging video content.

Transcript

[Heather]

Welcome to the Baking it down with Sugar Cookie Marketing podcast. We are your host, Heather and Corey, and each week we bring you a little marketing nugget and know how that you can take into your business. And this one you are going to want to hear because I've gotten pummeled with asking, how do you make videos? Well, I need to know how to make videos. I hate making videos.

[Corey]

But I realized we're photo people living in a video.

[Heather]

Yeah, we are that. Right now, what's really big on social media is. Is video content.

[Corey]

Sorry, it's not what's big. It's the only thing.

[Heather]

It's the only thing. So there are some marketers out there that said, right now, video is big, but it's not just big now. It'll be big for the next five to 10 years. People are consuming content while they're on the go, and people are chronically on social media. So if they're always on the go and always on social media, they want to hear, they want to listen, they want to see.

[Corey]

And aside, do you think the scroll hamster wheel of life has diminished your ability to stay focused?

[Heather]

For sure, for sure. I was actually listening to TikTok while I was baking the other day and I scrolled up on the flour on accident.

[Corey]

I am not built for this one. Okay.

[Heather]

But I love to consume video. So a lot of bakers are like, you guys were preaching. Photos are great. Photos have been great. Photos will still be great. It's still a great way to showcase what you're doing. But you also need to start incorporating video into your marketing. But the problem with video is it sends it out to everyone. So how can you make your videos, your content resonate with a local audience? Because at the end of the day, most of us cook your sell to a local audience. People want to be down the street, they want to come, they want to pick up their order. Not a lot of states let you ship your cookies out. So how can we make video content that resonates with a local audience?

[Corey]

For think that last part is the kicker, because make videos, okay, that's. That's a lot of the heavy lifting. But when you put in content that doesn't have consistency or connectivity or cohesiveness. Yeah, it's like, that was a waste. That was like a one and done. That was just like a shot. You almost feel when the creators like, let's throw it against the wall. Stevenson.

[Heather]

Yeah, sure. And I don't blame them because how do you make local content via videos when we're Consuming content that isn't local.

[Corey]

Right. I'm consuming all the content.

[Heather]

I Finally on TikTok, got to the local content where people are, oh, I love it.

[Corey]

The fyp. Too local.

[Heather]

Yeah, too local. But I love when I see a. I was even sending you. You like sushi. Someone reviewed a local sushi restaurant that I was open. I was able to send it to you because that' content that resonates with us. And at the end of the day, the person who made that video, that's we're their ideal audience. We're the one that's going to go to this new sushi place because of their recommendation.

[Corey]

So let's spend this podcast extrapolating just that. But we're going to start with the basics. The basics, the setup. Number point one, find a setup that works. Now, this is Corey's most asked question. Yeah, it's also in the sugar cookie marketing group. Like, how are you guys holding your piping bag? Being able to see the cookie and still record at the same time. You. Your answer is.

[Heather]

Here's the thing. In my cookie room, there's a single window. It's my only natural light source. When I go to make a video, I make sure the sun is up. It's. I. I just find that I get more reach, more engagement when I'm using natural lighting versus artificial lighting.

[Corey]

So, guys, photo photography, what we're talking about, videography. Videography is just a million tiny photos seen together. If you've ever actually look at a strip of video, it is a bunch of tiny photos. Photo, photon light. Castro light. It is light lighting. Makes it or breaks it or makes it. Yeah.

[Heather]

So even though my cookie room has a ton of lighting, because I need a light, a lot of light. When I decorate cookies, my videos, I'll actually turn off all the overhead lights. There's only natural light that I'm filming with. When I'm filming the video, it's actually still fairly dark. But I know that I have an app that I'm going to put this video in that I'm either going to do a voiceover with. I'm going to make the colors a little punchier. I'm gonna add text to it.

[Corey]

Can you add brightness?

[Heather]

Like you can add lightness. You can take the shadows away. If you ever wondered why are Corey's videos blinding my eyes, it's because of the app Inshot. So Inshot is a paid for app. You can. I think they have a free version, but it has the Inshot logo in there. I want it. I Use it so much. I probably produce 10 videos a week over the course of everything. It's insane.

[Corey]

Um, I love watching them.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

Guys. Hello?

[Heather]

Yeah. So Inshot is the app I use. There's apps like Cap Cut, A lot of people like that.

[Corey]

That's not paid. Are you paying for Inshot?

[Heather]

I am paying for it.

[Corey]

How much is it there?

[Heather]

I think you can do it. I want to say it's 39 for the year.

[Corey]

Not bad. I like that at all. Why not Cap Cut?

[Heather]

Just because I started with Inshot and that's the only reason why Cap Cut was owned by Tick Tock. So when Tick Tock was going to get banned. So it was Cap Cut.

[Corey]

I want to go back to the lighting thing.

[Heather]

Sure.

[Corey]

When capture light. I used to be. I used to date somebody. I'm sorry. Who's a hobby photographer and videographer. That's what.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

You guys were.

[Heather]

Both you guys were great.

[Corey]

Okay. It wasn't that great. When there's not enough light. Remember it. We live and die by the light source. When there's not enough light. And if you go to. If you go see Mission Impossible, which Cory and I saw last week, which was great. I love you, Tom Cruise. If you love me and you look in the dark areas, you'll see that in those fancy movies with those extremely high quality camera setups, there's nothing. There's no little tiny grains. Grain. And that's called noise. When the lighting source is so little that the camera has to try to try to compensate for it, it creates something called noise. And it's very distracting. It looks very low quality. What Corey said, grainy. People are going to be like, why is it yellow and why is it grainy?

[Heather]

Why does it feel bad?

[Corey]

And if you take your iPhone, if you take your Android, Android exclusively, and you try to record anything at night, it's a much different quality than what you tried to record in the daylight. And that's because of the lack of light. The more light we can feed the sensor. Yeah. The better the product is. The end quality. Now, Corey said, I'm turning off all my overhead light. Which means that is the light bulbs. This manufactured light. What happens when you have a light source and a frame rate? So remember, frame rate is how many times the camera is taking the photo to make the video.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

When those align, when they're too close, you get those weird lines.

[Heather]

Yes. You'll see lights when people are taking videos of their projector. And you'll be like, why is the projector look so weird?

[Corey]

There something to do with the hertz emission of the projector. And the camera are too close. Yeah. They're not perfect, but they're close enough to see the lines moving, which is little photos. It's the exact same concept when you record a helicopter and it looks like the. The thing.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

Moving really weirdly. So what Corey's saying is, I'm getting. She's saying right now I'm not recording at night. I'm not.

[Heather]

And you know what? People are like, well, that's only a time I have. I'm making it a point that I'm taking 10 minutes to make a video in the daylight.

[Corey]

And now she's also said indirect natural light, which is a very big point, that indirect natural light. Or right now it's very hazy. We have. The clouds are acting as a diffuser of direct sunlight, making it indirect sunlight, which means the shadows are dispersed.

[Heather]

Yeah. So instead of seeing a harsh shadow, like if you're standing out in the sunlight and the sun's, you know, descending, your shadow's super long. I know as kids, we used to play out in the cul de sac, and we'd jump over each other's shadow.

[Corey]

Puppet was my favorite.

[Heather]

Yeah. But what you want is indirect natural light because the shadows aren't as harsh. Instead of me looking at a camera and you see exactly where my nose is, it's dispersed. So you actually have a focus on my face instead of a focus on my shadows.

[Corey]

It's a big nose have for myself, I'm always pay attention. Like, you can go to those sultry restaurants where they have the single light above the table, but it gives you that cast down on your schnoz. Kick me down Olive Garden right now. So again, that. That lighting stuff, I think is what most. I know there's other challenges, and we'll get to those in a second. But that lighting thing, once you master that, and it may require getting an IKEA desk in another room. Yeah. Because Corey's. The sunlight is never over that window.

[Heather]

It. You know, when it is, I'm very close to it, but I'm off to the center.

[Corey]

You'll see me push my stuff just.

[Heather]

Over just a little bit to avoid it.

[Corey]

So it's really important to master the lighting setup. Now, Core has another point here. A canvas lamp. Now, that is a. What do you call this? Tripod is what I want to say, but I think you guys are calling. What do you call the archon mount. A tripod.

[Heather]

No, I don't know. I just call it a Mount. Okay.

[Corey]

Yeah. Mount is what you're using. But the. It essentially is a tripod for your phone. Now, question. Canvas lamp. Are you using that lighting system? No. So Corey has a canvas lamp built in lighting system. She's disabling that as well. However, you do like the flexibility of its joints.

[Heather]

I love that it's so easy to move. If you've had an Arkon mount, each joint you have to actually screw in so it doesn't move, which is great for a projector. It's horrible if you're trying to do different angles. Video. So the canvas lamp, it's from Shop.

[Corey]

Canvas Co. Not affiliated. We tried to be lusty one. Sure. Yeah.

[Heather]

We try to have them in the vending blending.

[Corey]

So if you're listening to this, we still love to have you. It'd be my fourth year drawing. It's really easy.

[Heather]

It's got so many spring systems, so it's easy to move up and down. Turn it towards myself. Turn it down. It's just been handy for me, granted. Does my head and the canvas light lamps like barter for the same place? Yeah. My head wants to be 100 over the cookie.

[Corey]

That's what I'm saying is a lot of people are like the tripod. The placement of the camera to get the best angle impedes me from seeing what I'm doing.

[Heather]

So you have to look my. I know that my head can fit in this little crevice right here. So I'm not looking at the edge of the cookie, but I'm as close.

[Corey]

As you are peeping through the canvas lamp.

[Heather]

No, there's like a little corner from here's my phone and here's this little arm. I'm right here.

[Corey]

If there's any ability to get a selfie of it. If you can get Nate to come and pop up.

[Heather]

But you can also a lot of people put it off to the side. It creates just as good of a video.

[Corey]

Don't be scared of a side angle. A lot of that. And we'll talk about that. Asmr. Like the cookie decorating videos are not filmed directly on. Yes, it would be ideal. But most of them, if you pay attention, are at an angle.

[Heather]

At an angle. And this is just for decorating videos. A lot of times you'll see my face in this video. That's the canvas lamp that's holding it up there.

[Corey]

Interesting.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

I'm gonna say if you can invest. And they're.

[Heather]

They're 100 bucks, 70 bucks, 175.

[Corey]

Oh, canvas.

[Heather]

There's different types of it. So I have the marble base.

[Corey]

You can do a mount, you can do a mounted.

[Heather]

Yeah. But because I'm pulling it so much, I'm constantly moving it out of the way. The Marvel base just made sense for me.

[Corey]

Heads up for people watching this on YouTube. I know we're filming two of these back to back, and I know we're gonna run out of. Sure. But I just want to enjoy. Go find us on YouTube. You can see a lot of Corey's hand motions if you're wondering what she's doing here. So you have the canvas lamp. We have natural light, which I've called natty light, which I think is funny. And the Inshot app. And I think this fourth point is the kicker. What you guys don't realize is Corey is actually using an extra iPhone. We went to the store, bought a dummy iPhone, which means it does not have a plan. I don't even think it has a phone number.

[Heather]

No phone number. It only connects to Wi Fi, meaning.

[Corey]

All she does is get. She got the highest quality iPhone within the price range. And she got it with a lot of storage because it is. We. We tried to use her main phone as. Her eye as. And it just having this. And I said, cory, you're putting out a ton of content now. What gives? And she was like, it's that. That dummy iPhone. Yeah.

[Heather]

When you realize in my phone, I've got pictures of my cats, the pictures of my kids.

[Corey]

Notifications.

[Heather]

Notifications. It's taking up so much space. Pictures of the cookies that I've taken, that the videos that I'm trying to create into a video, like where I'm trying to splice them together are so separated. It's not discouraging and putting it off.

[Corey]

Wanting to make it like, okay. Cory and I used to do videography in terms of using those DJI drones, and we'd use our personal phones. And it was just, like, too much. It was too much for the phone to do is overheating. But having this, like, dedicated. Okay. Do you need the bestest, greatest. Your kids are probably upgrading. If you want to buy, you know, buy from them. Their phone. They're about to turn in. That's decent. Just wipe everything, remove its ability, connection to a plan, and it still works. So how's Corey getting? Well, she's connected to WI Fi and she's uploading those videos to. You're actually editing them from the phone.

[Heather]

Absolutely.

[Corey]

And then she'll upload them from that dummy phone to the social profile.

[Heather]

Yeah. So to the Social profiles. When the phone gets filled, because it does get filled. There's so much content on there. I'll actually upload it to Google Drive, clear out the phone, start over again.

[Corey]

She's taking these individual clips. We don't need the individual clips. After the content piece is created. Would it be cool if we had it? But again, she can refilm it. Yeah, she clears out all that stuff. The piece of content is now in the cloud. Phone is back to ground zero. Yeah, ground zero. So just keeping.

[Heather]

It's an iPhone 13.

[Corey]

Okay, so what are you guys at?

[Heather]

IPhone 17 is the one that's out now. But you can choose the frame rate 30 that I talked about.

[Corey]

Frame rate, guys, if you. If you. If you wonder what the frame rate is, the average cinematic frame rate is 30. You can do 24 to 30, 60 frames per second. Frames per second. Pictures per second.

[Heather]

So it's taken 60 pictures.

[Corey]

Photos per second. Because remember, video is just a ton of photos. That is what you typically see the NFL doing. Those NFL where we can see everything they're doing. It makes you say, well, that's really crispy and clean. It's not cinematic. It's up to you. I think you'd be better off with the 24 to 30. And then slow motion is 120 frames per second. Slow down, and then you can go crazy. Yeah.

[Heather]

The great thing about Inshot is you can speed up your videos in there. You can change the colors, punch your. If you film in the morning, you're gonna have a blue hue to it. You can warm it up, take that out. If you film in the evening, it's gonna have a yellow hue. You can edit all that within.

[Corey]

I see most people have the issue with the yellowing, and that's typically because you're using an overhead light. This another ex boyfriend, and he replaced all the yellow light. Yellow light is how we want to live. Yes. Right. So it's very soft on your eyes. And he replaced the entire house he lived in with white lights. It was like going into a dentist.

[Heather]

That's when you go into a jewelry store. It makes diamonds shine. Great.

[Corey]

But you're like, I can't see. Where's the sun? So, yeah, you're living in yellow light. That's why Corey disables those lights. And then she uses kind of a, you know, the sun is white light. If you ever go bulb shopping. I've been bulb shopping recently. Nightmarish Nightmare. It's like. It's like the sun. I don't know. Do I want the sunlight or do it. What's the other option? Right. That's what we're going for is that sunlight. And you know, we're not professional photographers by any stretch, but my father had hired professional photographer to take a picture of their kitchen. He takes out all the yellow lighting and replaces the bulbs in the entire kitchen for white lighting, for the photo, then puts them back in with the livable light. Okay, let's go on a type of video. So we got the setup done. We're rearing, ready to go. We need to create the content and I think that's so unfair to people like make videos. We do all this research, we get the perfect setup and then we're like, now what? Yeah, yeah. And Corey wants to be your guide here. She's created a bunch of these. So I'm going to just read them to you and explain them to us. Read customer. Oh, one down. He's going to go read customer testimonials.

[Heather]

So oftentimes we call them back in the day, review squares. And that's because we would type someone's review. We'd put it in canva, we'd type.

[Corey]

It out because Facebook used to be a pictorial app. I loved it.

[Heather]

Here's the thing, no one's stopping and reading that. It's great to have it on your social profiles. If you really want to connect to your audience, you're going to read that.

[Corey]

So Heather, when she really liked this idea.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

Because a lot of people are like, what do I do with these reviews? They're great for ranking in Google. The Facebook ones, kind of neither here nor there. They're. They're getting appreciated. But as far as me as an end user, I don't care. I don't care at all to read the little outtake. But you want to produce content telling people social proof, people like me. But Corey says reading this and I would actually read someone, I would actually watch someone reading a review if they gave me more context. Like all this crazy word, I got to tell you about it. And here's how it ended.

[Heather]

Yes, that's fantastic. So tell them like what the order was for, what the colors they wanted, how it ended up turning out, and then read the review. So Heather actually uses a teleprompter. You can find them variantly in Amazon.

[Corey]

I swear, it's such a high quality thing. I might have to find the link for you guys, but it was like 50 bucks. But what I can do, you can. This is a teleprompter for a higher end camera. But you can still use that two phone setup. And your phone becomes a teleprompter. It mirrors back. So on my phone, it's written backwards and upside down. And then the teleprompter, which is just a mirror reflecting it back to me, flips it right side up and I can just read from it, but I'm looking straight through at the camera on the other side.

[Heather]

Yeah. So, Heather, having that. And if you use the canvas lamp that's recording with that extra phone that we talked about, and you use your Archon mount to hold your phone as a teleprompter, what you're going to be able to do is read while also looking at the camera. Some of the best TikTok content. There's this gentleman, he like, talks about like, like psychological, like psychology.

[Corey]

But he does it good.

[Heather]

But I can tell he's reading a teleprompter.

[Corey]

He's looking past the camera. Here's what I the tell the teleprompter tell is look at their irises and if they ever so slightly switch back and forth, they're reading. You can see it on any newscast.

[Heather]

If you can have your teleprompter farther back, your irises won't do that, but.

[Corey]

You have to have.

[Heather]

You're going to be doing it like this.

[Corey]

That's good eyesight to see that for. Here's a thing I've noticed with myself. You can tell obviously this isn't scripted because we're talking so conversationally. But the minute you read something. Let me just read something. And then you're gonna see that it's hard to read in the way.

[Heather]

It's hard to read in conversational things.

[Corey]

Yeah. So, okay. Hi, it's Deb. Many questions. Again, you see how my reflection is different if I try to read it? I wouldn't try to read it like we talk. Hi, it's Deb. Many questions. Again, it's harder to do because, hey, literally I had to just memorize that because I'm great at memory. Hi, it's Deb. So reading the customer testimonials, if it's a teleprompter, I still find that more interesting. But you say, okay, I don't want to do the teleprompter. Tell me about the order and be like. And I'm just going to read it real quick what they said.

[Heather]

Absolutely. What it is going to do is allow your one local audience, who's going to buy from you, more options to connect with you. Because now you're in front of the camera. And you're also building that trust people buy. As I said last week on the podcast, we literally just filmed. They buy from those they know they like and they trust. Getting yourself in front of the camera, I hate doing it. Guys, you know me, I'd rather not be.

[Corey]

Cory and I at the beach were like we need to make a pact to just put our punchable faces in front of the camera.

[Heather]

So that's a great way to utilize those reviews and get yourself out there connecting with your local audience.

[Corey]

Next one local event coverage. Specifically farmers markets or a new we had if you're ever in Northern Virginia, there is Farm Brew Live. Yeah it's this campus of restaurants and playgrounds for people in the area have nothing to do. They opened up a new adjacent campus with all these restaurants.

[Heather]

Fantastic.

[Corey]

I've seen a lot of real estate agents going there and saying hey guys, I'm at the opening of the new farmbrew.

[Heather]

Real estate agents get it. At the end of the day they can only show you so many houses. If you bought a house from a real estate agent, odds are you're not going to need to buy another house for another 5ish years. So they're how, how can they stay in front of you and stay valuable?

[Corey]

What they do is they I'll show you the surrounding areas so you know what your area and things to do around there. But bakers can capitalize on that too. Because okay, if I'm not, if I'm buying from you, let's say the average recurring orders every six months. Let's pretend. What would the content be between now and then? I can only read so many reviews. Let me tell you about things to do in our area. Corey, who buys from me, who also lives here.

[Heather]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Corey]

I really like the idea. Now Corey and I are run a local community group but she's also testing out the community group maturation theory. And she could say hey guys, I'm a local baker but I wanted to tell you about this place I went to. It's fantastic.

[Heather]

And you doing a video and even if it's a voiceover, but you're in the video. And me and Heather have done it for that local community group.

[Corey]

They love it.

[Heather]

Some people said I look forward to these videos that you post. Now here's the thing. The downside is you gotta get outta the house. I wish you could just talk about a new place that opened but showing them whether it be the there's a farmer's market that just opened. People are so like wondering what the parking situation is how. Who's there? Is there any organic vegetable vendors there? Those are topics that people want to hear. If you want to connect with your local audience. Without sailing, sailing without selling constantly at them, creating valuable content. Me another. Preach this one over and over again. You getting out there. I literally hate having my camera. My hand, my hand holding helps when.

[Corey]

You go with somebody else. Yeah. One I'm professionally opening the doors. Yeah. Where we like open that door, I'll walk through and I'm turning. Smile. Yeah. Okay. Spanning. Panning.

[Heather]

Smile panning.

[Corey]

You know, I know there's that the anxiety of like I don't want to look like an influencer. I don't look like somebody. Okay. Do you want to sell?

[Heather]

Right. So it's to me, even though I don't want to be an influencer, the little clips that I put together that are 10, 20 seconds long and I splice them together, it makes about a minute video. And that's what people will technically stay for about a minute video. Just showing the parking lot, you know, what the hours are going through. Showing what the inside look like. That's what people are looking for.

[Corey]

Okay, next one. Tell a story in our series. I am in a headline. If you. I'm sorry, Listen, listen, listen. Just email me directly if you're gonna get on TikTok and tell me about how you broke up and you're gonna make it a 30 part series. I'm watching every single one. Yeah. So who is that lady that was telling us about the man and he had this whole fake life.

[Heather]

Who the F did I marry?

[Corey]

Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. That headlock. She was a great storyteller. She created a series and what happened is because we have the time limit on uploads creating the series. So Corey started somebody the texting question last week. You guys are listening to this. In the future was Corey had done a series on dye free food coloring. I know you did a series on edible luster dust or something on gold. Gold. That gold. I know you people do pen series now. These are all for bakers. We can see that people are like, oh, this is interesting. I can't wait to see the next one. Which means I'm going to look for this person's content.

[Heather]

So how can you make that locally based? I am prepping for my first farmer's market that is very locally based. And what your audience is going to do, your local audience, they want to cheer for you. They want a hero in the story. So they want you to. To watch you prep. They Want to see your trials and tribulations. My icing blood all over the place. I don't know what I'm going to do. Should I sell these as oopsies? I'm thinking of selling them at a discount. Let me know in the comments what I should do.

[Corey]

I've seen. I'm opening a brick and mortar. Let me take you along that process things like. Like that.

[Heather]

What we want to have in mind is our local audience. If you want to do a series about your breakup, that's very broad that I'm so sorry.

[Corey]

Don't do series about your breakup on your baking thing. But if you want to do on your personal TikTok. Send that right over.

[Heather]

Send that right over. But what you're seeing is we can make these storytelling things where people can connect with you on a deeper level more local based to you. So hey, I'm prepping for my first pop up. I'm going to be at a pop up shop over in downtown and I want to take you guys along with me. They say that about 200 people are expected to come. I don't know which I make. Do you guys like cake pops more? Do you want sugar cookies? Bring them along with you. You're going to have the ups and downs of it. Like, oh, my cake pops I ran out of.

[Corey]

Let's say you say, I really want to talk about my breakup. I really do. I would call it a bake up. But what I would do is if that kind of put your head in this mind frame how my divorce led to starting my bakery business. If they're related, sure. Otherwise you can't, you can't really.

[Heather]

It's not lie.

[Corey]

And then we broke up and five years later I brought in a cookie. But you can kind of see where these series really capture the attention. And that's why Netflix will have you watching a series and they'll drop it in certain times.

[Heather]

Yeah, people love storytelling. While short form content is huge right now, long form content that has storytelling, people are so invested in it.

[Corey]

I'll be honest, I was on TikTok and a guy was like, like here's how selling my car, posting my car to Reddit, uncovered my wife's multiple affairs.

[Heather]

Hook, line and sinker. I was like, let me go to.

[Corey]

See this guy's live. And I watched the whole thing. It was a four part series.

[Heather]

@ the end of the day, the local content we're creating isn't going to be as juicy as that your audience could. But what we wanted to do is create A series where we're bringing our audience along.

[Corey]

So take Corey said, I know you were Yoder's Dutch Delights. Yoder Delight. Corey. Let's say Corey starts us here. She's a baker and she doesn't sell donuts. She's like, I'm gonna find the best donut in Northern Virginia. Yeah.

[Heather]

So we have a series.

[Corey]

Like, here's where I would go now. Next. My. And as a baker, I feel like I know what tastes great. Absolutely. We could do a series like that. Moving on. I like this one behind the scenes. So I have an order for 30 dozen. I'm gonna take you guys along with me. Summer, my little sister and Corey love to find these types of people. And they'll let their face, their Instagram or TikTok lives play in the background. It's wild. Love it.

[Heather]

Love someone to talk to. At me for 10 minutes.

[Corey]

And we actually went to. We did.

[Heather]

We actually went to a bakery in Maryland.

[Corey]

It was a drive far away. But it was so funny because they. Cory and Summer walk in. Me and my older sister went as well. And they're like, look like they're meeting Disney. We're like, we're fans. Yeah. And you know, the girl had asked, like, what's the content? And you. It's the taking them along with you. Taking Corian Summer along with you through your bakery day or changing out the stuff in the brick and mortar front window or something. So those series of. I have. We're cottage bakers, obviously. I have a massive order, guys. I want to take you along with me.

[Heather]

Bakers complain most about customers don't know what goes into this. So take them along the journey with you. Show them that the icing mixing each and every color took you an hour and a half. And you can speed it up. And that's what the splicing and the inshot does is you can speed them along. Oh, guys, look. I just made all these colors. It took me about an hour and a half. I didn't want you to have to watch every single second. But let's go dive into doing the base layer of icing together.

[Corey]

I think it's important to realize the content you imbibe and the content I imbibe are different. And you're like, well, I'd never watch that. That. But you're not me. Huh? You're not Summer and Corey watch those lies. I never watch them, but I'd watch a podcast about relationship. It was so funny at the beach. I could hear this podcast that I like to listen to a Dr. DeLoney or something from the, whatever, the money guy. And I could hear it and I was like, that's so funny. I just listened to this. But the lifeguard was also listening. Yeah, Heather found a kindred soul and nobody else want to listen to it. But I was like, turn it up.

[Heather]

So you're going to see as you make this content, you're going to see what hits with your audience and maybe what doesn't hit so well. And that's where you're going to pivot and you're going to strategize and you're going to say, okay, I see that I reach this many people with this type of content. How can I make more content like that?

[Corey]

Here's the interesting part. The guy who posted his car to Reddit, that four part series was the best performing of his audience. Then he went back to just posting about his car parts and I was like, I lost me.

[Heather]

Yeah, exactly.

[Corey]

And that's, that's the cog that was the slave driver of like, they want this type of content. I'm not going to see. You got to be kind of cognizant of what's performing and why is it performing and who's it performing for. Because right now this whole thing is about local audience.

[Heather]

What you're gonna realize. High drama posts perform the best, but we don't live a high drama life. You can't constantly be creating like, oh.

[Corey]

This customer did this. How many exes led you to start a baker? Yeah.

[Heather]

Not every customer is the worst customer you've ever had. So you don't wanna become a slave to the algorithm and get a following based off of drama because drama is hard to feed.

[Corey]

Cory and Summer, they, you know, you guys like to watch these people.

[Heather]

Oh yeah.

[Corey]

And they'll find them in their drama. And then when they leave their drama, Cory and Summer will be like, I don't like them anymore. I don't like to watch anymore. So it's funny. Hi. Is how you keep them. So if you want to be a highly controversial, highly dramatic, you're going to cultivate an audience of high drama. And if you can't maintain that, you're going to, you're going to see a bit of a dead weight. Yeah. So pre sale QVC style videos. I like this idea. Corey's going to say again, we're talking not to the. I don't want to be a viral on TikTok. I want to be well watched by my local audience. So hey, local audience, I'm doing A pop up tomorrow. Here's everything you're not going to want to miss. Here's what I'm selling and this will be the price.

[Heather]

Why does QVC work so well? Because people like to see what they're going to get. It's shopping before you're buying but you don't have to leave the house.

[Corey]

They studied brain patterns. How they did, I don't know, maybe they hooked us, somebody up to them. They said the thought of the purchase is actually where the brain starts releasing that dopamine like the I can't wait to buy this. Which you often feel a lot when you're about to purchase a car because the buying process is a bit longer.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

Or buying a house where you're like wow, I'm so excited. The purchase of it itself, fun. But they said the, the brain is actually addicted to the thought.

[Heather]

Absolutely. So as we still want you to take those curated photos, that's still going to be how you use to market this pop up. But you can also do a QVC type shopping. Hey, tomorrow we open at 10am here's my address. What you're going to see.

[Corey]

If you want to watch high energy boring content, turn on QVC and see how they narrate that. Because you're not going to want to miss that high energy type thing is what you have to maintain.

[Heather]

You have to maintain it and you're going to have to practice, I mean sitting in front of a mirror to see if you're maintaining the space ever. Absolutely. When I used to work in car sales I had to sit and answer calls with a mirror in front of me because they said I want you to smile because when you're smiling it comes across in that you can hear it. Yeah. So you're going to want to have high energy. If you're just low energy and you're not excited about your product, don't expect them to be excited about your product. This is the. Have you ever tried a Diet Coke before? When you open it and it's crisp and cool, that sound, there's nothing like it in the world. Do you see? It's a Diet Coke.

[Corey]

But we're getting excited about Corey's non Botox. Eyebrows are raising at the thought. And here's the thing. We used to. Cory and I used to record videos for clients. I want to tell you, not videography, it was in the cinematic, it was just content. But I would say to the clients, I can see that you feel anxious here, you feel embarrassed. The, the more goofy you feel like you are the more normal. Actually coming across to me. Your reserves are only in your head. Yeah.

[Heather]

So if your hand motions are down here and you're like, no, I'm being so weird.

[Corey]

You are so dry. You're so. It is a Sahara desert of energy. Yeah. And if you are not energetic. So actually hilarious. Like, Corey will record those videos. You can if you go to the Sugar Cookie Marketing Instagram. Sugar Cookie Marketing underscore Corey. Hey, guys. But I'll watch the first and second iteration. She'll be like, hey, guys, I just ordered this. And quiz like, wow, I don't sound excited.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

But I am excited. I just don't sound that way. So she'll delete the item and be like, hey, guys, I just want to let you know I got this box from Kaleidocuts because I'm a shopaholic and I can't say no. And it's that excitement. It doesn't sound insane when I watch it on my end.

[Heather]

You might be like, corey, why don't you ever say ums in your video? You're just really good at videos. No, I've taken four shots of that video already. But I realized that taking the pause to say, people are tuning out.

[Corey]

And. Yeah, like, we had this client, she was a real estate agent. Real estate agents do just get it. When they get it, they got it. And we'd recorded her and it would almost be. And I said. I said. I turned off the camera and I said, you're one of the best people. People. The most affluent. You just. It just rolls. There's no ums. She's like, oh, I talked to. I do this in the car the whole way here.

[Heather]

And I said, that's because you have this.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Yeah. So it's going to be a learning curve. Making your first video is not going to be one that knocks it out of the park. But don't let that be the thing that discourages you. It takes practice. I've made now consistently video content for the last two years. So at the end of the day, I better not have an um. I practiced for two years for it.

[Corey]

We've had folks who, when they see the folk. Is my dad, when he sees the eyeball of the camera freeze, stutters. Yeah, um, he cannot handle. So what we actually do is put the camera off to the left and have him talk to somebody. For some odd reason, when he's talking to somebody, just like recording this podcast, it is easier for Corey and I to talk to each other. You're like, well, who am I going to talk to? Pretend somebody's there. Maybe the camera facing you. So put it off to the left and talk to somebody. Absolutely.

[Heather]

Have, you know, we just talked about that. What is the thing that we just call teleprompter? Maybe that'd be something where you just put the script and you kind of stay near. It's learning works best for you and sticking to that.

[Corey]

And a lot of it comes down to practicing, which is so awkward to film yourself talking to a mirror.

[Heather]

But boy, I tell my husband and my son, listen, you're. I'm getting ready to film a video. You're going to hear a lot of excitement.

[Corey]

Always give us a disclaimer like, I'm going to go upstairs to this room. Whatever you hear, let it happen. Even if you listen to the beginning of this podcast and to now it's gotten more conversational, whether you like that or not, you're a hostage and you have to listen to it this way. It's gotten what I feel more. More fluid. Fluid, more natural.

[Heather]

Conversational at the beginning. I've done the intro so many times, said, hey, welcome to the marketing nuggets and know how very planned.

[Corey]

Salesy. Very salesy. Would you like to buy a watch? We'll be having a sale on this car the Memorial Day weekend. She has ASMR decorative bits. I'm gonna say use springly, but use it is a nice breaking content. Is a nice content bucket. The issue, whether you want to see it that way or not, is that it could go viral to people who cannot buy from you. They're not local. I will watch a carpet cleaning video. I will watch it. That stuff Headlock. I'm never going to order from them. They're a billion miles away. Yeah, I'll follow them though, because I like to watch it.

[Heather]

Bakers like to do the asmr, which. What does ASMR stand for?

[Corey]

Audio.

[Heather]

ASMR is just like a very relaxing video.

[Corey]

Whether.

[Heather]

Whether it's someone, you know, playing with slime, someone cleaning a rug, someone decorating a cookie.

[Corey]

Video Autonomous. Autonomous sensory meridian response is a physical and psychological experience that combines pleasurable and relaxing sensations in response to specific stimuli. Okay, that's a little bit more like to the point. What we're saying is those decorating videos, people can just zone out and watch them. Yeah, the piping from the outside in great content. Not just a local audience, which is why I wouldn't do it exclusively. It probably would do really well. But you're going to find yourself in influencer. Territory, influencer territory.

[Heather]

Here's the thing. A lot of bakers opt to make those videos because one, you're not in it. Two, you don't have to talk in it. It's the easiest thing because we're already decorating those cookies. That it's easy to rely on that. And you're like, I want to say.

[Corey]

To somebody, somebody right there is like, you're telling me I could do those videos and not have to sell customs anymore. I want to tell you what it is a cog in a wheel. It is a hamster wheel. It'll take everything out of you. What are you going to sell to people? Well, I'll sell them cookie cutters. No, because they don't care to bake. They want to watch. Well, sell them my recipe. If they don't want to bake, what are you going to sell them? Well, so I'll try to get views. Okay. Welcome. Welcome to the life.

[Heather]

Now. You've chosen a new uphill.

[Corey]

You're not even listening. Don't listen to this podcast anymore. You're not a baker. You need to go to an info.

[Heather]

You're a content creator now.

[Corey]

Now.

[Heather]

So the thing is, use those videos. Those are great videos, but use them sparingly. I like to use those to show a cookie class. I'm getting ready to. To offer because they are going to be taking those steps. So you married class.

[Corey]

You've married the ASMR type content with the caption that's like. And I'll be teaching this class next week at.

[Heather]

Yes.

[Corey]

And that I think is a decent blend here. And the same with these ones. Baking tips and tricks. Who would want a baking tip or trick? A baker. A baker. Unless we can marry it to a cookie class taker. Yeah. So it's something to consider there. I do like those content buckets. They wouldn't be my primary and I. I would understand that they do well for different reasons.

[Heather]

Yeah, for sure, for sure. But I think having those different things. So now we have for your reviews. We are showcasing your reviews. We're taking behind the scenes of a large order. We're showcasing local events, local places, local happenings, local parades. Hey, we even went there was a local playground. My kid doesn't play on playgrounds anymore, but me and Heather dragged her out there. We went to a local playground.

[Corey]

Corey's local community group. This is a question I'm seeing asked a lot. Where can I take my kids to entertain them? That's free. This is going to cost me a fortune this summer.

[Heather]

Fantastic.

[Corey]

So we're going to say we have people that review splash pads.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

Hyper local. I have kids. Keeps you in the content. Wouldn't be my only bucket. Remember, we're not a splash pad.

[Heather]

Right. A professional, but we're, we're tying our bakery business to local.

[Corey]

So imagine I say, here's cheap and fun things to do with kids and one of them happens to be my DIY kit or my cookie class.

[Heather]

Right. Do you see how we're tying that in there?

[Corey]

That's always tied back to the target.

[Heather]

Yeah, back to the target, which is storytelling. People love to follow a story. You prepping for a pop up, a pre sale, a class, a cookie class. When I do those bakers love to see me prepping and setting up for cookie classes.

[Corey]

Corey says, this one time I spelled every name wrong on an order. Nice little series. Good night. One and done. Two and done.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

Wouldn't want to keep it. Because we're saying. Because we're saying we make mistakes.

[Heather]

At the end of the day, when you're thinking of this content, you have to have an objective in mind. My goal is to get more local sales. My goal is to be valuable resource to local people.

[Corey]

And the word, as long as the word local is in there, I think we're solid in that strategy. Understanding that the sacrifice of local is a massive audience and that is viral. So we're sacrificing viral for local because local pays the bills. Yeah.

[Heather]

And you might be like, well, my favorite cookie creator is always doing those decorating videos. I want to tell you guess why they're your favorite. They're selling to you a course, how to do florals.

[Corey]

Or they're making money off of impressions.

[Heather]

Yes.

[Corey]

If you want to take your business in that direction, it is different than the topic of the podcast today.

[Heather]

Yeah. I'll often see very talented cookie bakers and they're making constantly decorating videos of their cookies. And I'll look in their bio and says, no longer taking custom orders because.

[Corey]

They'Ve had a store switch teams.

[Heather]

That is totally fine.

[Corey]

That's the strategy.

[Heather]

But you have to think, at the end of the day, is this the goal for my business? Do I want to become a content creator? Because that's going to look vastly different than do I want to make local sales?

[Corey]

If your objective is muddled, so will your results.

[Heather]

Absolutely.

[Corey]

Okay, last one. Things to include in these videos are in the process. One, be authentic.

[Heather]

Don't lie, don't lie. Don't just. I do see bakers. I see bakers. One, they started borrowing like nightmare clients testimonials from other people. So they're reading them.

[Corey]

That's not your. I've seen people. Their content is. They're reading. But they do it so authentically. I think it's them. Reddit posts.

[Heather]

Yes.

[Corey]

Reddit posts are written in first person, so it sounds like this person that I'm watching is having this issue. They're not. It's not their content. It's inauthentic. It's a different way to get views, but it's not views that would translate to sales.

[Heather]

It's a lot of times drama based content. It's not your drama. You borrowed the drama from someone else.

[Corey]

I love the drama as long as it's not myself. Right. So I am a part of the problem. If you sound dramatic, if I will read it, I will watch it. Yeah.

[Heather]

So we want to be authentic in.

[Corey]

Everything we do and understand that the result of that is a more niche audience, which means fewer views.

[Heather]

Which is okay.

[Corey]

Which is okay. You want to make sure your captions are solid.

[Heather]

Now tell us so captions. While we think people want to stay for the whole video, we have microwave mindsets, my kids throwing things across the room. I can't stay for the whole video. I want to save it. I want to make sure that my caption has everything locked and loaded while I'm decorating. Decorating the cookie for the next cookie class. I want to make sure that in the caption it has the date, the time where they can sign up, what they'll be doing, how long this class takes. Because if I can capture that attention, I can turn those local views into local sales.

[Corey]

So keywords, yes, keywords are in those captions. It helps with that. You got to think in terms. If you can search on it, you can optimize for it. You AI the algorithms. These entities watch Mission Impossible last week. These entities can understand things to an extent, but they don't understand things fully. So they use different components to create the picture of where this content should be shown. And that caption is still really valuable.

[Heather]

Yeah, your caption can do a lot of the heavy lifting. If I'm showcasing what the farmer's market looks like, I don't want to be like. And you can find it at 12692 Gemini Way.

[Corey]

You know, there's this local foodie person, they put in the last frame for two seconds, the address. And I know it's the hook to get me to say the end. And I do say the end, but I hated the whole experience.

[Heather]

I know.

[Corey]

I complained the whole time. So make sure your captions are solid information. Put that in the captions. You can reiterate what the video says and put that in the caption. So that while the thing's a baking tip, the caption can do that. Do I expand captions a lot? No, but I do want to want additional information if online.

[Heather]

And that's how I find a recipe online. And I see you put the recipe in the caption.

[Corey]

I don't gotta click anywhere.

[Heather]

I'm gonna be saving it.

[Corey]

I'm gonna save it. And that signals to the entity. Yeah. That this is valuable content. Somebody has thought it was valuable enough to save it. Not only did we not scroll, we stuck around. I was listening to this dude. His Name's Tony on TikTok. And he usually does those funny, like he's a guy pretending I don't know his arc, but they wouldn't let the third dog on your dog. Yeah. He was like, hey, listen, I'm going to tell you what you need. If you can keep people watching, that's the biggest thing. And he. You know, when you have millions of followers, you can see that those metrics are truly trending. Include a call to action, tell us what to do. We're sheeples. I want to be told where to go. Want to point. I want to just. Cory, Summer and I got back from the beach trip. If I said, you see that pier, walk off the end of it, they would have just gone.

[Heather]

Because I wanted someone tell me what to do.

[Corey]

Yeah, Cory was gonna do whatever I said. And that's because that's what humans like. We like to be told.

[Heather]

Yes. So, hey, my pop up is tomorrow at 10am Be here at 10:15 and you'll get the cream of the cross.

[Corey]

Save this video so you can come back to it later. Yeah, I see that a lot. Like, definitely save this video so you can watch the con for this is somebody you think needs. And you're like, you know the YouTube, like, comment, like, follow, subscribe. Smash that like button. Smash that subscribe button. Optimize for vertical video. Now we're coming in. YouTube was true horizontal.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

Right. So cinema, our TVs are still horizontal, but our phones, our mobile devices are vertical. So when we say vertical video, that means the length, the height is longer than the width. Yes.

[Heather]

So you take up more of the screen when it's vertical. I don't have to grab my glasses when it's vertical. Making sure that you are a distance away from your camera. That's filming.

[Corey]

You can see when somebody tried to take a horizontal video and outfit it for vertical because the cropping is way too close. It's.

[Heather]

And it's so small I can barely see you. So while you want your content to do so much heavy lifting, at the end of the day, YouTube shorts might be where you end up instead of a YouTube video.

[Corey]

I hate YouTube shorts. Shorts. I watch a little skinny video before I watch a YouTube short. But yeah, we want to optimize for vertical video. Specifically on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. I almost think they won't let. They won't let horizontal video trend. I don't like it.

[Heather]

They don't like it at all.

[Corey]

No, they'll crop it before they. They'll crop it to this tiny little elbow of a police officer before they put the whole video in this. Yeah.

[Heather]

If you're trying to show like you're doing this 300 cookie order, don't have your phone so far away that even though it is vertical, I can't see you. You're like a tiny blip on the back.

[Corey]

And that's where you do different scenes. Different. A close up of your face. And then I'll take a view decorating. And don't be afraid to just do multiple cuts. It. It cleans up the video. It makes it easier to watch.

[Heather]

While I do have the canvas lamp statically in my cookie room, I have a more lightweight thing that I take around the house. So if I take it down to do a staging. Me staging a set video, it's a different. If it's a different, it's a cheap one I got off Amazon that holds my phone. But it's lightweight, so I'm not having to carry the big one everywhere.

[Corey]

Corey and I talk about like with, you know, I said we have these expensive cameras, right? You want to. Do you want to take one home, film your content. Corey's like, because of the setup time and the complexity of it, it makes me not want to record at all. So sometimes simple. While it's may not be the highest quality, it is truly better in terms of content generation. There's also being too polished. And that's not necessarily what the end user wants either. Yeah, keep it concise. No 10 minute.

[Heather]

So at the end of the day, if you are filled with ums likes, you go off, off script. You're talking too much backstory. You're losing a lot of audience in there. That's why I tell Heather I sometimes have to film these five times because I find Myself lost in the sauce of a detail that someone doesn't need to recreate. This look so concise. I know TikTok won't. If you're in the creator rewards program, your videos have to be over a minute long. That's hard to talk for a minute.

[Corey]

It's hard. Try it, try it, try it. Talk. Try to talk for a minute. Make it all interesting. No, no, no. But you would.

[Heather]

See, I actually just did a video yesterday if you want to see. It's on the sugar cookie marketing.

[Corey]

Instagram should be actually a week in a day from you guys.

[Heather]

Oh, shoot. Yeah, yeah. Continue on, continue on.

[Corey]

And the last one is create a hook this first three seconds. Unfortunately, in the microwave mindset era, where it's like scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll. That first thing that. That thing that gets him. Guys, here's how my divorce launched me into the best bakery business I've ever had.

[Heather]

What Heather has said, she has given you the idea of the video you're about to watch in the first three seconds.

[Corey]

When you go to the movie theater to watch Mission Impossible because you will. Because you like Tom Cruise like I do. And you watch the previews because you have to, because that's where you eat your popcorn. They. The previews are all the hooks of the movie. It's all the hooks.

[Heather]

It's the best parts of the movie to get you to want to come back and watch the two hours that.

[Corey]

The video will be.

[Heather]

Every time I make a video. Hey, guys, let me show you. I always start. Let me show you how to make this floral detail. Let me show you how to use a tipless piping bag. Let me show you how to cut your tablespoon.

[Corey]

Cory's doing an educational hook. There's different categories of hooks you can do. You don't want to miss this. Or here's the things I wish I knew.

[Heather]

Don't follow this video unless you want to be a good cookie decorator.

[Corey]

Stop doing these three things. Like, those are all different hooks, and they target different types of an audience and different types of content. So if I tell you, don't say something. Don't do something. That's a negative hook. There's tons of strategies on different types of hooks, and you can get AI to come up with some hooks for you. You. You come up with the content. If you want hook development help, you can use AI or find these.

[Heather]

I was showing the next cookie class, kids. I shook a box of cookie cutters. That is a hook. That sound. What. What's. What's in the box. What has she got? Tell me what's in the box.

[Corey]

We're going alive. There's different ways to create hooks.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

In your content. And hooks in this very short scroll.

[Heather]

What they call and we're Millennial. So I can talk to it. It's called the Millennial Pause.

[Corey]

It's like, okay, you tell me. Hey, guys. You tell me how not to do the millennium. The reason hey, guys. Is because you have to record. Here's what I think you Alex Earls out there is that you are millennial pausing. You're cropping it out.

[Heather]

You're cropping it out. That's fine.

[Corey]

Don't have the big hey, guys, this is.

[Heather]

Course that is the most.

[Corey]

If you don't know what Millennial Pause is, it's the gap between when the video starts and when you start talking. Because you're. Because we're used to waiting for the recording. I'm a millennial. And that takes us through those three steps. Really, it's. And I hate to say this, the kicker, the final. If I had a 0.4, it would be Practice makes Perfect. Yeah, you're just gonna have to do it. You're gonna hate it.

[Heather]

You're gonna hate it.

[Corey]

I was talking to retirement manager, and I was. He was like, yeah, I would like to get into mark marketing retirement. And I said, you're going to hate it. Put your face in front of the camera. He's like, why? I don't want to do that. I said, I told you, you're going to hate it, but that is what you're going to do. He's like, well, what can I talk about? We're restricted on a lot of financial advice. I said, don't tell me the stuff you're restricted on. Help me build a budget. Become the money guy.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

And then say, and if you want to reach out for retirement planning, call me at my office.

[Heather]

Absolutely. You can do like. I knew this Gumlan guy. He never started his retirement until he was 42. But let me tell you how he.

[Corey]

Pulled it off a story. And he doesn't violate any of these.

[Heather]

You can do that with your cookie business. The thing is, video is going nowhere. If anything, it's being everywhere.

[Corey]

Right.

[Heather]

So you're going to have to. I find myself like, how can I incorporate more video into my local content? I am lucky to have that local community group that I'm in. I see a lot of people sharing from their business pages to local community.

[Corey]

The biggest offender of the community group is sharing a flyer as your piece of content. A flyer. It's got tiny text. I'm not reading that crap. No, no, I want to see your face.

[Heather]

Remember, your post has to be concise and answer a question. Am I trying to get more local sales? Am I trying to get more signups? Am I trying to boost brand awareness?

[Corey]

Find the objective, stay the course. Practice makes perfect. You're going to hate it. You're going to hate it, but find.

[Heather]

A setup that works for you. Trying to mimic someone else's setup, it's going to be difficult. It's going to be.

[Corey]

You're going to. You're going to need to adjust. Don't be like, I see a lot of people. Like, I bought everything they said and it doesn't work. Yeah, it doesn't work for your room.

[Heather]

I bought the canvas lamp and I never had to buy, like another lamp. Canvas lamp type thing because that one worked out for me.

[Corey]

Cora doesn't use a light. Okay, makes sense because she didn't like the yellowing of it. Then she find an app she likes. But you may not like that app or you have an Android and she has an iPhone.

[Heather]

Test. Don't just try it once and be like, well, no one. No response. Heather hears every week. I'll be like, yeah, I made a video. It'll like, totally bombed. But, like, I'll say, I'll make a video next week.

[Corey]

I'll be like, she bombed on this one. She gonna keep bombing. She's gonna keep going until. And I said to Corey, the growth is so incremental, but it is so solid. And Corey is like, I just wish I could do something viral, but I know it would kill the strategy here. So I'm gonna stay the course.

[Heather]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Corey]

Speaking of more learning, if you like the content you hear, you're gonna love the content that we put in the cookie college. I'm sorry. Let me come up with a hook. If you don't sign up for this in July, you'll be spending triple the amount for the rest of the year. We're actually having a midsummer membership sale mid summer. The cookie college goes down to 68 buckaroonies. That was when we launched. We had. No, you didn't. There was no other membership she got. It was 12 core, 20 courses, I think. And there was no private groups.

[Heather]

Absolutely.

[Corey]

That those. Trust the process people got it for 68. And you can trust the process four and a half years in now, though.

[Heather]

There'S over 90 courses.

[Corey]

There's 90 courses, a private group. There's thousands of Freebie Photos. There's five memberships. You get rolled in there. There's 32 at the 32 class kits.

[Heather]

31 cookie class kids.

[Corey]

Kids included in that. And you can get that all for $68 grandfathered. Or you can get it for 680 for the year. That includes two months free. It's. It's the cheapest still. It's cheap.

[Heather]

This mid summer membership sale goes down July 27th to August. August 2nd.

[Corey]

That is seven days. Meaning we will not do this again until the Vendee blend. Yeah.

[Heather]

So if you want to, you can actually sign up now and partake into the cheaper price. Just because you sign up today for 76, you can still.

[Corey]

You can jump down to that. Yeah. Even active memberships. That's why I always talk promise of people on the cook college. Trust me, I've been doing this for years.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

I've not lost a soldier yet.

[Heather]

Yeah. If you're wondering, we actually had south street cookies. Tanya, she actually taught.

[Corey]

Oh yeah.

[Heather]

How she does does tick tock. She has over a hundred thousand followers on TikTok. She's gotten brand partnerships, she gets paid. She's in the creator.

[Corey]

She taught a pre college course on.

[Heather]

How to make tick tock videos.

[Corey]

Now you did one on reels as well?

[Heather]

No, I'm working on my reels where.

[Corey]

You did a record because Tanya was like Corey kind of already has a video about videos.

[Heather]

Oh, you have to tell me.

[Corey]

I'll have to tell you.

[Heather]

I'll do a new one.

[Corey]

A lot of courses. But the midsummer membership sale you can sign up today. But that discount you can jump down to is on July 27th. And it's not just the cookie college that's on sale. Every other membership will be half price and memberships recurring. Your grandfather and that cancel anytime. But as long as you're active, you maintain that discounted price. And then the 2023 and 2024 class kits will be an individual a la carte price of $10 each. But you could also skip all that and just sign up for the cookie lounge.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

Because you'd get all those for that. 60 buckaroons.

[Heather]

We've already dropped the Independence Day themed cookie class. It's adorable. It's absolutely cute. The next one will be a back to school theme.

[Corey]

Same first time we're doing back to school.

[Heather]

I know. And it's adorable. And you know what? I made a hook. I showed them a little teaser of what it looked like. Yeah. And I held up every cookie cutter and I put the little.

[Corey]

I was wondering if you got the cutters you said you were working on this week, but wow. Sweet pink. I was busting those bad boys while.

[Heather]

We were at the beach. She got into me.

[Corey]

Good girl, Good girl. Yeah. So if you guys want to check out thecookiecollege.com I'll be posting up content throughout July about this midsummer membership sale. So you can kind of understand what these memberships are because they are Chunky Monkeys.

[Heather]

Chunky monkeys, but together. Get them all for $68. That's Australia.

[Corey]

Look at Cory jumping on the bandwagon. She was so apprehensive.

[Heather]

I am apprehensive.

[Corey]

Moving on to our stl. Me about it. Sponsored by Cookie Design Lab. Use code twins for 15% off. It's an online STL generator. So you get the Bambu A1 mini printer. You want to save a ton of money, you buy the STL from a shop. Yeah, you can print that. But let's say that customer, that one customer is like, can you match my wedding invite? And you're like, well, I have to create this STL from scratch. The Cookie Design Lab is a web based platform to allow you to make that cutter so quickly. Export sstl, go to print.

[Heather]

Yeah. Nice, nice.

[Corey]

So we have some texting questions, my friend. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. I've kind of picked 1 through 7. I'll say 6. Okay. Text in 540. Is that not Virginia? That's local, right?

[Heather]

That is very local.

[Corey]

Isn't that just 5, 4, 0? Yeah. Anyways, 5, 4, 0. If you're listening to this, you're the one who have seven days to claim your Cookie Design Lab. It is Virginia, but middle Virginia specifically. Roanoke, Harrisonburg and Blacksburg. So you win. Email heather triggercookiemarketer.com in the next seven days and you can claim your Creative Design Lab. For the rest of you guys that didn't win, 5, 7, 1, 5, 5, text in and I'll get you.

[Heather]

Okay, what's their question?

[Corey]

So she said, hi, twins. Loved the last podcast about ways bakers are using AI. So again, we, we are out of order. That was actually three podcasts ago. Using AI will definitely start using it to implement more AI into my business. And I only use it for a small handful of things right now. I'm curious if you could all do another podcast centered around how bakers specifically can train their AI bot and go more in depth on the prompts they use to get the best response. Thanks much, Becca. Becca. I am also learning AI as we speak. I've got my plot AI device so I have to learn the prompts before I can teach other people's problems. There's prompt scientists now.

[Heather]

Oh, interesting. I'm sure you.

[Corey]

Because you have to ask AI very specifically what you want to get it to generate what it tells you. And I've just discovered this, or maybe it just rolled out, but I'm getting into it. You can connect chat GDP with these AI agents that have them going. So you can say. And I saw a demonstration, a guy on TikTok and he was like, you can say to. To chat gtp. Find every email in my Gmail that has a timeline, a Dubai date that I've not replied to.

[Heather]

Oh, well, that's fantastic.

[Corey]

When I pulled up my email, my phone at the beach, Google Workspace had rolled out AI and it summarized what the email thread was about.

[Heather]

I want to tell you, that was so handy. It did it for me. And this order I have, they're picking up tomorrow actually. And it was telling me exactly what it says. Nicole said she wants something Hawaiian, Hawaiian themed. She doesn't care what it is as long as there's a lot of blue. I was like, yeah, that's exactly what.

[Corey]

This little summary thing.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

You know, I mean, I would always.

[Heather]

Double check, double read because you never know someone threw in a name.

[Corey]

If you read a Gemini AI, it says at the bottom, like check your sources. I mean, I would if I if I was you, but I'm not sure. Let me just read another one of these. Becca, you are the winner of the cookie Design Lab membership for a month. Just claim that in seven days. [e-mail] last day text. We bought a camper to renovate for my baking business. Kind of like a food truck, but no baking or decorating will be done in it. How do I decide how much to charge for private events? I want to say you get the private event surcharge. It is still a math problem.

[Heather]

It is a math problem.

[Corey]

So we have. There's a couple ways to approach charging for private events. People sometimes charge a flat rate for the rental and then buy product. Right. Let's say it's all inclusive. Then you're going to ask the client. Kind of think of in terms of weddings, the Popsicle guy, king of pops. So he'll allocate a certain amount of product to be sold and they'll prepay and then it'll be his time and then the rental. I don't have direct experience with this.

[Heather]

You have a math problem because you bought something, you've. You've remodeled it, you've branded it. So there's going to be a lot more costs that you have to break down. It comes down to a quantity over quality. Like how long. How many times are you putting this thing out? A year to bring in some cash? Because that's going to decide a lot of your. What you're going to charge.

[Corey]

I would find somebody who sells a similar product. I'd actually asked this question in the sugar cookie marketing group. See if you can find some people. I know we got a lot of people with carts and horse trailers that have been remodeled and things like that where they show up. You're going to think in terms of, like, balloon, like, you know, the bounce houses. Yes. Not an individual product, but it's still a duration of time. And then that king of pops, the popsicle guys, that kind of concept. Concept. Wish I had more of a direct answer for you, but everything comes down to a math problem. It does. Remember, even on that thing, we still need to charge a profit.

[Heather]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Corey]

You have a whole new product. Yeah. A new grouping of things where you can have this new target audience about it.

[Heather]

That'd be fun to market. I don't have anywhere to put one, so I will not be getting one.

[Corey]

But you sure you don't want to try to get one? That's a really neat thing. I would love to see a picture of a camper renovation.

[Heather]

I would love to. You walk as a giant camper, or is it opening to the sides?

[Corey]

Is it a trailer camper? Yeah. I don't know. Or is it one on the four wheels?

[Heather]

There is a lot of those. What's really big and popping up are those portable coffee shops, and they're coming up. We actually went to an event last week that had a portable coffee shop, and you could walk up. They rented it for an hour, and they had four choices that you could choose, and you could choose a coffee.

[Corey]

That was it. Yeah. That was very interesting. So I think they did a. I couldn't get. I asked a million people for the pricing structure, but I think what I. They rented the cart and included a certain amount of product because they left a lot of product that was paid for but not consumed. So that was an interesting way to do it. I think there's a couple ways to skin that munchkin cat, but the most profitable one would be my guess.

[Heather]

All right, next up, moving on, what sponsors? First and foremost, we're gonna say thank you to our sponsors. When you support the sponsors, you actually support the podcast when you use the discount codes. That's how they track it.

[Corey]

Because this is. Yeah, the discount codes code signals to these people that this is worthwhile for them. So thank you guys for buying from these and using that discount code. You're not doing anybody a favor by not using the discount code. If anything, save yourself a few dollars.

[Heather]

And do everyone a solid. The first is the backers company. It's a food safe backdrop. It's matte, waterproof, scratch resistant, rigid. It's a photography studio in a compact way. The ones that I get are 23 by 23 but for cake people, they have larger sizes. They are so handy.

[Corey]

Speaking of content generation.

[Heather]

Yes. If you want to film, I see this one lady, I'm trying to like replicate the way she decorates. It's always a pink backdrop and I know it's about branding and she's got like different themes. So for Valentine's Day it was a bunch of hearts on the side. I just am a basic kind of girly. It's a white backdrop that I tend to use. White matte finish is my go to.

[Corey]

And you can get that 25 off if you use code. Sugar cookie Eddie, the edible edible food printer that has no discount code because he knows his worth. So they have no clue if you guys are buying them from us. But I'd like to think they've been with us the longest. So thank you so much. Primera is the company if you go to Eddy Printers users group on Facebook or if you go to their Instagram, tons of inspo. This guy knows no bounds. Yes. Corey even said that product was a disruptor through and through.

[Heather]

Oh, I think it was fantastic. Still the coolest thing that I use.

[Corey]

A lot of people are buying them and you know, I. People always ask like, should I buy this? As long as the marketing is there. Because you can't. It's not if you buy it, they will come. It's if you buy it and you market it, they will come and he will pay for himself.

[Heather]

And the cookers that adapted early have paved the way. Now I'm getting reoccurring orders for printed cookies.

[Corey]

So yeah, and you guys because. Because you know there was that like, what are these things? And you had to tell your audience and now people are like, I don't want you pipe stuff. I want the printed stuff. I know Cookie design lab stepped up and sponsors the STLM about about its segment, which is texting questions. But you can also just purchase them from them directly. Code Twins save 15 off the membership monthly. See if you like it. I really like it in terms of like, a quick way to make a cutter. Corey could be like, did you make this too? I said, absolutely love it. They join us in the Vendee Blendy and they gave me a membership then. And I have used it freely on my own since.

[Heather]

You have. Last but not least is Royal Batch. It's a meringue powder by Bakedy Bake.

[Corey]

It's not last but least, but. Go on.

[Heather]

Oh, not last. Oh, yeah, you're right.

[Corey]

Sorry. My bad. My bad, girl.

[Heather]

This was filmed directly after the podcast we just filmed Royal Batch. Apparently there is a choke hold on meringue powder. It's hard to find if you're trying to search for a new one. Royal Batch would be one that I suggest. It's the one that I use. If you see my cookies, you're like.

[Corey]

Oh, that looks good.

[Heather]

There's no color bleed there. Thank you. That is Royal Batch.

[Corey]

You really do. You really do swear by it.

[Heather]

I really do. I absolutely love it. It has white food coating on it, in it already in it. Vanilla extract in it and corn syrup in there. You can always add extra things to it if you like almond. If you want to add more corn syrup because you're doing florals, use code twin. Saves you 10%.

[Corey]

Okay, got that. And last but not least, poor baking me crazy. She's caught in our weird traveling time.

[Heather]

Crazy girls. Crazy girls.

[Corey]

I still have to reply to her. Granted, I filmed the last podcast at the same time, so it's not like I'm talking about. I have replied to her, but the time of the listen. But Karen with Biggie made Crazy loved the Vendi Belindi. Loved you guys and said, how can I be more involved? Called. She is using code Favorite twin. Yeah.

[Heather]

For online supply shops. So if you need sprinkles, molds, she's got everything that you could want as a biker.

[Corey]

10 off. Because she is a podcast sponsor. Thank you, sponsors, for keeping this podcast going. This is like the 200 billionth episode. Yeah, episode.

[Heather]

I know. I can't believe you guys are still.

[Corey]

I saw somebody in my favorite comment. You guys know who you are. Somebody was like, you know, I have a question. And they were like, just start at the beginning of the podcast. There's so much content on there. Nice. And I've learned something every week. So at the end of the day, as much as I want to thank the sponsors, they wouldn't sponsor it if you guys weren't listening to it. Because I've got to report to them the download numbers. So the more you guys spread the good word.

[Heather]

Spread the good word ecosystem.

[Corey]

We'll bring content to you guys and you buy from the sponsors. You keep the thing going. And they only keep coming back because you guys listen to it.

[Heather]

It's an ecosystem.

[Corey]

It's a circle. Do you have a twin tur. So it does include a posture corrector.

[Heather]

I don't.

[Corey]

Nothing. Do you like? Yes. But I would have shown people on YouTube but my camera died. Is you're still going? It's still going. My camera died because I have a smaller memory cards in my filo. I got an ear piercing. I had this revelation went to the so okay. Apparently you're not as sick. Go to Claire's and use a piercing gun. You need to go to a tattoo parlor. Me walking into tattoo parlor. Do I have tattoos? Yeah, sure I do. I don't have the attitude of somebody with tattoos though. I look like a little girl trying to get a lot airpairs.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

And I went and the guy is like I don't think he likes me. We've been going to the studios at the beach. Virginia Beach, Ryan. But I got my ears pierced and I haven't been able to sleep.

[Heather]

Her ear is unhappy one I'm looking at it. One very red, one very not.

[Corey]

Cory keeps saying your ears are swollen.

[Heather]

Cory stacked it.

[Corey]

What are you want him to be? I'm saying. I'm just saying. I actually found this donut pillow meant specifically for getting your ear spears. Did you get it? I did. I slept with it last night. Did you like it? I loved it some. Do you? Have you ever gotten into bed and you just feel like you need to sleep on the other side?

[Heather]

Oh, and there's sleeping on the other side.

[Corey]

All you can think about is I wish I could roll over.

[Heather]

I know.

[Corey]

But you can't when you got your ears pierced at 40.

[Heather]

Okay, my last thing we did have mailbag. Oh I know. They sent it directly to me. Me.

[Corey]

Oh, dare to bake.

[Heather]

She's been in the vending blendy.

[Corey]

She actually sent it to me and.

[Heather]

She didn't even tell it just showed up. But I had seen she had sent out a newsletter. She actually has new offerings, new packaging. So I will be making a video about that. And Z will draw. She's actually located over the ocean but she's coming out with STLs. It's the cutest cookie cutters I ever did see now why they're adorable. So I'll be doing both unpackaging videos for you on social media. Yes.

[Corey]

We haven't seen the word mailbag in years. Mailbag. And that's our fault.

[Heather]

Your fault?

[Corey]

That's our fault. Your. You live by the mailbag.

[Heather]

I don't drive over there.

[Corey]

I don't hate going in there. I used to live there.

[Heather]

Drive over there at all. Except for there's a crumble cookie and I do want to go eat them.

[Corey]

Great idea.

[Heather]

Do we do today?

[Corey]

Should we go for Thai food? Come on, guys. Come on.