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Welcome to the Making it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing podcast. We're your host, Cory and Hilly. Before you sell them a car, I just feel that they missed me for the last. Yeah. I'm going to call this podcast Return of the Twifth. Return of the Twifth. I didn't even watch Star Wars. It was that much. I'm more Star Trekkie. Yeah, you were Trekkie. YouTube if you wanted. You have to tape your hands for a whole day. Yeah, it's a podcast. And Cor. Finally back. I am back. Today is my two week aversary for post op. I go into the doctor. She's going to check everything out, make sure I'm good to go. How do you feel? Judging by you power walking them all, I'd say. I want to say. Hold on. I want to say, I think mentally I'm still in my 20s because I thought it was going to be just an easy breezy. Get me in there, get me out. I'll be up and about a day later. That was untrue. I have a bone to pick with bodies. You know you have this body. Yeah, if you're lucky, 80 plus years. But just random things. Decide not to call into work. Like, they're like. And they don't have a replacement. I know they're at your hair. I would say the coolest thing though is I've had my uterus for 36 years, almost 37. And it went missing two weeks ago. My body has not sent one signal that it's gone. Let me tell you that this is a question I've been meaning to ask me. Yeah, okay. Did you lose weight? Like, did the uterus weigh something? Barely weighs a gram. Are you kidding me? A gram? It was like three grams. Three paperclips. That's how much it weighs. Yeah, it doesn't weigh hardly anything. Wow. It's just a housing. A little circle. Worst weight loss plan ever. Yeah. No, I said still waiting the same. So clock it in. Well, before we jump into today's content, you're actually turning your surgery into a sales opportunity. You've made cookies and content. I even said they're not. There's not one thing that I'm a marketer. I'll tell. I'll tell them. So Corey is a baker by trade. And the doctor. Corey made a cute set of hysterectomy cookies for the doctor, which she's delivering today. I told Corey, get a picture with the doctor. She's like, I feel weird. I'm like, marketing is weird. You just have to take one for the team. But you're dropping them off at the doctor today, which I think is it. And then that's how you announce on your page, which you told them you would tell them how you did. I did. I did. So I did announce it on page. I thought the cookies would be a fun way. Granted, who knows, she could be the doctor at the same time says sugar causes cancer. I might throw them out, which is totally fine. So I did give her a gift card just in case to cover my bases, which you had picked up in a conversation you had. You had compliments on. And she said, it's my favorite store. Yeah. So I said, oh, let me. I actually sent Heather while I was in the throes of getting. Getting ready, getting better. Can you go get me this gift card from this place? She mentioned I'd never been there, but Heather went and helped help the sick girl out. I did. I did. So you're recovered. Recovering. I feel so much better. 0 to 100%. How are I feel? I think I'm 85%. Like, when I walk a lot, I can feel it. Like, I feel more exhausted, faster, tireder. I've been sleeping like a baby at night, which typically I don't like unable to be awakened. Awoke. That's because they did say, you'll be tired. And I will feel. I say I feel tired. Like Nate said, I came up at 8. You were in bed asleep. Wow. Yeah. So I do feel so much better than I did two weeks ago. I couldn't even do like a sit up. It's so crazy how much you use your abdominal well. It's really anything that is leaning forward. Leaning forward, turning, sneezing. Oh, yeah. Oh, it was. Oh, yeah. We went to Olive Garden and I made some absolutely hilarious one liners. And Cory's like, please don't make me laugh. It hurts. Yeah, it was crazy. So I feel so much better. I can still feel swollen. But she said, you'll feel swollen for six to eight weeks. Although I will say just. Just shy nigh five minutes ago, Corey said food boggers. And she meant to say food bloggers. And you were doubled, overlapping. You seemed funny. It hurts now. I had to take a med. Take a med. Flu. Okay, jumping into today's content. Here's the thing. A lot of bakers. First off, I hear you guys like my replacements. Shame on you. I'm back. Viewership is through the roof. I'm back. But what we did say, I did want to touch me and Heather talked about it. Unfortunately, with the way that the podcast sound equipment goes, it's hard to get that same sound when someone's doing a zoom in. Nobody understands audio quality until you hear what this would sound like on a phone. Yeah. And if you heard it, like, coming in through someone's. Someone's computer and then being, like, recorded through computer, it's almost like they sound like they're five rooms away. And it's harder to do. So what me and Heather are coming up with an idea to do, it's almost like a zoom interview. And you would upload those to YouTube so they'll still sound like a million miles away. But I'll sound nice. Yeah, we'll sound nice. Yeah. So it'll just make it a little bit easier. Right. It'll be. It'll be good. And I think that people do like the guest. I like. Yeah, sure. Listening to it. But it is this extra component of 1 schedules, 2 people being interviewed, computer set up and everything. Yes. But where there is a will, there is a way. So we wanted to talk today about content and reach. Now, yesterday I had posted in the sugar cookie marketing group, actually got Chat TP GTP to generate an image. I had. I even asked somebody, like, why is everything Chat GTP touches a shade of yellow or tan? I think because it's, like, gender neutral. Yeah. So one of the commenters, like, oh, I actually noticed the same thing. And I asked Chat GTP why it did that. And it said there was a couple of reasons why it chose to. It said, says, you guys are saying, make a picture of something as if I can see. Yeah. It says, I can't see. So this is what the pixels would tell me it should be. And he said it. I don't know. They said that it was also a neutral thing. And humans seem to like neutral colors. And if you wanted to correct the yellow, just tell it not to. Because I think if you did everything in pink, it would always have this, like, girly component to it. But, like, when we make baby shower sets that are gender neutral, it's always yellows. And so it finds its information from the Internet, so it defines it. So I had it generate an image of 30 people in a room. Then I had it. And it's so funny. Okay. I want to be like, AI, you don't know how to make hands. So I was like. And then it said, now put 300 people in the. Or put a hundred people in the same room. Now I said, put a thousand people. And it was like, due to the constraints of the room. There's no way a thousand people could fit here. We need to change the room dynamics. I want to be like. For you to be so scientific and make me feel stupid. Yeah. You're making hands with 10 people. Smaller. Put them on top of each other. More circles. I should have been like, disregard the fact that you shove them in the room. Anyway. So an image of 30 people. An image of 100 people and an auditorium. A thousand people. Right. You used to do the business international, the beaners, bni. And you had to. Every week everyone would have a 10 second intro and one person would have a 10 minute. So it's 30 second elevator pitch. 10 seconds. 30 second elevator pitch. And then each week there was a keynote speaker and they had 10 minutes to really explain about their business. Now, I'm not massively into business networking. International specifically. Generally, the cost of it, right? It was, yeah, expensive. But the training, the practice of speaking in front of people. Wow. And it's the same people every week. Technically, maybe one or two new people or subs or something. Yeah. But standing in front of 30 people really does get your anxiety, like your cortisol spikes. And you're like, wow, I'm kind of nervous here. Yeah. Talking to 30 people who could potentially buy from me. I know, but when we translate that to social media, we're like, 30 people. That's nobody. Trash. Trash numbers, you know, say like, I've been posting. All I reached was 600 people. And that's nothing. I'm not sure where my reach went. But if you had to stand in front of a room of a hundred people or a thousand people. Cookie cons. A thousand people speak in front of them. And I was like, we were nervous. We were a little nervous. A little crazy. Yeah. However, on social media, we act like they're dead weight. Like, get out of my way. It's not gone viral, so it doesn't count. Yeah. Here's the thing. You're going to see bakers who are content cookie creators. They're not creating sets that are people are ordering. They're creating sets that people want to watch. So it'll be like this whole like vegetable set. And it's like put. It looks real. Looks like the veggies are growing from the cookie space. And that's fun to watch. And it will get a lot of views because that content was created for eyes to see. But when you put yourself up against it, you're like, I just did a lelo and stitch and nobody liked it. Yes. And Corey and I Were talking about the other day how the viewership, the re. The engagement is creates a natural tendency in the marketer to head towards that content when maybe it's not always the most helpful thing. Now, I found this TikTok and I'm going to play it here. I'm going to cut it off a little early because he uses the bird, but his name is Dave and I think he is on YouTube. Let me see if I can find the thing. D A V I D G L U Glue. So David Glue. Yeah, I'm just going to play this and I thought it was an interesting breakdown of where the content is kind of telling you where you know where the viewership is telling you the content is. So let's see if I can turn this off. Pop it in. Six things to keep in mind when you're creating content. Number one, low likes usually means that your content isn't relatable. Number two, low comments means it's not thought provoking. Number three, low saves means there's not enough value in the content. Number four, low shares means it's not entertaining. Number five, low views means that you have an ineffective hook. And number six is maybe just the algorithm doesn't like you. But I think that's an interesting translation where we're like, you know, instead of just saying, I got no views, what did you get and what didn't you get? When it comes to marketing, to look at what someone else is doing and be like, I'm going to replicate that. Your audience is different than their audience in marketing is always a strategy. So for you to be like married to. I just like to do cookie decorating, ASMR videos, that's a strategy there. Especially if you want a higher view count. But people probably aren't saving it, people aren't sharing it. And that's okay if that's a part of your strategy. So let's break down some of the strategy that goes into these. Okay, let's do number one. So low likes means it's not relatable. I want to say I am an avid tiktoker. I love consuming information on there. I'm not much that I'm going to comment or something. The Millennial pause, there's nothing like it. I can't make myself from it. Give me a pause, girl. But here's the thing with apps like Inshot or you can actually film in TikTok, you can cut off the Millennial pause and actually just start. Start talking as soon as someone scrolls to the video. This week, Facebook told me that my reels were doing better because my audience was watching it past three seconds. Nice. Three seconds is super important when it comes to your content. Right. So. So when you find. Let's apply it to bakers, like, content that. Actually, I'm sorry, I do not want to apply to bakers specifically because that's not most of the people listening's target audience. Yeah. It's the end. It might target audience. So a baker creating content. Okay. We do have the Main street collab coming up, and I actually think applies. Well. Somebody had asked when I posted the event that she was like, I did the first collab. I don't get why we're doing these. Oh, that's funny. A little aggressive. But I said, hey, here's why. It's content relatable to your specific audience. And then the engagement, the manufacturer engagement to help that content push out to more of your local audience. So when you. When I. I'm scrolling TikTok, I am an end user through and through. I'm not a creator. And I find a video where I can tell it's filmed in our area, it releases some kind of dopamine in my head. Yeah. I'm like, I know exactly what that is. A video I watched through and through, and I don't even drink coffee. Discovering the best coffee shops in Northern Virginia. Love to know where these people shoot. I want to learn. I don't even like escargot go, but I want to know where they went. And at the end, she always put where the location is. Yeah. A lot of times when bakers are. People are filming themselves and they have the millennial pause. It's. They don't review any of it. It's almost like if you say a lot of ums, it's good to script outside the app, so you kind of have a outline of where to go. So I see people be like, okay. So I just wanted to tell you. Sorry, I got a notification at the top of my phone. It distracted me those first three seconds. You've lost me in those three seconds. If we were to come outside the app and be like, here's the video I'm planning to make and have a little bit of an outline. So if we say, I want to do the top three coffee shops in Northern Virginia, well, apply it to the Main street cookie collab. It's something we're actually doing. They're creat content for it. So now make that for this my number one place I go to take my kid. Okay. In Northern Virginia is where you'd get me in the first three seconds. So Corey was thinking about doing a donut shop that you like. I'm between a donut shop, a chili shop. Okay, let's do Yoder's dead slides. Right. So for the collab, pretend Corey picks this donut chop called Yoder. She cookifies their logo. She's likely going to create a donut as well. And then we're. I know she's going to drag me out there and we're going to take the picture, but she's also going to turn it into a reel because why not? We're already there. Yes, that's great content. So here we're going to create content. Why are we specifically talking about reels here? It's a reels world. We're just living in it. Yes. However, the collab is a photo that said we're going to. We're. And you guys should consider this too. If you're doing the content, might as well make two different versions of it for sure. And the first one, she's going to say if you live in northern Virginia, you have to check out this donut shop right there. In the first three seconds, she is targeting only. She's actually excluding. If you live in northern Virginia, one, that's the area that I service and she's excluding people outside of that. Now it's going to decrease her target audience because she said only watch this. But it's going to increase that local rate. It's going to decrease my audience, but increase my target audience. Yes. So we're lowering the. The bakers that are on there. Bakers in California don't want to know about uterus ditch delights. You know, so they're gone. You're scroll. You're done scrolled. But what who stayed is the people who can actually buy from me. Okay. So now second, and it's not that every video should incorporate all these. We're just applying it there. So the second one he has is low comments equals. It's not thought provoking. Now how could Corey incorpor tell me where I should go next? What is your favorite donor shop? I need a coffee to go with this donut. Where should I go next? You could do something. Yeah, I like that one. Number three, low saves. It's not valuable enough. Now I would save if I was looking for a donut shop. I typically save a lot of restaurant recommendations on TikTok in our area. Because I want to know where I can go someday. Absolutely. I want to say I see lower saves with this kind of local content when there's not a voiceover. So what the voiceover does is you can explain the parking and it can still be an aesthetic video. And what people are finding, they get more views when their voiceover doesn't necessarily match the clip. So you can be showing you walking into the building, but you can be talking like there's just street parking here. Quick cuts that show me. Corey does this a lot. A pan of the room, a pan of the parking lot. Now think in terms of who do we want to say we're putting the shoes on of our target audience. If I was going to go to Yoder's, I would want to know how parking is. We live in a very trafficky area. You'll, you'll see a lot of aesthetic videos and it will be just calming music and like showing inside of the venue. There's, you're not going to get a lot of saves there just because you're not value there. It's very aesthetic, it's very visually, visually pleasing. But I didn't get any information. And if you're not comfortable with voiceovers, you can always put that information in the caption from where they're located, their hours of operation. Push yourself and make the voiceover. I'm just saying, I'm just. Don't let it hold you back. Don't let it hold you back. But also, come on, you can talk. You're yakking all the time. Just yak, yak into your phone if you're worried. Like, well, I don't know what to say. Write it out and read it. Nobody. We're not recording our face with a voiceover. So it's essentially your own computer as a teleprompter. A great thing is if you're on TikTok and digesting local videos and saving them, go rewatch it and see. What did they say that made me want to save this video? Which hook did they use? What got me to stop. Yeah, I don't think we got to reinvent the wheel with every piece of content we make, we can just see what's working for other people and apply it now. Next up in there, that was number three. Number four. He says, low shares, it's not entertaining. So low shares, you're, you're going to get a lot more shares with local content. Because I would find a coffee shop video and I'd send it to Heather and you know, me and Heather are going to take my son to Virginia Beach. She sent me a car show that's down there happens to be the same weekend we're down there. So at Corey sends it to me. Added to the list of things to do. Right. So entertaining could be that type of content. That's very funny. Right. I'll send an inside joke. It doesn't necessarily translate to the mainstream cookie club, however, I saw another baker post in the group. She did the Nicki Minaj challenge, which is balancing on a bowl, and she's holding. And it's funny because they're balancing precariously, but holding. Perfect. Yes, that would be more entertaining. So people would send that. So if you want to follow those comical trends, it may be a different content bucket. I'm not sure we could make the Yoder's Dutch Delights real entertaining, but we could make a skit. But that would just be more than I probably would push myself on. Number five, low views is an ineffective hook. Now, this is actually where Corey started with this and I reined her back in because it was number five and not number one is how do you get people to stop in the first three seconds? Now, the reason why we keep using the word three seconds is because that is literally what Facebook's metric is. The first three seconds. It's Facebook and TikTok's metric both are three seconds. And it's even on YouTube shorts. It that first three seconds. Those algorithms are tracking the first three seconds. It's not an arbitrary amount of time. How the algorithm works is it will see Heather. Heather's endlessly scrolling on social media. It'll serve her and serve as the marketing term for showing her a video. She has three seconds. And typically in the first three seconds, people will scroll to the next video. If it doesn't catch her their attention, if it doesn't resonate with them, they'll scroll on those three seconds are the money making three seconds. So what can you do in the first three seconds that will get them so saying, let's say if I did Yoder's Dutch Delights as mine, instead of showing the parking lot in my first clip, what I'm going to do is me taking a giant bite of a Yoder's Dutch Delight donut. Okay. And that's going to be my opening clip. And that's going to be the hook. What is she eating? What is that? She took the biggest bite I ever did see. It's a hook. It's a visual hook. And there's verbal hooks that you can use. You don't want to miss this spot. Probably something that would get me is Me and my sisters fight over this one place every time we go. Then it turns into the donut shop. Right. Why do we want to see drama and controversy? Because we're lizard brain humans who love it. Right. Turn on Kim Kardashian. So Corey saying, my sisters and I fight over this every time we go. That's the hook. That's the first few seconds. A lot of people were like, what are they fighting over? That's why you get a lot of that dating content. What was that lady series when she was dating the inside who the heck did I marry? And she'll be like, her hooks really got us to go to the next one. To the next one. To the next one. She created a series based off of these. Hooks really trapped us in there. But it really was contingent on that first video, that first three seconds. Absolutely. Which made people sit, stay. And her videos were roughly between 7 to 10 minutes long and people sat. She was a very good storyteller and stayed through each and every single one. Now with this Main street collab, you may feel inclined to make that first few seconds. Hey guys, I joined the sugar cookie. My group Scroll. Absolutely. All right. No offense to my though at the end of the day, hey guys, it's Corey with Mixing bolt scroll. That is valuable. And what you'll see is people will insert that in the center of the video so they'll be like a place you don't want to miss in Northern Virginia. Hey guys, I am Cori with mixing bowl and I go around town to show you the best places. I caught you with the first parts because you're going to stay. And then if you truly need to get your name out there, I want to say it. I hate that when I don't part of the video and subscribe. If you like this content. Right. I feel like that is an archaic method. I think it's a three years ago TikTok strategy. It is. They're trying to say they're like, I follow these people who know the trends and they say they're trying to sneak it in so a sneaky way. Like if you didn't catch my last video, I went over like saying, go back, follow me. Right. I don't mind the backwards reference to another video. I do not like the mid sentence intro. Hey guys. Me and my sisters argue over this every time. Hi, I'm Cori with Mixing Bowl Cookie company And if you follow me, I'll tell you. Like, I don't really like that. For some odd reason it makes me not want to Save the video. I think you could it in a way I could think you say it wor. I'm located at Lakeridge and I like to show you my favorite spots. Here's how I make it even more interesting. Here's. My sisters and I argue this every time we come here. I'm a baker, so you think I'd know what tastes good. But they always like to tell me I'm wrong. You could say covertly. We got it in there, but we didn't take people out of the specific video we wanted to talk about. Yeah, and here's the thing. At the end of the day, as a baker, you're not going to have just 100% around town videos. You're going to make a bunch of different. Yeah, you're going to show you packaging and order and things, things like that. That's the magic of creating content is testing. Corey and I are testing something yesterday. I think we're running the midsummer membership sale. And I told her, I'm just posting this cause I want to see how it performs. Because yeah, every time you post content you can take it back there. Of course, when you're changing a lot of different pieces at one time, it's kind of hard to know. It's hard to know what's working, what's not working. In the last cookie collab, the meet the baker collab, it was two collabs ago, we had to get people to read the caption. So I said, let's write a hook. And if you got my caption template, which is free, it was pinned. The videos you could have like, I can't believe I'm telling you, number four. Well, as the reader, I want to get to number four. Number four. I skipped 1, 2, 3, went to number four. Right. That's a hook. Or guys, please don't think of me any different after you read what I'm about to say. Yeah, those things are, you know, you can't do them all the time. The boy who cried. Drama. Right? We can't do. And I want to say there's studies coming out where people are doing the same hooks over and over and over again. And people are like, I'm a follower. So this is really weird. They're not even speaking to their followers anymore. They're only speaking to first time strangers. It's so funny. The Rock. Do you smell what the Rock was cooking? Dwayne Rock, I think this is about two years ago he got hired to buy some fast food company. I think he's based in California. So I don't believe maybe it was Jack in the Box. I don't remember. Yeah, but in the videos, he'd be like, this is my first time going to Jack in the Box. And then he goes and places an order. But he did it in every video. And everyone's like, this isn't your first time. Because we just saw the first time. So that comes inauthentic. Inauthentic. So you got to have that, too. Cory can't be like, my sisters and I fight over this at the mall and we fight over this at Yoder's. Because it performed well one time. Absolutely. Yeah. So you're gonna see what hooks work well. So maybe the hook of ambiguity works well and you could go into that. But I'm not gonna say me and Heather fight. Me and Heather fight. Me and Heather fight. You could do a. There's the different hooks have different applications. You could do an educational hook. A dramatic hook. A list hook. Yes. Hey, here's five things I would do on a Saturday. A location hug. If you're in Manassas, you gotta check this place out. That one's a common one because you can hear that. Yes, it is. So to kind of go back through that, it gets pretty frustrating to work exceptionally hard. And you can see these creators are like, sometimes the thing I worked five hours, didn't do anything I did in three seconds did numbers. So it's to keep that in mind. You have these different content buckets, and within that content strategy, that content pillar, you have different content types. So let's say Corey's doing local businesses. She's going to have the Main Street Cookie Club. It's a fun one. She's also going to turn that into a reel. She's also going to turn it to a post in her community group. She's going to. So we still have just the same bucket we're pulling from, but we're creating different versions. Now, within those different versions, let's focus in on the reel. She can try it with different hooks. She can create from that one reel. Different versions of the reel. My sisters and I fight over this next video. Guys, if you like donuts, you got to try this place. Hey, guys, if you're in Manassas, check out Yoder Dutch Delights. Now, we've taken one piece of content and spliced it three different ways, and it's in. Not everything is going to pop off and you're going to be like, wow, that one did not do numbers. It doesn't mean quit. Never make that kind of content again. It means try, try again. The algorithm used to put Facebook lives at an all time high. Thousands of people would. This has been the thorn in my flesh. And I've been lamenting it to Corey. When we first started the group five years ago, the sugar bolt bakery lady, she was the one who. First person, he said, I'll teach you. And I think it was on making reels. It was on, yeah. Filming videos. Filming videos. When we'd post those lives, hype them up, the exact same strategy I used today, they would pull in a thousand viewers. Insane numbers. Slow day was 400. I'd be like, sorry, nobody watched it. Now Facebook has done a massive depreciation of lives so much that they're now deleting them after 30 days. But when I go live, it tells nobody. If Heather reaches 10, I'm like, I'm lucky I put two. The event is the only reminder you remember. It used to be like this person has gone, absolutely, absolutely. I knew there was a problem. When Facebook books group rules defaulted to do not go live in this group. And what happened is the algorithms change as people start using or misusing features. So people would actually go live and stream just a room, there was nothing in it. Like a lot of QVC style content. A lot of QVCs, a lot of churches. Yeah. People just following around their life, which is still big on TikTok. Weird. But that. So they depreciated lies because the algorithm says we no longer like the way people are using it. People are not responding well to these types of lives. So. So now we're promoting reels content. Not in groups though. So if you guys have figured out what video content works in a group, you let us know. Yeah, I think they're still trying to find their footing there. I think they realize that groups are more of a form, form based style, more of a picture, more of a text base. Yeah. That's why the AI they've incorporated only Ask Watchdogs. Yeah, it does. That's all it does. Yeah. Because that's what kind of community groups have moved towards. At the end of the day though, none of us are giant celebrities. We're not trying to get a fan base, but we are trying to be seen. So when you have a video that has 30 to 90 views, it can feel like compared to Dwayne the Rock Johnson who has 7.8 million followers, that our video did not do well. But if one of the 60 to 90 views converted in a new follower who's local, who can Buy from you. That is a win. It's interesting on the Main street collab post I made last night, if you guys want to join it, you can. It's free to join. It's a fun little way to get local business. Brenda writes, hey, it's so funny. I get no reach. Oh man. Have been on my group of 30 posts. She's like, I get no reach at all. And she's like, I find it pretty frustrating because I'm trying to do everything we talk about here. And she's like, but on my order intake form, I asked people how they find me and she's like, the overwhelming majority is on Facebook. So she's like, even though it may not translate to a like or a comment, she's like, most of the comments are from my family friends. She said it is converting and it's just not something I do all the time. So she's like, it's easy to be sad by the 30, but when the 30 are placing orders, that's a great number. That's fantastic. I see so many bakers. Make a video and listen, I'm in the trenches with you making a video, editing it, voiceovering it, making the filters on it and uploading it and have it not get any reactions or any comments is kind of defeating. It is. But at the end of the day, if you post a video, I post Heather said, make a video of the Two Dollar Transfer Club because it was on sale for $1 yesterday on TikTok and said I purchased the $2 transfer account for $1. Let's ask. Or that. Would you rather a thousand views and no purchases or 100 views in a purchase? Yeah, 100 views in a purchase. Right. So as small hyperlocal service based businesses that bakeries are, even though we do produce a product, but kind of it is service based. Yeah. To look at the bakers that are influencers and say that's frustrating. Look at all their likes. Maybe I need to take my content content in that direction. I think you're using the wrong compass. The wrong compass. And I want to say a lot of us are getting on TikTok. TikTok is the number one fastest growing follower platform currently. What Corey's saying is basically it's easier to go viral there than it is anymore. Absolutely. You'll see a lot of cookie decorators making four cookie baker content. So they're saying, here's how I grew my bakery, here's how I charge 25 million percent profit on this. And it's because you can Appeal to a larger amount. Bakers are worldwide. Right. So you can get a lot more followers. But here's the thing. What I see bakers trip up and they do is that content did take some time to make. So you're like, well, you know, it performed really well on TikTok. I'm going to share it to my Facebook page, which was literally grown locally. Your audience, your local audience who can buy from you doesn't want to know you charge 200% profit on an order. They. Yeah, they don't want to know how this. They don't want to know how this. They don't want to know that you were on TikTok. What does. Well, can you believe this customer ordered last night and they expected to have a 16 tier cake in 32 custom cookies. I can't believe it. Customers are the worst. They on your Facebook page do not want to see you lambasting your clients over there. So I see this like people are in a fork in the road. Do I market to bakers to make this kind of content where I'm actually getting traction? But are they. What do they. You could be in the creative traction views. It could be my content is being viewed when I do this type of content. That makes me think I should lean into this type of content. However, I sent you a video. I know you didn't watch it. Do you understand the sisters are protesting how you handle TikTok shares? You've ruined me because you sent me 16 videos I had already sent you. So now I said on Sunday night, I go back through my messages. You got to watch. You have to reply. I'll take this offline. We'll take it. Our older sister's also involved in this conversation. I sent you one by Alex Hermosi. Love him or lose him. I kind of think he's inspirational. He started like a gym program. Like he would come to gyms and he would say, I can get you new signups. And he created this kind of onboarding. Sure. Attempt thing. Right, Right. So that's how he built the company now worth $100 million or whatever. They're worth a lot of money. Okay. So whatever it is worked. And then he wrote a book on how he did that gym approach. And if you read it, it makes a lot of sense. A very sales based. Okay. He's very much like, here's how you handle objections, pricing, object. Okay. So he was like, well, we decided for 30 days we'd make this type of content that we saw was performing so well for other creators and he was like, at the end of 30 days, I hadn't made nearly as many sales as I had not doing this content. So he's like, yeah, the metrics that didn't matter performed great. The metrics that did matter conversions performed terribly because my content became too broad. Yeah. Too broad. And that's why I see bakers making content for bakers and then wondering, should I. Should I make that same content? That's a lot of effort for that first piece of content. Yeah. Because now you're pulled twice. So your Facebook page is local. So you're like, now I gotta go to Yoder's Dutch Delights and make a video. But then my bakers over here that have grown on TikTok want more baking content. So your bakers aren't going to care about Yoder's Dutch Delights. You know what happens? What happens is that TikTok content. You're going to be like, well, I'm appealing to a baking audience there. It's not a local audience. Well, I still want to monetize here, so let me create baking content that bakers buy. Now. That is the cookie college. That is where we are. Yeah. But I'm also not selling local cookies, so I can focus on just that right now. On the flip side, it is. It is easy to get just burnt out by spinning your wheels and seeing 30 views on Yoder's Dutch Delights in Manassas. And then you'd be like, why do I keep having to. Even you can go to widespread, and now you're a restaurant reviewer locally and not even a baker. Is that content converting? If the metric is conversions, which means you took a view and turned it into a purchase, that is, to me, the most important metric on social media. There is a side thing. I went really viral and then I sold out. Yes. Okay. That is a strategy, but you have to go really viral. Terrible. Yeah. How are you going to do that? I know it's some controversial piece of content or you got lucky or you hit the algorithm just right. Or that one time, the way you said it, or that drama you talked about. Is it. Is it replicable? Can you do it again? And again this. She's not necessarily a baker. I don't even know her. But she just ended up in my feed. She, like, made marshmallows or something, but she had a brick and mortar and she made a video that said, guys, we're going to close down if I don't get this many sales. We only had $2 of sales yesterday. $4 30 day before that went viral. So you'd be like, oh, that was great. Now, each and every video is kind of like a soft story. Guys. We only have to. Because the algorithm said we're not going to reward you when you're upset. Yeah. So then people are like, I feel like you're making all these videos. The comment section is turned on her. Like, I don't think you're doing anything different. If everything's so sad, it's unfortunate. It's in a. It's. It was authentic. It was authentic. It got rewarded. And then, unfortunately, people followed for that type of content, but when it kept happening, then they're like, well, now it's inauthentic. And then. And then the. The ability for your audience to turn. Oh, it's wild. It's wild. Pretty fascinating. If you are a local baker and listening to this, I. I encourage you to pour into the local content. And there's so many different ways you can do it. I can make the video for my Facebook page, but I can also, if I don't tout and try to break a sales rule, make that video in my number one Facebook group that gives me the most sales and really create a relationship with the people in that group to even get more sales. So while it may have not popped off on my Facebook page because the algorithms are real, it could have been very valuable in the local community group. And then my name's being shown about. If they click to my profile, they can see that I'm a baker. You know, there's so many different ways. I went to this new place that just opened right next to my house called cup of Coffee. C O, P, P, I. Cuppy coffee. Very cute in there. They actually sell macarons. So if I wanted to, I could sit down and do a taste test of the different flavors of macarons. Because as a baker, I know what I like. Know what? I don't like a local content tertiary outside of baking, but close enough and interesting. The hook here. Watch a baker review these five macaron flavors. Absolutely. And I would stay just to know one. Was the tiramisu one good? Yeah. So that content. And that's all you kind of see with the collabs. And back to answering that lady's question. What's the point of that? This. The point of this is to help bakers create local content that, with the guide and the support of other bakers, reaches more of their local audience. Yeah. Because you're going to find that sugar cookie marketing. Marketing is where we're based at the Main Street Cookie Club. Highlighting a store in your town and sharing that on your Facebook page that is bringing people from your town into your audience, into your engagement, into the little circle to. Maybe that store will share it again. It's always going to have a marketing and maybe. Maybe that store will convert and back to again. If that's that. That central focus. I think it kind of quiet. The noise of that didn't get any views. It quiets it because you're like at the end of the day, it's not a short payoff of high views. It's a long con of money. Of money where I'm creating these relationships. We just did. Was it last week? I believe so. Last week we did the cookie. My logo collab where bakers were cookifying their own logos. Yeah. And there's cakers there. I saw some cakes in my. Yeah, they were like, can I part of this big. Absolutely. So, yeah, limited. But it was showcasing to your audience. One, you're telling the story of where your logo came from. But two, that you could actually do logos for your local audience and get more sales like I said. And tip my copy like, listen, this is great for home shows. Hey, cough, cough for modelers. That's for you. Realtors, open house houses. This is a great avenue for you because I want to connect with my local audience and that's what these marketing things is for. Me and Heather are always going to be big proponents in focusing on local sales. Those are the people that can buy from you. If you want to go viral, by all means. That's a different. Just have a downloadable ready to go. Don't sell it in my group, but have it going. Yeah. And combined. Exactly, exactly. So, yeah, back to kind of the over. The overarching theme of this content is king. We have to produce content to be relevant on social media in another world. I wish it wasn't this way, but in the other side, I do like that it forces the hands of business owners to put themselves out there. Right. We can't buy what we don't know exists. Okay. So we know I have to make content. What type of content? Do I make something that I think could go viral? Do I make something that bakers would like to watch? Okay. We're always going to tell you, focus on local. Try to keep it local, try to keep it personal, try to keep it within a geographical area. Yeah. That's going to convert well for your local audience. So we just said no to the bakers. Right. Then within that content that's now we're generating and it's local. What type of content does that local audience want to see? And you're going to test, test and retest. I don't believe that we'll ever reach the point where, like, this is the perfect formula. Just keep doing this. Yeah. Because the algorithms are always changing. The algorithms are always changing. The algorithms. The times are changing, people are changing, holidays are changing. So while the pieces change, show must the content. Yes. Now you can test within that content. Let's change the hook. Let's change the way I film. Let's change the way I talked on it. Sure, sure, sure. Let's put the. The restaurant, the very last slide so that they videos with. With people in it better than videos of you behind the camera. There's so much testing that is out there. Before you say, this isn't for me. Nothing works. When somebody comes to the group and they say, I tried everything and none of it worked, I say nothing. And I go to their profile and see what everything looked like. Yes. And I find that most of the time we tried some of it it and we got frustrated. Men. We said it didn't work. And that is humanity. That is being. That is your. That is being a real person that's frustrated. Yeah. But you gotta take a break. And if that's walking away from the camera for a bit and coming back a couple days later, listen, I do it all the time. I do it all the time. And you gotta hit the pavement again. Yeah. Just try it again. So like our older sister, I told Corey a lot of the content you put out is very product review. Listen, I get a ton of saves, not a ton of flawless. Because it's not necessarily the content. Corey, I don't necessarily know Cori at all, but I do want to buy that thing she just mentioned. So Ashley had said the solution to that is to test more personal content. Corey struggled with it. She said it almost made her have. It gave me. I was frozen in front of the camera. It gave her a mental block. So she was like. I was like, wow. Our followers didn't change at all. And Corey, I didn't post anything. I was like, well, gay. She's like, out of my way. I said, I have to release myself from this thing holding me back. So our test in more personal content was a podcast. Yeah. An interview type, letting people in. And then Corey posted her updates. So there's that. I did. I'm so uncomfortable right now, but how can I broach this? I've Done tons of package and order with me. But this past one, I said, package an order with me. This is for my doctor. And I said, this is a natural segue for me to get more personable but still do it at the pace that I used to. So it was interesting to see. And then, you know, we had Ashley on the podcast last week and she was like, this was my first, like conversational podcast where it doesn't seem like you guys follow script, although she came up. She did. And. And it just kind of seeing what works. Corey said, I don't know that people will like interviews on the podcast. You said that years ago. Amy shows up, viewership went up. People love it. What is the audience telling us? What. What would be bad of me is to say, no, no, I'm not listening to what they. They want. They don't like it. But what I equally as bad is to say we're only doing interviews now. Now. Absolutely. It's incorporating slowly adding to the repertoire, not replacing it every time one viewership changes. Viewer count. Yes. And if you're like me and you're slow to change because it's hard, you can incorporate aspects of it and it'll get you more comfortable with it. Okay. It took you a while to put your face in front of the camera. Absolutely. It. So her progression was a video where her face is in it, but it's not talking. Yes. It's just me doing something in the background. So first it started with just the video. Then it started with a voiceover. Then it started with a voiceover, but she's in it. Then it started with her talking to the camera. And you can see how that. And I assume you're still heading in that direction because it is performing better. It is a slow progression to that, but I'm getting more comfortable along the way. I don't feel stage fright because I'm not just dumping like jumping in head first where I'm like millennial paws, big toe, warm water. That is how I approach. Yeah. So it has been. And I've seen the audience respond well to it. So what you guys can do and why I do like these collabs is it gives you that excuse to be different on your social media. It does. It does. The meet the Baker. A lot of people are like, why don't posting about myself? But I have to because I'm in this collab. Guys, welcome. A great excuse. Guys, I'm part of this collab. You had to do this. If you want to check it out now. I almost have to pull up her name. I got an email about probably, you know, we don't usually do collabs outside of these kind of slower months. Yeah. Because it gets a little busy in the holiday season. But she had emailed me an idea for September. Oh, yeah. And Heather was telling me about this. It was actually good. I'll let. I'll talk about it while you try to find it. So these collaborations apps, we're. We have one scheduled. This is our second one in a row or third one in a row? This is the third. Yeah. So third one in a row. And we're like, do we do one in September? Do we not do one? But what did it say? Okay, this is Lisa Beatty. So I had. I had a. I was reading the AI summary of her email. But anyways, she says there's this funny trend going around. Trend. I like that. Of a video. So we're talking about reels of people blindfolding themselves and doing something. I think it'd be fun if we had everyone blindfold themselves and decorate a circle cookie. She was like, circles more. Everyone has a circle cutter. So I'm just spending money. Yeah. Blindfold themselves. Post. And I said this would be a really interesting idea to force us all into make a real. Yeah. So this trend was actually big for, like, I saw coffee shops doing it in cupcake decorators because they were. How could you pipe the buttercream and the whipped cream onto it and then put sprinkles on it? So it does. It is a trend that's going around. Okay. So if they decorated a circle, what would be. I would say decorate a circle and put a flower on top. That's a good one. The pipe. Yeah. Because flower petals are. Are bonkers anyway. That'd be hilarious. And then at the end, we all get a laugh and. Okay, so I think. Okay, back to the concept here. These. Joining these collabs, while they may not be, like, totally within. It's allowing you to push your limits. You know, okay. You decorate something that's cool. It'll be hard to pipe Yoder's Dutch lights if that's. Yeah. But it's pushing your content boundary into a larger scope. But you're also telling your audience. And I always do it in the captions, the caption templates. Hey, guys, if you. There's this group. We join collabs with other bakers across the world. And here's one of the challenges that we're doing today day. So that's why I do like that. So if it's the Reals challenge next month or next month. It is the Main street collab. The September one will be this reals one. It'll allow you to be like, let me test with my audience. You're already going to get great engagement because that's the, that's the whole purpose behind it that you have bakers coming and engaging with you, but then you're also getting in front of the your audience with new content. That's not this polished photo. My pretty excited. Yeah. It's just a way for you. You to test new things with the guise of this group. Made me do it. I don't want to tell you the Main street collab a little bit more work because you're featuring a business. You're going to write up about the business. We're going to love to read about the business. Oh, absolutely. But some of these bakers who have done this in the past. This is our third Main street cookie collab. Thank you, Lydia for coming up with the idea years ago. I found her original post by the way. They're like this does so well for me. I'm going to do four businesses. I think it's fantastic. I've done one outside of the collab for the lady who does my Botox. And you know what? While she doesn't have a Facebook page, it got hacked. Sorry for her. Darn it. She does recommend me in groups because she knows. Oh, Cori's a baker. When someone asks for bakers, she'll comment. Yeah. So it didn't work out. Let's hope your cancer doctor recommends you to. Yeah, that's what I was like. She doesn't need to know my baker. So that is kind of my pitch for the Main Street Cookie collab. I like that one. For corporate orders. If you want to get in your corporate girly air. We'll talk about that more next time month. But this is that that post I made last night. The 30 people in a room, the 100 people in a room, the thousand people in a room. That's a massive amount of people I know. And that content that you don't think is doing. If 30 people bought from you, your, your August and your September would be booked. I thousand percent agree. I think people see the 30 people watched. No one bought from that. But maybe one of the 30 people has a birthday coming up in December. So while they didn't buy today in July, why you've put it in their mind that they. Oh yeah, I do. My. You know my birthday is coming up. I did want to order Something for them. I wish I had, like a. A citation here, but they say, what's 21 touch points before someone converts. Yeah. It's typically why you go to Nordstrom's. Your. Your window. Browsing. You're not shopping. Yeah. But when you go back to Facebook, there it is again. When you go to this other website, it's on the right corner. It's in your email. And you're like, I didn't even get in my email. How was that happening? But that is how marketing works. It is a low, slow, and consistent. Another thing Alex from Mosey said, I think I sent it to as well, so you'll never watch it. He was like, be so consistent that there's no way you couldn't win. And you know what? One thing I gotta commend you on. Commend us both on. We are not the best, but we are consistent. Yeah. I say, I would love to be the best. Sounds cool. One day I'd like to arrive there, but being the most consistent. I was telling your son that actually he came over here on. I picked him up on Wednesday. Yeah. He was playing with Munch. And I got in the car and I said, hey, Arch, I'm just going to tell you, like, two things. Like, you don't have to be the smartest person to be the best. You can be the most consistent. And that will actually make you the smartest person. Absolutely. The more time into anything. Arch made me a egg sandwich. I am trying to make him more adultish. Don't worry, I got a picture of every egg sandwich you got. He was very proud of it. He burnt the egg to smithereens. And I ate it with the happiest heart I've ever had. And he was like, wow, that sucked. I really burnt it. I said, the next one, it won't be burnt because you have to make the next one. And he made the next one. He was like, something was wrong with bread. I said, yeah, now you know, you just didn't burn the bread. The bread just wasn't browned enough. Take Archer's egg sandwich approach to your content. You're gonna be like, that one was burnt and that one was floppy. Something happened to your bread. It was floppy. You said, yeah, it was floppy. And the next one is going to be too buttery. But each time. Each time you get progressively. The eggs weren't burnt on the second one. Just red was fluffy. One time I had an ex boyfriend and I was like. I mean, I said to him, if I wanted to, I could be A lawyer. Oh. And he was like, no, you can't. And I was like, well, I could. I could just put in the work, even if I'm not necessarily smart. I just have to study longer. I just have to show up longer to study, and I could do whatever I wanted. When I started making cake pops, Heather was like, maybe that's just not for you. I said, girl, I'm literally crying. I know. I said, listen, listen, I gotta get. Sorry. Corey wasn't crying. The cake pops were. They were sweating. I gotta get two bad batches in me before I start getting the hang of things. I was thinking that over the weekend. I said, it's so unfortunate that I'm. I'm absolutely positive I'll suck at something before I'm good at it. Like, it's a guarantee now. They're not gonna be, oh, I'll suck before I'm good. I just am like, let me get my sucky one out of the way and then I'll pay the. You have to pay the sucky toll. Yeah, you gotta pay the sucky tool. And same with your content and same with your viewership and. And. And then you gotta realize kind of the metrics that matter aren't always the popularity contest. It isn't. And it's so hard to put yourself up against the bakers who do make cookie content that are for other bakers because they do get a larger view count. But they're also. That's their metric that they want if they're getting paid in adsense, which is eyeballs, they would want. And they're. They're saying, okay, I'm getting better and better at eyeballs. Yeah. You're like, I'm getting better and better at wall wallets. Yeah. Local sales. And yeah, some of that will cross and some of it won't. But. But if you're a local baker, let's get better and better at wallets. Yeah. Our goal, and what makes me sad is when I open Instagram or Facebook and I see a baker announcing that they're hanging up their apron, it's always that line, I'm hanging out my apron. It feels like. It feels like solidarity. And a lot of times it's burnout. Maybe it's a change of life, but our goal in trigger cookie marketing is to give you longevity in your business. So I tell Corey, sometimes the most impressive baker, the baker, I'm like, wow, that's impressive. Is not going to win over the baker. That's pretty okay. Yeah. And has been doing this for years. It's, you know, the flash in the pan. If we want to take it back to pans and aprons. The flash in the pan baker who's like, I'm amazing and I'm quitting tomorrow. I love it. I love what you're able to do. Give me that baker that's like, I'm just going to keep showing up. What I see more often because I've been in this now for years and I've seen the industry turn over as it, as it always does is bakers who have, like, an extreme talent to decorating cookies. Like, they're really good at hand painting or they're, they love every teeny tiny detail. Like, there's like florals on florals and florals. They get so into the weeds of the details. Because now you're, you're competing with bakers, making content for bakers that you burn out. And I always see no longer taking custom orders. How can you. It's a math problem closed for business. Business just making for fun. You know, I tell people, like, raise your prices. You know, raise your prices. But there is a point at which you, your price is capped out of your market. Right. There's a higher end of that. Or something else has to change to be able to. But sometimes when labor costs are so astronomically high, you've priced yourself out of your own market because you're, you know, as a baker. Well, that took me one time, I heard a baker and like, that took me 12 hours for a single. That's insane. Well, the cookie cost 100 hundreds of dollars on a single cookie. Can you sell that product? If not, it wasn't the best expenditure of time. Unless it was for content. Unless it was for content. So a lot of times when they do get those, like, this took me 52 million hours to make. They just turn into content creators. Now, the bakers, that sugar cookie marketing is focused on, and I know people get frustrated in the group when they come and they're like, well, I just want. I, you know, you guys help with marketing. I was just wondering how to make a website for cookie cutters. Like, because that's. You're no longer, you're no longer in my target audience. My target audience, the sugar cookie marketing's target audience is to help the local baker make more local sales. Yeah, it's always been that. It's always what we're focused on. Yes. We could say, here's this other content, or here's how to go viral, or here's how to do this. Some people will ask me something. I'm like, I don't tell people to market on Pinterest because I don't feel like it helps hyperlocal sales and that to our focus. And could we make more money? Could we make. Could we increase reach? Yes. By putting the group to public and allowing anybody to join with no entry questions and rules. Yeah. But what does that do to our target audience? It dilutes it. Yeah, it does. Corey and I said if we could go back, I asked you this the other day. If you could press a button and remove everyone from the sugar cookie marketing group who does not bake and hasn't baked in four years, would you press the button? Yeah. Corey said immediately. Even if it regardless of what the number was, a hyper local target audience audience is better than a broad audience. And you'd be like, but twins, 50,000 people in the group isn't that good. Wouldn't you want. 50,000 people aren't buying. 50,000 people aren't even logging into the group, frankly. And I'm happy with this. 35,000 people are active members. That means at one point in the last 30 days, they took an action or reaction or they clicked to the group or saw a piece of content. If I could press a button and remove 15,000 people who never interacted with the group, I would. Yeah. That's why a lot of times and why we don't do follow trains in the group is bakers will build your numbers. They, they're one, they're good at something. They're good at baking. When I see a follow train thread, it's got 500 comments. Absolutely. And here's the thing. A baker following you and never engaging with your content is now dead weight. They're holding back your post because if they ever get served that content, which we know served means shown in the feed and they scroll right on by. That's the first three seconds. Right, right there. They're just scrolling right by. Okay. But to even take it a step further, when I was setting up a Facebook ad the other day and I said, I want to show this to people who already like my page. I want to just be hyper focused. But I'm like, if that was follow train numbers, I'm paying to waste my money. I know. Because if I said if I'm a hyper local baker, but I joined a bunch of follow trains, I have thousands of non local followers and I'm running an ad to my followers. I'm paying to waste my money. Absolutely. Absolutely. The popularity contest, it's distracting It's. It's the numbers. Glorious looking. Gloriously. I mean, you'd be like, wow, could you imagine my name up in life? Autographs everywhere. But on the flip side, that conversion metric is the most important one for the businesses that we try to help, you know, and you can find a different content creator to help you go viral. Sure. I don't think you're gonna find it from us. There's plenty of groups and creators and content out there to find that stuff. Yeah. But for. As for me and my house, we will focus on conversions. Yeah. Yeah. At the end of the day, that's what keeps the lights on. That's the most K people. What's so funny is people are like, well, I'm just trying to make cookie content because I get paid off of views through meta, through TikTok and things like that. But did you say they killed the thread views? Yeah. Meta and TikTok can constantly change the price per view. You could get pennies where you were seeing dollars. It can go to pennies and they can do it no questions asked. You can't do one thing about it. You can get kicked out of the creator rewards program just because you had someone reported your content this. Maybe bakers didn't like you, so they reported your content. It's hard to put all those eggs in that singular basket. It's a cog. You become a cog in a wheel and nobody's telling you where to drive. Yeah. When I see bakers on TikTok with 5 million followers no longer creating content, I know there's some issue there. Care. Oh, that's what Koi says. If people follow the money and when people abandon a page with a million followers, there must have been no money or life change. But anyway. But I'm saying 5 million. If it was paying your bills, you're gonna turn. A lot of us would be punching the air for 5 million. Well, how can you blame them when you log on to the Internet every five seconds and was like, this creator makes 50,000 passive income per month because they just post for five hours a week. Yeah. And you're like, well, that's much better than my back hurting and my knees hurting because I pipe mixing colors endlessly. But find your focus, lean into it. And despite all, put those blinders on and just consistently show up so much that would be almost impossible for you to fit. If you talk about a cookie class and it gets two likes, but you have a room full of cookie class students, I think you won't. That's Our goal. I think you won't. That is our goal. Yeah. If you go to sugarcoating Instagram or Facebook page. Right. You're gonna see. You're gonna see like, they got two legs on that. Yeah. But am I December? Class is almost full. Yeah. Where do I want my glory? Ego. Right? Yeah. At the end of the day, does it lie with the two likes? That's not ego based. No. Does it lie with a classroom full of students? That's where I want mine. 85 a ticket. It a little bit. Little bit. Little bit. So don't be devastated by the low reach. Always. You know, it is an indicator of tweaking content. It's an indicator of adding a content bucket. But don't let it be the thing that takes you to your knees. Yeah. In your opinion. I'm just marketing to Maker now. I saw something like, I get no reach on Instagram, so I don't even post it. I don't think that was it either. Yeah. I think that there was no reach on Instagram. So you could tweak a few things and maybe incrementally increase that reach over time without the goal of. Of a million. For sure. For sure. I get this is a Corey Cory will be like, ah, I got. I made all this content and I got, you know, the consistent views. I didn't go viral, but I also can't sell my soul. You know, Cory's like, I could sell my soul and go viral. Yeah. I don't. The content that goes viral I can't make because then I'd get a lot of wishy washy followers that I don't want. Right. So like it, you know, if only I could just, you know, take from the. A crappy content bucket. A great metric for me that has kept me on the straight and narrow is the. The saves. The saves means I'm. That was educational. Is educational. It means I'm making things that people can relate to. Here's a floral tutorial. Here's this packaging supplier I found. Here's how I did this. You save it, you're going to be like, okay, I created something that people find value in with the bakers. I would like, I would think a nice one to be Mount Shoot. Why? I don't know. He's gone. It's so hot. Ruthan's house is ridiculous. Honestly, it's all I can think about right now. Now that you said it, I've increased by 10 degrees. But rest assured, guys, Washington, D.C. the nation's capital is in the cool ways Getting ready. Bright baby. I've walked, I want to say I've walked all summer to appreciate the fall. You know, I think I'm going to start and you're invited if you want because you can go free on my tab. A Berkeley walk. Once it was week. Three miles. Really? I don't know. And that when the fall I can watch the whole. I'll do it on a Tuesday, Friday, Friday I don't like. Or after the Olive G. Forgot about Olive G. That'll take me to my knees. Maybe a Sunday. Maybe a Sunday. A little chill. Yeah. Because it's not free for me to go because I don't live in. You have to go on Monday. Well then the cameras have spoken. Let's move along here. Okay. But that's something to consider. I think it's an important thing. Especially when we talk about metrics. Metrics, Metrics. Content, content, content marketing, marketing. It's like doing everything and nobody's working. You know, we have 8,000 8,500 people on the newsletter list. Only 6,000 of those reach inboxes. Only 2,500 are opened and the click through rate's even less than that. But there is a click through rate. And you know what? If we never started that there would be zero. Right. And that would be a lot more frustrating. And then it's just, just time in. You know, Cory and I kind of find it fascinating. This is five years in. Yeah. Yeah. Five years in. But I, I said what I want is for that baker who took the two year break to be able to come back to sugar cookie marketing when they unhang up their apron. Yeah. And find that that content that they left that they liked is still here. Plus a couple years and there's this. Someone did an entry question we asked like what do you want to learn most when you join the group? Someone said, I have searched highlights low for a group like this and I could not find one until you happen to show up in my feed. I'm just so glad there's a space online for it where it's a hundred percent marketing. Yeah. You know, and Corey and I said, you know, you see these other groups and they're broad stroke and they let people post these funny things about baking content and ask baking questions. In my heart, my marketing heart, I'm like, oh, that content does so good, I'd love to have it. But on the flip side, what we promise people is a niche marketing business focus. And I keep my word because that's by golly, we're going to deliver. And I think that when you go there and you're like, I really want some answers that actually get me to the end point. That's where you're gonna go. For sure. For sure. At least that's what I hope you guys think. You don't think that, though. Bye. Golly. We're sorry. So moving on, we're actually running the mid summer membership sale right now. You. If you're listening to this, it's Tuesday. You have until Sunday. You have until Sunday. I got some memes popping up off. Yeah, you do. You had the funny one Price is Right meme yesterday. I did giggle at that. It was a little hilarious. Here's a great thing. That meme won't perform as well as a broad strokes meme. And I know that fully well because I went to your dollar transfer club sign up. I don't. I love your laugh react. But I understand that that meme's purpose was not for laugh reacts. Its metric was conversions. Exactly. So the midsummer membership sale is a sale on all five of our memberships, plus the 2023 and 2024 cookie class kit. So everything we offer, typically we only offer run the sale once a year and it's one day during the vending money. I can't believe so many people are talking about the vending money. All right, you open the door. You open the door. I was like, hey, I just want to let you know I'm in. I said, oh, girl, I didn't expect it. So then I posted to the page. It was like, hey, got my first bank information. People from last year, like, wow, they started so early. Maybe, maybe I missed. Oh, they were like, where did you. I didn't even get the email. And I was like, I haven't even signed. But I got a lot of. I got cooking with fire here. If you wanted to partake in the college, the cookie college, the classic kits, before everything gets busy so you actually get your money's worth. Today is the day. Someone wrote today. They said, hey, I accidentally signed up for the class kits because I thought that's what I wanted. I'm only going to do this stuff for one month. How do I get to the cookie college? Because I want to get everything you have to offer and then I'm immediately going to cancel. I was like, girl, you're a smarty. You're a smarty, ward, because you're going to get in there, you're going to find the content, and if I can almost convince you to stick around for an extra month, you're going to love the next month's private Facebook challenge we have, which is community groups. It is. So thecookiecollege.com or go to sugarcookiemarketing.com both of them will tell you about these sales. They're absolutely duplicated right now. It took me forever to do that. Watch my video. It did take me 50 years. You did good. You did a good kid. And yeah, everything we offer on sale. So the cookie College is typically 76. It's 68 right now. It's 10% off. But if you sign up for the year, it makes it 25% off. A common question. People say, okay, so it's 68 this month. What is it next month? So if you sign up for 68, it's 68 as long as you're a current member. And that's what a lot of people like. They like to get in these sales. The next sale will run. It won't be until Black Friday, which is the last, almost last day of the second to last month of the year. I convinced Corey to let us run this midsummer membership sale. This is a slow time for bakers. I think getting them to sign up during Black Friday when they are heading into Christmas is a little bit of a hard picture sleep doing. I'm getting sweaty. I'm sweating through my clothes. So my sleeve is getting wet. Is that a trend that I getting soaked? But. And duff from yesterday. But the cookie college dot com. The cookie class kits, 50% off. So it's only $31.50. I actually don't run that. That sale during. You do not. The digital downloads, 50% off, $5. The baker's business basics 50% off, $18. But it does get you a discount code to get that cookie code. 68 whenever. Yes. And the $2 transfer club. A dollar. Yeah. One dwar. Now, if you want those 2023 and 2024 cookie class kits which are archived, they're actually not in the class kits membership. The class kids memberships is only the current year, but if you want those ones, you can either sign up for the cookie college that says $68. It gets all of those. That's probably the best way to get it. But if you scroll to the bottom of either of those websites I just mentioned, you can buy those class kits a la carte for just 10 bucks. No membership. Nice. I had quite a few people capitalize on that. It's a fun way if you're like, oh, you know what I'm not into. I just Want to teach one class. I want to teach that class that they made two years ago. Just buy 10 bucks. Yes. Yeah. But, yeah, those memberships are great. Now, that Cookie College one comes with that private Facebook group, which a lot of people like. It comes with those freebie photos, it comes with the class kits, DIY kit photos, it comes with those class playlists that people like. Comes with a private podcast, and it's coming with a Shopify course at the end of this week. I told Ashley, yeah, Ashley from the group, also probably a proxy sister in garden. She was like, I would love the Shopify course. And I said, if I don't get the first module up by this Friday, I'll refund your last. Yeah, you better get it up by this Friday. Don't worry. Let me add this. In the second week of August, in the Cookie College Facebook group, only condition is you have to be a member. We're giving away a Bosch mixer as a way to welcome our new roomies who sign up during the if the Vendee Blendy, you could win a BOSCH and you're one of 10,000 that could win this. You would be. Your odds of winning are much higher than anybody. And one thing you're like, does Heather really send. Heather will send anything she says she's going to give away, she gives away. I'm a woman of my world. She's a woman of heed. If anything, nobody can. As they lower me into this. Oh, I will say that girl gave away just about a million boxes. That girl said she was. And she did. Yeah, she did. She does. She do. Okay, moving on to our sponsors. Thank you to the sponsors for keeping this membership live. We have the. I'm so sorry, the stl. I know the STL me about it is sponsored by Cookie Design Lab. If you want to make cookie cutters easily, you bought the bamboo printer. It's been in the box. You don't know what to do. This is what you do next. I'm going to say this. In the cookie college, I taught a course on the bamboo A1 mini. I purchased one, we assembled it together, and then I told them how to create a cutter using Cookie Design Lab. And somebody yesterday in the cookie college was like, I'm not sure which one of you twins told me to get my bamboo a1 mini. I drug my butt and didn't put it together for three months. I put it together yesterday and I am stoked. And she wants to print off this Labubu cutter. I got a Labu Boo cutter in front of me that you guys have forced me to want to make. I don't. I'm a beanie baby collector through and through. Not a little. Oh yeah, jelly cats delicats are cute. So we have the cookie design lab use code twins for 15% off. But one of these lucky people right now will have seven days to claim their one month membership of Cookie Design Lab. Cory, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Which one would you like to pick? Because they put five holes in my stomach. I will choose number five. You've got fan mail. Hi, twins. Scl me about it. The cookie, my logo collab. I don't do decorated sugar cookies. Mainly I do drop cookies and Mexican pastries. But I was wondering if I could still participate if I use packaging to showcase the custom stuff I can do for businesses juices and then have the pastries color to fit the brand. I hope she did participate. I hope you did. I'm so sorry. Yeah, I want to let everyone. This is a great question from Texas and you are the winner of the STL Me About it segment this week. Email heather sugarcookiemarketing.com to redeem that. Just give me the rest of your phone number. But what she's asking is can you do the cookie collabs when you're not cookie based? Yes, as long as it falls within the parameters. Now, cookie, a logo. She's like, I'm going to color these pastries. Is that enough? Enough close to the brand? Yeah, because the limitations of cookie cakes and pastry. Yeah, absolutely. Like if you have a box and you print their logo on the box, that still counts. So if you're doing the main street collab and you bring a box of drop cookies and you put, you know, cuppy coffee on there as like it's a gift for them, you know, and their logo to showcase what you could do for local business. It totally counts. It's. I know it's harder for folks like you. You, you could always put a wafer paper on something if you want. Yeah. So she says she ends here. She's like, I completely understand if it wasn't fitting for the thing, but I wanted to ask. The last collab was so fun and I highly recommend anyone listening to participate. Kelsey from Texas, Kel. So Kel. Sorry miss that. Hope you did. But you should do the main street collab. Yeah. You could be just as unique in that as you are talking about. What are you reading? Dead air. This one. There is. There is a typo here, I think. Okay, so this isn't a winner but my. My five one four. Which is pretty sounds. Where do you think 514. 514 is not as we're five four zero. I know, but it feels close. What do you think? Let me say Montana. It is Montreal, Quebec. Oh, no way. This is. I'm gonna just read it. Montreal. I think there might be a typo in or to say glad everything went well with Corey. Heart emoji. Glad I won't. The month of cookie design Lab. Oh, I. Yeah. But then it has a thinking face. So I think she's saying if I won. Glad I won't. Oh, I see. I see the typo, though. That's. That's because we're friends. We're through and through. Unfortunately, Main Street Cookie Club. You did have some typos of. I did. I really have an issue. Yeah. With looking at Google Calendar for some reason. Because I think I want to tell you, if you ask Heather to do something, she will manage to mess one thing up. It's just finding it. It's just finding it. And when people find it, I'm just as shocked as you guys are. So the Main street cookie collab is on a Thursday and not a Friday. This is new Thursday. Thursday. It's also at 11 and not 10. That's not new. I told you guys I was going to shift it. So our west coast. So not only did she shift it, she shafted it. And I'll be posting reminders. However, it is not on a Friday. It is on a Thursday. It almost will be better on Thursday because Friday is my pickup day. So someone actually came to my house at 10 and she was telling me her life story. Took 15 minutes long. It doesn't matter what time or day I choose. One of you is going to email me that you can't participate because something is going on that day. But when you have so many bakers participating. Had 200 in the first collab. Which is the easier collab? The selfie. Yes. The second one, we had about 80 to 100. I say, yeah, I saw Main street collab. Be one of. Now we're. It's going to be a lot, but If I got 50 bakers, this one is going to be the best for your business. This is the best for your business. That's why I always kind of. I kind of pressure people that. So anyways, it's on Thursday, August 28th. Thursday, August 20th. You got a whole month. A whole month. A whole month. Okay, here's the last question. I'll read this one on a Recent podcast you spoke about ways to attract a local audience and sacrifice following numbers for more cash in your pocket. So funny. That was almost like I looked through the mixing bowl Instagram account for some of your examples. Going to local restaurants but only saw cookie examples. Did I misunderstand your messaging girl? I already sacrificed my Instagram. I tried to post a reel about a local restaurant or event on my page and that reel is. Is all about them with really a reference to my cupcake business. Am I doing this wrong? Here's my. My link. It's Deb again. I think it's. It's the Deb that always wins. Um, and FYI, I'd love to sign up for your. I'd love to sign up for your review. I don't know what that one is. I think you mentioned this too on your podcast. I have to look at my Facebook page. Thanks for all your excellent advice. It's because of the two of you that I take leaps of faith when I'm scared. Scared and I'm holding my breath. Okay. What she's asking is where is the Main street cookie collab on your profile? Yeah, Deb, great question. I actually gave my. When Heather once said my mixing bowl cookie company on my Instagram, she got. Got me a lot of bakers that followed me. So I said, you know what? I got it. That's my secondary source of leads because there are so many bakers on there that you're not going to see me creating a lot of local content. It's a great example of what happens when you do absolutely. And didn't do the followings. I do use her social media profile. I ask her permission first as examples in the newsletter and tell people to go click to look. And people do click to look and they tend to follow. So that that Instagram I did say, you know what? That's just for the bakers. And it's just a great portfolio for me to send to my clients. You'll find that in my local groups. I'm posting that same kind of content. But local. But local. Like you. Corey posted a whole review about her cancer doctors doctor because she recommended the doctor. There's a farmer's market I love to go to. You'll find that on my. Where's making us go pumpkin picking? Don't have to tell me twice. We. And we're going horseback rolling. That was a wild one. Yes. You are gonna regret it. You haven't been horseback riding as an adult and I have. I know. Okay. But you got to get out of your system. So. That is a great question. Thanks for fact checking us. But yeah, Corey has a bunch of you guys following her because you guys said, I'm not gonna listen to what Heather. She is. I'm gonna follow her. Which is fine. After. That's okay. I love you guys. I do the content. But yeah, Cory's Instagram isn't local. Although I did go through your Facebook yesterday. I was trying to find a picture and I liked when you posted the hyper local Dale City Farms market. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that one. I will. That one. I'm following my words, tried and true. Your Facebook page. Don't go follow that. People mess it up over there. Not mess it up, but you get the points if you follow it. Just pretend to be a local and give me a. Like a little comment. Comment. You know, comments are always. Where did you get that? Do you hate that or you like it? No, they're a lot less than they used to be. Like, some people will be like, why are you charging for that? I don't want to say that. But yeah, something to keep in mind. I think you're. You're gonna post, though, to your Instagram. The Main Street Club. Do that on a Thursday at 11 and on a Friday at 10. Is. But that is a great question, Deb. But yeah, I would. Deb, if I was you, I would keep doing. Remember you made one reel about that local restaurant. Keep testing that content. Because you have to realize if that's the first time you do it, your audience is like, oh, shoot, this is new content. How do we react to it? You got to keep going because you need to make that new content normal. One of your content buckets. I think we turn around our content buckets like aircraft carriers. It takes a long time of consistently holding the wheel to the left. Yeah. You're not wrong. I think sometimes you're like, that one didn't do well. So I'll never, ever, ever do it again. In fact, I'm going to go to the sugar cookie market and tell everybody else not to do it. Yeah. I'm going to say it never works. And I'm going to use a. What do you call it when you say never? Always a definitive statement. I'm going to use a definitive statement so nobody can question me ever. That takes us through the. If you guys want to win a month in the cookie design lab. I really do like the software. It's to make cookie cutter essay class of this. No, I actually bought that on Etsy. Oh. Oh, yeah. This Labo Boo Sorry, I can't see it. If you guys are on YouTube and you can't see Corey because your camera turned off because it's so hot here, you can Text in at 571-5-56-5644. And thanks for texting. It does make this more interesting. It was. It does. Appreciate everyone who does it. That's our first sponsor. Our second sponsor is Eddie the edible food printer. Now, Eddie, Eddie is a direct food printer. Corey, have you used. What was your last time using Eddie? Last Friday. What did you do? So this lady wanted God bless Laurel Ann. Laurel Ann was going to be piped in gold. But God bless. Thank God. God bless. It didn't have to be. It was like supposed to be in a little marker. But I said, you know what? Eddie could actually do that so much better and more cohesive. Like, you know, save me a lot of time. You could go find Cookie Design lab on Instagram and they got a Freddy yesterday. She's gonna make content about it. She was asking. Oh, that's for a microphone recommendation. Oh, that's hilarious. Speaking of content buckets, now Cookie Design Lab lady, she's actually local to us. She's a local baker. That Cookie Design lab is selling two bakers. So she's making content buckets for bakers. But what is Eddie? Eddie's brother is named Freddy and he is frosting two cookies so he actually can pipe on royal icing onto cookies. Only four people have gotten him so far from what I hear here. She just got. I wonder if they sent out maybe it's five or six. They're. They're still just going down this list. But if you want to see Freddy in action, I would say go find someone in the college. Got it. And I saw it. It was crazy looking. I was hoping she post more content. I know we have Baking Me Crazy. Use code favorite twin to save 10%. Baking me crazy is also back for the Vendy blend. Oh, nice. I'll get we're. I'm going to boot up Vendy blendy stuff in late August. Yes. Early September. But Baking Me Crazy sponsored royal batch. Use code twins to save 10% off. It is a mering powder by bake it. Eat bake. While I was on my mend, I went and looked at her website. She does have the glaze version, which is vegan, on her website. Did you try that? Did you order it? No, I didn't order it. Should I? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I've never worked. I never worked. Okay. Okay. Let's see. Let's see, Daisy Makes is another sponsor. It's everything. Well, Corey actually really likes it because she had her cake pops were crying at the beginning and now they're not. Yeah, no, I actually ordered some. They just arrived. I'll make a video. Okay. Daisy Makes. So you can go to daisymakes.com for that. And then not technically sponsored, but Bosch Nutrimil. If you use code sugar cookies at checkout, you save 20 bucks. I love my boys. I love my boys. Which we'll be giving away in the cookie con. All you have to do is join. Might as well join at a cheaper price by Sunday. And then within those 30 days, you'll be entered to win a bonus mixer. Do you have a twin Trist Twin. My life is a slew of interesting things. What was interesting? Oh, here, there. Here, you guys. Brace yourself. Else Bath and Body Works has brought fall. Okay, I. Okay. Me and Heather, we have been planning all year for this. I said, cor, what the debacle. You see what the. The just me and Heather were sitting on the ground at Bath and Body Works comparing which ones were going with home with us. I said, what's going to happen is you're going to watch me walk up to the checkout with an ungodly amount of fall leaves. 3W candles. And Sunday passed was the last day for the $12.95, which is the cheapest I've ever found. Yeah, I'm sure. So we asked the lady because I got to do market research, and I said if I don't buy. Buy enough candles today, am I out? Is this some weird, like, summer wean thing you're doing? Yeah. He's like, no, this is our early fall launch and more that are coming. She's like, and some that are here in a fall launch won't be the whole fall, but the standard operating procedure is fall leaves. Yeah, will be. Yeah. So I actually have been burning. It's like pumpkin caramel frappe. I think that was a little. No, it was great. It's muted. Okay. Have this thing like. She likes more of the sweet. I like vanilla gourman. Yeah. I like. I'm a clovey girl. Give me. Heather likes a little spice. A little. A little cin. Little clove autumn leaves. Is that cinnamon thing. So I. I like those ones. I'm going to burn them for. And then you did pumpkin cloves. That was by far. Oh, no. Pumpkin bonfire was the. The biggest favorite of the family. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyways, those will be at Bath and Body works for the remainder of the fall. But once they're out for Christmas, you don't see them again. But I mean, I say that and it's still July. Yeah. My twin trist is I started decorating for Halloween. They said there's a high pressure system over the Atlantic. Okay. Love it. The low pressure arctic air is being pushed so far north by this high pressure system. It's moving all this moisture. That's what's happened since June. June 15, they said. Truly, if you feel like this has been a different summer than all the others. It has. I also heard that the corn crops are. Where did I hear? Filled with dew. Effervescence of the corn. Yeah, the corn in the Midwest has made it super moist over here. Get your corn, get your corn, cut the corn, get the corn on my table. I want to tell you, you can't keep your car washed in this area. Holy. I wake up, it's as wet as what can be. However. However. On. On. Not this. Like they said, starting Friday, first week of August. Starting Friday. That's first week. First week of August, it will be a cool. Oh, let me check. A cool what? 75. No way. 75. Okay, but it's just a little taste test. Cuz it goes back to 80, but it definitely doesn't go back to 95. Now let me go to my AccuWeather, which I know, guys, I know it's just a projection. If I go to Accuweather, I go daily. In the top right corner. Do 45 days for an ad. Okay. This app. 3, 2, 1. There's the X button. Okay. August 3rd to the 9th, which is the day after the midsummer. That's next Monday, next month. Don't be left out in the cold. 77. 77. The weekend's at 86. Are we mad? I can't complain. I can't complain. The next week it does touch 90 once, but the rest of it is low 80 80s. Low 80s or high 80s. There's two hiatus. I'm hiding in there. I don't want to be sad the next week after that. So we're talking that the third full week of August. Okay. Low 80s only. That's back to school days right there. The last week of August. There are no 80s. No. Am I not way. Although in September looks maybe the ladies. But you said those would be cool 80s, cool 80, anything. Like right now we're at 96 sticks. Okay, wait, I'm so sorry. On Saturday, as I was sitting outside on the Solomon Bay. Yeah, it was Real feel of one pen. I went on a walk. I. I don't sweat. I'm saying you didn't go on a walk. You swam on a walk. Oh, I. I was dripping. Dripping. You know, it's not for me. This is too hot. That's why I'm putting Halloween up, because I'm willing it and I'm here for it. I'm usually one to say no, but I'm over this. My husband's like, what do you think your customers are going to say when they see bathroom on the wall? So that takes us through. I have sweated through my clothes. One camera's already retired early. Yes. Do you have anything else to add at all? Get your. Get those checkups, girls. Get those checkups. I was gonna say get them candles, girls. Oh. Get the candles and the checkups. You're gonna need the candle after the checkup. A little u shime after there and just burn it, baby. Burn, burn bed. If you're not big into candle burning, my m. My grandma, my mom, my aunt all got candle melters. And they fit the three wicks. They got them on Amazon. Not a bad way. I do like to see a little flame, a flicker. A little flicker. Yeah. But if you have a cat tail headed towards it, I get the hesitation. My candles are on top of the panel. Nobody can reach up. I shut my door when I burn my candle so much, can't even. Cory's calling him Dennis the men now. Angeli the menacie. Yeah, I got a pout. I think Jason's telling us he had the baby. No way. He's typing right now. Our cousin is having his first baby today or tomorrow. Today or tomorrow. But they weren't supposed to check into the hospital until 7. And what if she went into just lazy? He's gonna tell you his cat use a litter box. I know. All right, guys, we'll let you go. Not family talk.