257. Baking it Down - What Popped at What's Popping Con

Summary

Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪

Episode 257: Baking it Down - What Popped at What's Popping Con

Hosts: Heather and Corrie Miracle
Release Date: April 21, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Heather and Corrie break down their experience as closing speakers at "What’s Popping Con," a cake pop convention. They share lessons from their session, focusing on building an effective marketing strategy for bakers and home-based businesses. Using the persona "Cake Pop Kelly," they walk listeners through goal-setting, metric tracking, content creation, and the importance of tailoring marketing tactics to individual business models, not simply copying what’s trending. The episode is a strategic deep-dive—layered “tiramisu style”—into making content that truly converts, not just “vibes” for engagement’s sake.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. From Conventions to Strategy: The Value of Community

• Heather and Corrie attended and spoke at What’s Popping Con, highlighting the excitement of meeting online colleagues in person and learning from fellow vendors and bakers.
• [03:08] Corrie: "You get to meet your faves. So, I mean, we've all existed in the same space, but to actually meet someone in person that isn't a little, teeny, tiny profile photo is honestly just the craziest feeling because you're like, wow, you can actually talk. Your profile picture actually moves."
• The section underscores the power of community for motivation and idea-sharing, but notes that copying others’ strategies isn’t sustainable because each business has unique circumstances.

2. "Cake Pop Kelly": A Strategic Case Study

• Persona Creation: Cake Pop Kelly is a busy, local baker and mom trying to make her business work for her schedule without becoming a full-time content creator or marketing agency.
• The lesson: Strategies can’t be one-size-fits-all; marketing must fit your life and local market (not just what goes viral).

[06:23] Heather:
"Your strategy will be unique to you, and it'll be unique to the amount of time you can allocate towards it… So what is a strategy? It's a marketing strategy. It's comprehensive long-term plan designed to reach potential customers and convert them into buyers. Focusing on the four P's: product, price, place, and promotion."

3. Content Without Strategy is "Just Stuff"

• Many bakers fall into "Vibes marketing," posting content with no real plan, hoping something will hit (“spray and pray” method).
• [05:16] Heather:
  "My quote of the day is, without strategy, content is just stuff, and the world has enough stuff."
• A Jenga tower analogy illustrates content without a foundation will crumble.

4. SMART Goals: The Tiramisu (Layered) Approach

• Direction: Set SMART goals—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound.
  • e.g.: “I want to generate $500 more this May than last May using Facebook and a vendor market.”
• Avoiding “Spray & Pray”: The more specific the goal, the easier it is to build a targeted strategy and measure progress.
• [12:09] Heather:
  "I tell people it's not failure, it's just facts. Right. And the strategy and Corey, you know ... it's about doing the pre sales consistently and tweaking them along the way so that one day they're super dialed in."

5. Metrics: Picking & Tracking What Matters

• Don’t get overwhelmed by all the available metrics—choose what supports your goal.
• For Cake Pop Kelly: Track event responses, video views, content interactions (ignore follower count if it’s not the focus).
• Use the metrics directly available in Facebook's dashboard, but don't become a "marketing agency" yourself.
• [18:08] Heather:
  “We want to only pick the metrics that support this strategy, that support the goal. Right. Because the goal is $500 month of May, 31 days. Adding in a vendor event to help.”

6. Content Buckets: Diversify and Target Your Content

• Content buckets (a.k.a. pillars): Educational, behind-the-scenes, client reviews, promotional, inspirational/personal, engaging/interactive.
• Match buckets with different content types (video, photo, live, email, groups, events).
• [24:36] Corrie:
  "The thing with content buckets is me and Heather try to pick out of five or six on our Monday morning meetings. We have a content bucket spreadsheet that we look at and that we pull from ... If you as a baker only pulled out of the content bucket of sales, … your audience is going to be very talked at and not talked to and that's boring."
• The “Tiramisu” strategy intertwines layers: goal → metrics → content types → tracking.

7. Creating & Marrying Content Types to Goals

• Educational + Video: Show resources at vendor events or behind-the-scenes prep.
• Behind the Scenes + Facebook Event: Share prep steps/build excitement in event-specific posts.
• Inspirational/Personal + Group: Share wins and personal stories to build connection.
• Promotional + Live Video: QVC-style product walkthroughs to make sales approachable.
• [34:51] Corrie (On Personal Content):
  "What I'm doing is sharing my struggle of small business bakery and how I got a little bit of a win. I've incorporated myself in there with a photo of myself... they’ve probably gone to that same mall as I and three, they probably know the Coach brand. There’s three, three different ways to connect with them in one post."

8. Experiment, Measure, Repeat

• Don't get discouraged if the first attempt flops; tweak the content, the day, or the channel and try again.
• Learn what works for your market, not “internet bakers,” and measure by your own dashboard.
• [41:01] Heather:
  "Some of it will land and some of it won’t. And it won’t be the first time. It doesn’t land doesn't mean like take it off, take it off. ... It means I’m going to try it again and in this little different way ... I’m going to see if I can get this content to hit somewhere within this audience."

9. Engagement ≠ Luck: Call Your Shots & Avoid “AI Slop”

• High effort = high reach. “Calling your shot” means designing posts for specific objectives, not random luck.
• Use AI for outlines or rough drafts, but personalize your marketing voice—audiences notice when content is generic or off-tone.
• [44:07] Heather:
  "You can use AI to write your rough draft, but definitely take it back in house ... but as far as content, I would bring it back in. Sprinkle yourself back in. ... The guy said he deems the word AI slop as where the user who has to consume the content spent more time consuming it than the person who generated it, and that's why ... it's disrespectful for people's time."

10. Tactical Walkthrough: Anatomy of an Effective Post

• Example: Posting about an event? Must create an actual event on Facebook, link and tag it, offer useful updates and reminders, use call-to-actions (ex: “Click going for weather updates!”).
• [47:24] Heather:
  “There’s no way for her to track event responses. There’s no event here. That event responses requires creating an event on Facebook and linking to that event in her post...”

11. Branding & Pricing Lessons (Burberry Case Study Analogy)

• Don’t erode luxury branding with constant discounts—scarcity and exclusivity have value.
• [62:08] Corrie:
  "The more you cheapen your brand to open it up to more orders, the more you actually lose out on what your branding is. That custom luxury market..."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On local vs global goals:
  "A lot of followers is not necessarily how you make local dollars." – Heather, [08:19]
• On failing product launches:
  "It’s not about the presale hitting out of the park every time. It’s about doing the pre sales consistently and tweaking them along the way so that one day they’re super dialed in." – Heather, [12:09]
• On AI-generated content:
  "If the adjective doesn’t come out of your mouth on a day to day but like AI will do like and very serendipitous. And I’m like, I’ve never said the word Serendipity." – Corrie, [44:35]
• On posting fatigue:
  "If you were spamming your audience, you'd be a billionaire and you'd never have to even sell another cookie. Like, if your single post reached everybody in your audience, tell me how you've hacked the algorithms." – Heather, [33:14]
• On tracking:
  "If I get elbow deep in my metrics, I can tell you what’s working and what isn’t working." – Corrie, [53:12]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [01:32] – Introduction to What’s Popping Con
• [04:24] – Why Strategy is Necessary: From "Vibes" to Real Goals
• [07:35] – Persona Breakdown: Cake Pop Kelly’s Unique Challenges
• [09:02] – Vibes Marketing vs SMART Marketing
• [12:34] – Example: Tuning Pre-Sales to Your Audience
• [15:24] – Which Metrics Should You Track?
• [24:36] – Content Buckets: Structuring Your Weekly Social Posts
• [29:17] – Calculating Sales Goals & Matching Content
• [34:51] – Examples of Content Types in Action
• [41:42] – Layering Content Approaches: The Tiramisu Strategy
• [44:07] – AI Content: Use with Caution
• [47:24] – Anatomy of a Useful Event Post
• [62:08] – Branding, Discounts, and the Burberry Case Study

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Overall Tone & Takeaways

The episode is lively, encouraging, and practical, delivered in the Miracle twins’ signature witty banter and pun-filled, clean humor. Their message is to bake a business strategy with as much care as one would craft a decorated cookie—or a layered tiramisu. Success comes from focusing on specific, relevant goals, tracking what matters, understanding your audience, diversifying your content, and learning from what worked (and what flopped).

Key Practical Takeaway:
Don’t spray and pray with content! Start with a measurable goal, track only what aligns with it, create content to support the target, and continuously review and refine. Make your marketing as intentional as your recipe.

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For further details and sample strategies, listeners are invited to visit the episode’s accompanying materials at sugarcookiemarketing.com/poppingagain.

Next up:

• May: 3D Printing Bootcamp
• June: Recording Cookie Decorating Videos
• July: Community Group Tactics
• August: Procreate for Cookie Artists

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Transcript

[Heather]

Corey and I were having a conversation this weekend on string cheese.

[Corey]

Spring cheese says I still buy string cheese because my son's lunch, it's easy to throw it in there. But I actually bought a string cheese on our way to what's Popping Con. And Heather said, I really like the string cheese where the orange is wrapped

[Heather]

into it as she is eating out.

[Corey]

But I don't find those at the grocery store anymore. I only find the mozzarella ones.

[Heather]

I gotta go to the Walmart. The Walmart.

[Corey]

And you know what? That is a super Walmart. And all of Woodbridge has to go to that one. And they've taken over half the parking spaces. I don't know what they're building in the parking lot.

[Heather]

Yeah.

[Corey]

A gas station for a Walmart.

[Heather]

If the Walmart has one of those little police antenna things that flashes blue lights all night. It does. It's gonna have good deals. Okay.

[Corey]

Yeah, it has many of those.

[Heather]

Many of those.

[Corey]

Everyone in Woodridge goes to that Walmart. So I actually went the other day

[Heather]

and I said, let me save some

[Corey]

do and I'll go to Walmart. There was not one parking spot remotely even close. You'd have to actually park at Sam's Club adjacent to it.

[Heather]

What's the next nearest Walmart to you?

[Corey]

There's one on Route 1. Are you familiar? Close to where you used to live, down the roadways.

[Heather]

Oh, you're right. It's on the left. Yeah. But it's.

[Corey]

Yeah. Way smaller one, though.

[Heather]

That's inconvenient for you, for sure.

[Corey]

Oh, I would.

[Heather]

That would be so out of the way. It wouldn't even make sense for me to go that way. So there's only one Walmart.

[Corey]

Welcome.

[Heather]

Oh, sorry. You'll probably Walmart from a cold head ends. Welcome to the podcast. This is a podcast with Sugar Cookie Marketing Group. It's a group on Facebook and it's mostly 99% sugar cookie bakers. Right. Who are learning how to sell market business better online. Yeah. And we got the opportunity to speak at what's Popping Con, which is a cake pop convention. I told him we're from the other side of the kitchen. Yeah, the other side.

[Corey]

Because it's their year. Second year doing what's Popping Con. And they already announced the third year. It'll also be in April. I want to say it was the 22nd to the 25th. If I recall what she showed up

[Heather]

on the board with the bonus day. If you want to linger the extra day, you get to go to the brunch. Yes. Yeah. So it was so much fun.

[Corey]

They popped till their hearts were popping

[Heather]

and content till they dropped.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

They.

[Corey]

They learned from big names in the popping world, which was crazy. And then Amy's there.

[Heather]

She actually.

[Corey]

She has Cake Pop vehicles. Like, I don't even know what you. She has probably a pun name for it. And then she has the brick and mortar that she sells cake pops from. And she's just a K. Pop queen connoisseur.

[Heather]

I think it's always funny. Okay. It's hard to get Cory to go on a trip, so when she does, it's like seeing the full moon and a werewolf. But when we got there, like, we got to meet Ms. Cookie Packaging. We got to meet Label, and got to meet Sassy Tray. Like, all these people who. I've seen their names or they're in the vending blendy. For years, I've engaged with these people. Yeah.

[Corey]

And then you never meet them.

[Heather]

They're just tiny little circles on the Internet. And I think Karine from the cookie college is there. And it just. I was like, wow, you're not a little circle with them.

[Corey]

That's a great thing about these conventions, whether Cookie Con or what's Popping Con is you get to meet your faves. So, I mean, we've all existed in the same space, but to actually meet someone in person that isn't a little, teeny, tiny profile photo is honestly just the craziest feeling because you're like, wow, you can actually talk. Your profile picture actually moves.

[Heather]

You have a mouth. It's such a funny experience to put the face to the name that you've seen for years.

[Corey]

For years, for years. So we were able to speak as the closing speaker at what's Popping Con. And that's the same thing we wanted to bring to the podcast this week, the same concepts. We did use Cake Pop Kelly as our little graphic that we follow along through this. So I really enjoyed Cake Pop Kelly, and I hope she follows us along today, even. Even though we are more sugar cookie focused. The principle is all the same, and it's how to pop off the feeds and into the hearts of your potential clients.

[Heather]

We can do Cake Pop Kelly and you guys see Cookie Carl. It's whatever you want to do. It's funny because they had a session on AI using AI and marketing, so I figured that we'd be okay with using AI to generate this Cake Pop Kelly. And at one time, she has, like, three arms and five legs. She has a lot of kids, a

[Corey]

lot of Cake Pop kids.

[Heather]

So, yeah, the topic of it, last year, we had spoken on community groups, and then we did it on the podcast. So this year I wanted to kind of build on that concept. So posting in community groups is great, but I wanted to take it into more of a strategy, a posting strategy. Because a lot of times we say contents king, post content, post, post, post. Rather post something than nothing. But that can feel like the spray and pray method of just post anything and hope something hits. Then it's very unguided. Yeah.

[Corey]

Me and Heather said, that's very woo woo post and the clients will come. That's woo woo. What does that mean? What do I post to get the clients to come?

[Heather]

You know, and there's a use case where, like, I'm tired. I just posted whatever. Absolutely. Corey and I do it all the time. We compare our meme results. But if you say, I just feel like I'm spinning on wheels when I'm going nowhere, it's likely due to a lack of strategy. And that's what we talked about. My quote of the day is, without strategy, content is just stuff, and the world has enough stuff. Yeah.

[Corey]

So we were saying, just spitballing, that before Facebook became super popular, you had businesses on Facebook and then you had businesses who had not yet gotten on Facebook. So the businesses on Facebook got a big kick in business because they were the only ones doing it. Now in 2026, literally everybody is on Facebook. If you ever found a business not on there, it's honestly, you're like, that's kind of odd. I wonder why. What are they hiding from? Because it's now so commonplace. So with everyone making content, what content

[Heather]

should you be making? Yeah, And I think it's. And I had everyone at what's Popping Con raise their hand. Who here sells digital products? Who here ships? Who here doesn't sell at all? Who here sells more than just cake pops? And then at any time, there was never the same group of people raising their hand. And I said, look around you. You can't cheat off these people's homework. You know, even I'm biased towards digital products because we do the cookie college. And Corey's biased towards cookies because she sells those. So. And, you know, we can't ship in Virginia. I don't know, West Virginia, maybe. It sounds like you could do whatever you want. There are no rules here in wild, wild West Virginia. But because of that, just the person sitting next to you, you can't cheat off their homework. So your strategy will be unique to you, and it'll be unique to the amount of time you can allocate towards it. You know, I said some of you guys want to be in front of a camera. Some of you guys, it would be the worst fear ever. So again your strategies are splintered there and that's a good thing because you're works for you is going to be different than what works for other people. So what is a strategy? It's a marketing strategy. It's comprehensive long term plan designed to reach potential customers and convert them into buyers. Focusing on the four piece product price, place and promotion. Now if you wanted to follow along, this is all on the sugar cookie marketing website sugarcookiemarketing.com poppingagain this the whole speech is on the website and I wanted them to follow along on the website. So that's where we're going to be pulling if you guys want to reference it and scroll along with us. Yes, please do. So the, you know, we went through the show of hands and then we came up with I called it a cake study case study. And it's Cake Pop Kelly like and her description is that she is busy. She's a mom of three cake pops. She's got a lot going on. She knows she needs to be online but she also needs this business to kind of fit around her, not the other way around.

[Corey]

Yeah, she's not a full time content creator. She's actually a cake popper who sells locally and she wonders what can she do that fits into her schedule and her time allotted while also has her baking in the kitchen. A lot of us as bakers will see content that ends up in our feed, whether it be an ASMR decorating video or a really, really technically hard cookie that comes together and we're like wow. And it, it's interesting to us but we are bakers but we don't. We forget that part. So we're like I need to make very complex videos because that's what's going to do well. No, that's going to do well when your audience is is other bakers. So if you are K Pop Kelly and you're selling locally, it's going to look a little different.

[Heather]

You may see. Well, you know, I want to get a lot of followers because a lot of followers is how you make money. A lot of followers is how you make money from creator funds. A lot of followers is not necessarily how you make local dollars. And somebody had a great question we'll talk about in a minute but she was talking about like creator funds in Canada. They don't have as many opportunities as the Americans do. And she was like, is it not even worth it? Well, maybe that's not the focus of creator fund, but we start with like Vibes marketing. And I think that's, you know, Corey. And I'll be like, that felt good. That did okay. Like, and it's just like that. I was like, corey, your meme went viral. Ish. And she'd be like, yeah. And then we're like, that's who got. Like, that's funny. Like, it's good vibes. Right? It's not. Nothing is scientific about the feeling that your marketing's okay.

[Corey]

There's no strategy behind Corey posting a funny little video at 3 o'.

[Heather]

Clock.

[Corey]

Cause I'm in the car pickup line waiting for my son to come out.

[Heather]

But. But if you say con, if you have a content is king approach to it, you're going to say, why check the box? And you're going to get frustrated because you're doing what you're supposed to do. You're posting content, you're posting content consistently anyway. These are all things post and post consistently. Do it, do it, do it. But there is no foundation on which to build the building infrastructure. And Cory and I said, it feels like a Jenga tower. Like, if I pull this out, maybe this works. If I pull this one out. And there's no. You can't build a strong foundation playing Jenga. The whole point of it is it kind of crumbles when you pull the wrong lever. So Vibes marketing is where a lot of us are and there's a time and place for like, Corey can say, she's like, I just going to throw something up. But what if we needed to create a customer journey where they go through the funnel and here's how we captured them and here's how they converted and here's the type of content and here's the type of medium. You can start to see the strategy being required to create that type of content. So I called this speech the Tea Tiramisu because it's layers and layers and layers and they kind of force you to see what type of content needs to be made. So we start with direction. And that always comes down to a goal. Right. And so love this acronym. Smart Goals is an acronym. Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time bound. Right. So specific. I think it's like, I want to be. I want to post to social media. More is not specific. Right. So a specific version of that is I'm going to post three times a week to My local Facebook community group. That's hyper specific. Yeah. In fact, name what the community group is in your goal. I'm just doing this broad enough, but Corey has one Lake Ridge I'm going to post three times in my. Was it naughty nuggets of Lake Ridge. Why the nuggets are naughty? They were best. Instead of I'm. I want to get more comments. It says I'm going to focus on increasing my comments per post to 5 comments. Like, oh yeah, that's measurable. Right. Attainable. I want a lot of likes. Okay. But this group has 500 members, so getting 30 likes is 6% engagement rate. Can I get that to 8%? Yeah. So I want to go viral. Like who doesn't? Right. But I want to earn the top contributor badge. That's hyper specific. All of these things are great. Like everything I've said here, broad or not, everyone's like, yeah, those are all what I want. But you can see that the more specific they get, the more it forces the hand of creating the strategy. So. And finally I want to do it this year becomes I'm going to do it over the next three months. So for cake pop, Kelly, what we have her do is create a strategy around 31 days in May. And to do that she wants to generate 500 more dollars this May than she did last May. Yeah. And she wants to use Facebook and a vendor market to do that. So that's very specific. Kelly. I think sometimes, possibly we don't want to say the specificity of the goal because it creates a pass fail scenario in our brains. Either I get it or I don't.

[Corey]

I'm a loser or I'm a winner.

[Heather]

But I tell people it's not failure, it's just facts. Right. And the strategy and Corey, you know, Corey said had she done her first pre sale and it flippity floppity a couple of years ago, she stopped doing them this year she said it's not about, it's not about the presale hitting out of the park every time. It's about doing the pre sales consistently and tweaking them along the way so that one day they're super dialed in.

[Corey]

So let's say in my pre sale no one bought the two pack cookie and I'm like, wow, they hate the two pack cookie. No, what my audience is telling me is maybe the two pack cookie is out of their budget. But what if I look at my pre sale and I saw that the cookie cards with the mini cookie sold out. My audience is saying that's what we want. So my next pre sale, I'm going to tweak it. I'm not going to be like they didn't like the two cookies. I'm going to shove a three cookie in their face. No, what I'm going to do, we're going to X the two cookie. We're going to focus more on the smaller things to see if I can't make a pre sale built for my audience.

[Heather]

That's why I always see the negative nenses. You know, hey, I'm interested in teaching cookie in person cookie classes. How do you guys secure, secure your venue and you always have a person in the comments. Like cookie classes don't work in my area. They didn't work in your area once. How many data points did you gather and how many tweaks did you make to gather those data points? Because not every. All these bakers being successful at in person cookie classes, you can't be the, the one off. Like you can't be the whatever call one of data points way out of the bell curve. Yeah, right. So that's where I was always in the bell curve. I never made the bell curve right there in the center at the top of it. So you know, when I okay, we have the goal and it was hyper specific and Kelly's cooking with fire. Now we need to measure the goal. So that's a part of the smart goal is it needed a unit of measurement. The measurement tells us whether we're on course or not. So in the example, you know, it's just picking one measurement. Let's say I pick, you know, views. It's like a plane flying at the right altitude but at the wrong coordinates and it ends up in. It's like it flew, it got to the location, but it's the wrong location. That's why we need metrics and I'm pulling them actually from the Facebook dashboard. So it's not woo woo. This is actual metrics. But I'm going to list them and it's just overwhelming. Every single one of these words you're about to hear is from a Facebook dashboard. Insights and business question for you. Are you looking at the website? Yes. Okay, then read the typo that you're supposed to read. Oh my goodness. I fixed it only to make it wrong again. Are you kidding me? Corey and I were practicing the speech while we're driving and she was like, you have the word vidst. And I was like, it's supposed to be visit. So I was like, don't worry, I'll. I'll get on a hotspot. So then now it says, I'm leaving,

[Corey]

you know, you know, brain, you know, if it was perfect, it wouldn't be the twins. That's.

[Heather]

That's not okay. Reach Facebook Followers Video Average Views Follows Views Facebook Visits Content interactions 3 second views Content monetization Link Clicks Viewers Saves Returning Viewers Published Content Watch time Post likes and reactions Shares and Post comments These are all metrics within that dashboard. And there were more. I had to stop with the yes, here's the thing.

[Corey]

Cake Pop Kelly is overwhelmed. If Cake Pop Kelly focused on all her metrics, she is now a marketing agency and no longer a cake pop popper. So she can't focus on absolutely everything. There's not enough time in the die.

[Heather]

But also, not all of these apply to every strategy. That's why I think when I see people like this year, New Year's resolutions are dangerous because of their broad time. Right. So like one at one time this year, I've got to meet this goal. It's way too broad. Your strategy can be as short or as long as you wanted to do. Like there's such a thing as being too long. But let's say our strategy is 31 days. Kelly's right. So she says in 31 days, I want to, I want to generate 500 more dollars. Yeah, she's going to pick the metrics that support this vendor market, but she's not always going to have a vendor market. So she's not going to track Facebook event responses. Let's say in Q3, she says, I really want to focus on customer service, which she's going to focus on customer service metrics which are actually going to be around Messenger. We want to focus on messenger metrics when we're pushing a Facebook event so our strategies can move and our targets can move and we can get them around the thing that we want to focus on right now.

[Corey]

Yeah, you know, it's crazy to think about in two months, half the year will be gone. So if you ever said that this year, in 2026, I fill in the blank. You better get, you better get started.

[Heather]

I think you're running out of time. I think if you're anything like me and Corey, our brains are like, we're going to do it. We'll get to it. Like, we're always good. It always gets done. That was always the phrase. It's like it gets done. It just gets done at the final hour. But always, always when you're not time bound, your gets done is December 31st.

[Corey]

Absolutely. You open up your New Year's resolutions

[Heather]

the last week of December and you

[Corey]

check off things that maybe happened on

[Heather]

accident to be checked. I check my New Year's resolutions twice the day I write them and the day I rewrite them next year. So. And that's why New Year's resolutions, I must think instead of doing New Year's resolutions, you should do my one resolution per month for 12 months. So you'd have 12 resolutions, one for January.

[Corey]

So you'd be killing it.

[Heather]

Right. Because you'd have now a time bound specific goal in January. I must get this done. Right. So with cake pop Kelly, she's overwhelmed with all of these metrics. Because if you try to maximize, if you try to increase every single one of these metrics, you wouldn't be able to produce a single point of content that could affect every metric positively. It would be your full time job. Yeah.

[Corey]

You'd be doing a video on an area with a cake pop at a

[Heather]

location with a vendor event.

[Corey]

Yeah. There's so much that it would be doing some heavy lifting.

[Heather]

So we want, we want to only pick the metrics that support this strategy, that support the goal. Right. Because the goal is $500 month of May, 31 days. Adding in a vendor event to help. Right. That is the goal. So which metrics support that? We say. I said Facebook events. She got to do Facebook responses. I think I have it listed here. Which ends up using her smart metrics. She's going to do event responses. She is going to use videos to help her with this. Is she's going to do video views metric, content interactions metrics. She wants to create engaging content. She feels like that would help with this $500. She's also going to check on viewers and she's going to do published content. She's not focused on followers. She's not growing her page. That was not a part of the strategy. It might feel nice. Well, if I'm growing my page, I could make more money. Yeah. But that's not the focus of the strategy. There are some things that take priority. I took the Ryobi Power Tools class and at the end of the class I said, my biggest takeaway is that everything, every tool in front of me cuts something. And he's like, right, but one cuts it better than the other one cuts it. The knowledge is knowing which of these tools fits best for this cut.

[Corey]

So while you're trying to increase your $500 in the month of May, you may get a few New page followers as like just extra, it just happened stance. It's not necessarily the best way to say okay to make page followers, I gotta do vendor markets. Not necessarily. It's nice to get a few page followers while you're focused on your vendor market. But that's not the end all be all.

[Heather]

If I said there's two pieces of content before you, Indiana Jones, choose wisely and one produces $500 in sales and one produces 500 followers, which would you choose? Why is it $500 in sales?

[Corey]

Because that's Kelly's goal.

[Heather]

That's Kelly's goal. Now she can shift her goal. After we complete May, we need to recreate a new strategy. And she could say, that was great, I got my 500. Now I want to focus on page growth. There's, you know, I feel that's a weakness for me or I feel that's something I want to or I'm interested in a creator fund. So she'll recreate the strategy for the next time bound.

[Corey]

I hope at this point you're saying, wow, yeah. When those videos of the super complicated, complicated, complex and complicated complex complicated cookie ends up in your feed, that creator's goal may be different than you. You might be just focused on local orders and they might be focused on the creator awards program. And now you can say, I like watching those videos, but those videos don't support my goal.

[Heather]

Exactly. So the metric combinations, I told you what Kelly's going to choose. You're going to go look through your own dashboard and you're going to choose them as yourself. But like let's say you said I'm focused on increasing views views. So you're going to focus on watch time, three second views and video average views. There's just three examples that if that was my focus, I would focus on that. Three second views means the people who watched and stuck around after the first three seconds, it's the most important part of a video. It's where your hook would be. Watch time, how long did they watch for? And the average watch time, the average views across that. So that would dictate those three metrics if my content is landing well, right? Yeah, if, if I need to tweak my videos. If you want more meta money, you're going to focus on these metrics, content monetization, qualified views, because you only get paid for those stars received because that involves money and earnings rate. So you can see, wow, those metrics have nothing to do with more video views. And then if you want better customer service, we're going to switch over to metrics that deal with messenger. Corey got a text she did not like.

[Corey]

Yeah, Archer says, where are you? I've been waiting in the parking lot for an hour, but I just dropped

[Heather]

him off at school. You can go take that call. I can pause this.

[Corey]

Do you mind if I just see why he's.

[Heather]

It's a. We'll be here when you get back. I'm gonna yap while you're gone. Okay. Okay. Poor Archer. I let him watch my house while we went to what's Popping Out. I didn't need him to watch the house. I wanted him to taste of, like, autonomy and responsibility. I think he liked it, but I told him I have a bunch of cameras around because I'm paranoid. I guess I just saw him spinning around in a chair in the basement for forever. So anyways, back to kind of. The topic here is create a category of metrics that supports the strategies primary goal. That goal, you'll have multiple goals. Is your kid stranded in the parking lot?

[Corey]

No, it was a joke because they let them take their cell phones on the field trip and he thought it would be funny.

[Heather]

Oh, yeah, we're going to the Bible museum today. I saw it on your fridge. Sorry. Wow. At least that's the joke you're dealing with.

[Corey]

I over.

[Heather]

You're going to be a grandma. So. Yeah, I was just thinking that could be the other joke Measure Twice post. Right. So there's such a thing as too many metrics. And there's such a thing as too few metrics. So we were speaking at what's Popping Con, which is run by Daisy Makes. If you're a Daisy Makes affiliate, that means you're supplying. You're making commissions off of baking supplies. You're going to focus on bakers, Right? We're not going to focus on, you know, kids who like Minecraft. That's not going to relate to affiliates. So you can see that the metric does matter, but the strategy, the goal has to be measurable. Now we have metrics that guide that. And then we have our pass fail, which is the $500. So we get the $500. We were short on the $500, so we have now. Everything can be measured, Right? It sounds stressful, but it's guided. And you're also the boss of you. So you can decide how you want to approach this. Now we need to get to the content. So in our tiramisu, we started with the goal the over the. It's our tiramisu strategy Cake So we start with the goal. We find the metrics that will allow us to measure the goal, like measure our journey. But now we need to create the content by which the metrics will guide us towards a goal. Yes. And I love the strategy of content buckets because it is broad enough that we can all do it, but it keeps us focused. So the thing about content buckets, content pillars, these are categorical approaches to the type of content. So I'm going to list them before you guys have to guess. But these content buckets help us stay consistent on our target, which is a goal. They help us diversify our content. Because I feel a lot of times if you have to, every time you sit down to the computer, you got to reinvent the wheel, you're going to be overwhelmed. So we. And then you're just not going to post. Absolutely. Like you're not going to. When you're overwhelmed, you're not coming out with your best content you've ever posted. And then it keeps us efficient, like we said, we don't have to think every time. And then it keeps us focused. You'll get. Cat has revealed himself.

[Corey]

Oh, we both have children trouble today. The thing with content buckets is me and Heather try to pick out of five or six on our Monday morning meetings. We have a content bucket spreadsheet that we look at and that we pull from. And some of them are funny memes. You know, me and Heather can't pass up a meme. But some are educational, some are sales oriented. If you as a baker only pulled out of the content bucket of sales, I make cookies or I make cake pops. One, you're going to have just one singular content. But your audience is going to be very talked at and not talked to and that's boring. People get bored when they're constantly talked at. And you're going to see your page growth kind of falter. You're going to see less reactions. You're going to have a great looking page and it's going to look like you make cake pops and you make cookies and you're very talented at what you do, but you're not going to have the engagement that you're looking for. And that's why me and Heather love us a good myriad of content buckets to poo from.

[Heather]

Bring me a bucket, put some content in it. I'm going to, I'm going to sip it up. I can't. It's coming ever closer. I'll have to deal with him, but he'll have to deal with Them. Go ahead. I can tell you it's your child.

[Corey]

Here's the thing. Here's some content bucket idea. There's educational content, which is actually value you added and brings a lot of

[Heather]

value to your customers.

[Corey]

A way for you to justify your prices. If you went to what's there doing. If you went to what's Popping con or you're planning on going to cookie con, that's a great way to show your audience that you're still invested into yourself and into your business and willing to learn something new. And you can take your audience with you and showcase, hey, this is why my prices are. My prices are, hey, my skills are constantly getting better. Educational can. Can range from why you heat seal cookies, why you invested in a heat sealer, and it because it benefits your audience. That's a great one to pull from.

[Heather]

So now when we take that and Corey's kind of painting the strategy of what this content looks like and we we hook it to the $500 in May through the vendor event. Educational content is going to be telling people about the vendor event, how you

[Corey]

know, what's the parking look like, the hours, the times, the dates for it. You become a resource. And I said, that's similar to our Pipa park collab with an content bucket that we pulled from it, tied you to a location. But you also became a resource. I saw people post, hey, I did. If you didn't know there's a zipline at this park, you became a resource for your audience while also saying, hey, I happen to bake cookies. Here's a cookie at the park.

[Heather]

Yeah. If Kelly was a part of the Pipe Apart collab that happened last Friday, thanks for all who participated. She would have tried to find the nearest playground to her vendor event and been like, guys, after you come to the Vendor Market on May 1, I hear right here is right there. If your kids are acting up, you need to get some energy out. I love this local playground that you can take your kids to and I can't wait to see you at this upcoming vendor event. So you can kind of see how it's guided now. So I have a couple of content bucket ideas behind the scenes. Love that one because most of our business is behind the scenes. Right.

[Corey]

But I want to dive into these content buckets to give you kind of ideas behind the scenes. Can be you mixing icing, but can also be you setting up for the vendor event or you're asking your audience, hey, I was thinking about this table cover or this table cover. Which one you're actually bringing your audience into your business and letting them be a deciding factor in a lot of things. People love to have an opinions and they love to be vested into what's going to happen. So behind the scenes can be you packaging an order, it can be you mixing icing, but it also can be you setting up for a vendor event, you choosing what designs to bring to the vendor event, you setting up for a cookie class, you choosing the packaging for your presale, asking them, which one would you guys like? Here's what I'm thinking.

[Heather]

Another behind the scenes. Corey and I were talking about it. The 3D printing boot camp is what's coming next. But the 3D printers that we'll be talking about have time lapse, the ability to record a time lapse of the print, Right. So it looks like the. The print is rising from the print bed. It's pretty cool. And all of them do it. You just have to have a memory card. But you could say, watch me print the cutters I'm going to use at this vendor. So now behind the scenes is always going back to that primary goal, this vendor market or. And we'll talk about it. I think I skipped this part. For her to make that money, she can either sell 100, you know, $500. So she can sell 100 cake pops at $5 a pop, right? Or she can find seven and a half custom order clients at a dozen and she sells them for $66 a dozen. Those are, we want 500 broad. I mean, at least it's numeric. We want more money.

[Corey]

Broad.

[Heather]

We want 500. Less broad. We want 500. And we can accomplish that in two different ways. A hundred more cake pops or seven and a half more dozen order clients, right? Yeah, seven, half more. So let's say she blends those because we only have to meet one of those. So let's have them both. Compromise. We have a better structure. She could acquire five custom order clients and sell 34 additional cake pops. Now it's a little more palatable, right? Finding five more clients and selling 34 more pops at this vendor market that she's using, we make that 500.

[Corey]

Now, you see, her content strategy can be divided into two things. If she was only depending on the vendor market, our strategy is going to look a lot different because we really need to hype up the vendor market.

[Heather]

It would be vendor market content in these various buckets. 100%. Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

[Corey]

Because she can mix both of them. Now we can focus on maybe behind the Scenes, content, her prepping for a custom order that she's making, a theme that's from her bucket list. And she can focus on the vendor market, keeping her strategy and her content from getting too stale.

[Heather]

Right. So, okay, great. Now we have the buckets. Okay, cool. Like, guys, thanks for the ideas. Like, what kind of content? So I always say the. The marriage, the intersection between the bucket and the content type. So when I say bucket, it's the category of the type of content. So we did educational behind the scenes, you know, reviews from clients, promotional, which is a sales pitch. Just directional, you know, directly to the sales pitch. Inspirational and personal, which is Corey's content bucket she's been focusing on this year. Engaging. Engaging and interactive. Those are the buckets. But our content types are video, photo, live, email groups, Facebook event. Like, it's the type of content. Right. So I see. I think I said this on a couple podcasts ago. There's four miracle sisters. Ashley, Heather, Corey, Summer. Right. None of the sisters you can reach on the same medium or the content type. Right. So Summer watches lives. I watch YouTube videos. Corey, you watch what? Real long form videos. Oh, Corey likes long form. And my older sister Ashley likes podcasts. Right. So if you. I always tell people, think of this. You're not going to start a podcast for business, but think that you can only reach four of us by posting four different types of content. So I always see the. The problem is I'm posting everything and nothing's working. You're posting from one content bucket and one content type. You can only reach the people whose algorithm is designed for that content type. My little sister only watches lives on TikTok. Whoever reaches her, well, it can never get to me. I'll never watch a live on TikTok. Yeah, so you say, well, I'm posting all this content on my Facebook feed. Did you know that the Facebook event has its own algorithm? A Facebook group has a different algorithm. A Facebook story has a different algorithm from a Facebook reel, a Facebook feed post, a Facebook carousel post. You can kind of see that there's so many different algorithms where this content needs to go. So now we're going to marry our content bucket to different types of content. So, Corey, let's just brainstorm. We want an educational piece of content and we want to make a video about it.

[Corey]

What would you do for my vendor event?

[Heather]

Sure. Okay.

[Corey]

I would actually go to it. Let's say it's a farmer's market. It happens weekly. I'm there. I'm not at this week's one. But I'm planning to be at a future week's one. What I'm gonna do is just an around voiceover video showing the parking lot, then walking through and showing them what they can expect. While they'll be able to expect cookies from me in next week's farmer's market, they can also get their knife sharpens.

[Heather]

There's fruit and veggies there.

[Corey]

There's a sourdough baker that they might like.

[Heather]

Okay, I want to do educational, but I'm going to use a photo type media type.

[Corey]

What I like to do is, if I can, I will go to the farmer's market and maybe take a picture of a dog walking. So it's dog friendly and it's saying, hey, bring your furry friends. So I'm still resourceful.

[Heather]

So Corey's made two pieces of content that's in two different gallery. We got the video and we got the photo. Now Corey's going to be like, but I'm spamming them about this everlovin vendor event. No, because the people who like photos aren't the same people who watch the video. It seems like spam to you because you created both of those to them. They're only seeing one piece of content, and we're lucky if they did. I mean, we're fighting for them to barely see one piece of content. Right. So I always say when the baker's like, I feel like I'm spamming them. If you, if you were spamming your audience, you'd be a billionaire and you'd never have to even sell another cookie. Like, if your single post reached everybody in your audience, tell me how you've hacked the algorithms.

[Corey]

What I do see bakers falling into is they'll make a canva graphic for the vendor event and they'll spam that same identical graphic day after day, week after week. That can be stale. But you're not answering the question for your audience. That's not necessarily resourceful. I can scroll by that because my brain registers that I've seen it once, I don't need to see it again. But what if I hit them with a picture of a dog standing by the sign, oh, look at that cute little pooch. I got a dog. That's a cute little dog. And then a video of the parking lot. That's two different content types still pushing the same thing. Come to my vendor event without creating stale content. So when you come to the twins, I keep telling people about it and then I go to your page and it's the same canva graphic that it's been regurgitated. It's become pixelated at this point because it's been copied and saved so many times.

[Heather]

Okay, let me, let me challenge you to another one. Let's do inspirational personal bucket married with group content type.

[Corey]

Okay. So I have been really working on my relationship content. I didn't order for Coach recently. Last week, a great way for me to actually showcase that instead of just showing the cookies of Coach. Me standing outside of the Coach door holding the order. Be like, guys, thank you so much you've invested in me. And I actually got my big break. I was able to work with Coach. This has been a dream. Same thing for me. I never thought my little bakery would be able to bake for such a big brand as Coach. What I'm doing is sharing my struggle of small business bakery and how I got a little bit of a win. I've incorporated myself in there with a photo of myself. Not the curated photos that I love, which you guys know that is my go to. But what I was able to do is connect with them on a more personal level. One, the struggle of being a small business. Two, they've probably gone to that same mall as I and three, they probably know the Coach brand. There's three, three different ways to connect with them in one post.

[Heather]

You know what? I've done really well. If you could find those. Corey and I are like the best gift we've ever gotten when we were growing up as Coach bags. Those little ones that just were like moon shaped and up your armpits. Loved it. Wore it till the strap came off. But it would have been funny if you could have found a picture. I know we had really short hair then and posted that with the order and been like, here's when I was dreaming of Coach and here's like me.

[Corey]

Yeah, like it finally happened.

[Heather]

Like, I wonder if I could. I'll see if I can find. Find a photo. Please do.

[Corey]

Because I haven't shared it on my page yet.

[Heather]

That'd be so good to do. Also, the spectacle of our hair that short would perform. Our highest performing YouTube short for sugar cookie marketing is having short hair. I don't know. That's unfortunate. It keeps going viral for all the wrong reasons. Let's do behind the scenes and Facebook event.

[Corey]

Behind the scenes for a Facebook event. I love this. For our cookie classes, I like to show the goodie bags they're getting in me, like assembling the goodie bags, me baking the cookies and mixing the icing, taking them along with me as I set up the venue for a class. This is one that I love to grab from because it shows expectation of what they can get a sense of before they sign up. Like, hey, I'm human and I'm willing to teach you, you other human, and we'll be human together. Making these cookies, it makes it a lot more approachable and it's a lot of content that I can pull from. You have to think the class is only an hour and a half and most of the time we're talking. So I'm not necessarily behind a camera. Camera the setup, though. I ain't impressing anybody. I can show you everything. Like, we can go over the piping practice sheet. We can cover the cookies that we'll be doing in the class. I can show you the PowerPoint and tips and tricks to expect in class.

[Heather]

Okay. Promotional bucket married with live video content.

[Corey]

So I actually did this for my pre sale for Valentine's Day is I got all pretty put on a shirt. And you guys know I wear this jacket every other single week of the

[Heather]

podcast to see you coming. It does.

[Corey]

But I got a pink shirt on. I put on my apron that had hearts and I did a QVC style of my pre sale options to explain how big the cookies are, what they can expect, the colors and the options. So it put myself out there and it was sales content, but it was more relatable because instead of just a standalone photo, my face was in there. So they got to be like, oh, that's the baker who made these. Oh, I kind of like her. She seems sweet.

[Heather]

Now, people who watch lives are different than people who get. And one of the categories, one of the media types is email. The last frontier of chronological order. So when I always see people are like, but I don't know what to send in the email. Like all of the stuff from the content buckets. So you can say, let's say the email is upcoming events. And you guys just break down in that email what this vendor event where the parking is, where you'd recommend they park, what time you recommend they get there. That's a ton of content that's driving people to our goal.

[Corey]

Yeah, I want to say if you did the pipe apart collab, that's dual content that you can work with because while you post it to Instagram and got the likes and everything and the push in the algorithms, it also makes for a resourceful email. You might not be doing a teacher appreciation pre sale, but you can still end up in the inbox of someone and be resourceful. Maybe at the bottom of the email you can be like, like plan for me being at the farmer's market that's opening this summer. But what you're doing is instead of being like, oh, I got another email from Corey, she's probably selling something else. I'm actually becoming a resource. So they actually tend to open the emails more a higher open rate because they never know what that to expect. Will they get something for free? Will they get a discount? Will they get some knowledge? Will they get some behind the scenes information, things like that.

[Heather]

So now that like, well, I don't know what to post or where to post or how to post is all solved by these buckets married to media types that support the goal, that support the strategy. Right. So it's all coming down to this 500 is the, you know, measured by this metric. When this metric that's measured by this content and this content. That's how this, the tiramisu strategy is. So we've got the content buckets, this amount, these when you do like 6 and 6. So we did 1, 2, we did 6 and 6 of content buckets and media types. A tremendous amount of content that is focused on the goal can come from this. And remember, we have two methods to do this. We also need to acquire the custom. So not everything has to be about the vendor market because that was only half of the way we're going to generate this $500. The others can be behind the scenes of custom orders. So we got this whole new set of yeah.

[Corey]

Since the goal is for May, as you see your custom orders come in, you can say, okay, my vendor market's probably at the end of May. Like let's shoot for the last weekend of May when the custom orders come in. It now gives me a trajectory of how much I need to bake and sell for my vendor market. I've secured six custom orders. That means I only need to sell X amount at the farmer's market instead of I baked everything and nobody came. Now we have strategy. There's not leftover product. We actually have a goal in mind. So the themes that we're baking are ones that we know are hot topics with people that go to farmer's market. Maybe it'd be cake, pop flower on a stick, thanks for helping me grow a teacher gift, something like that. So we have a lot more strategy we're working with instead of just baking

[Heather]

and praying the spray and pray. Right. So when you're going to post this content, some of it will land and some of it won't. And it won't be the first time. It doesn't land, doesn't mean like take it off, take it off. It's not get it out of my way. It means I'm going to try it again and in this little different way, I'm going to post it on this different day. I'm going to see if I can get this content to hit somewhere within this audience. If you front load your vendor market, let's say it's on the 1st of May. Remember, we're doing the 31 days. How can I gather these people's email addresses to turn them into my custom orders? Because that's going to dictate how much hustle I've got to do to meet the other 500. Whatever I didn't sell, whatever monetary goal I didn't meet at the vendor market or maybe I blast through it and then the rest of May is just pure profit beyond what your goal was.

[Corey]

Yeah, that'd be awesome. That'd be awesome. But you see that the tiramisu, if you only had one layer of a tiramisu cake, you are going to be disappointed when you bite into it. It's either going to be way too spongy because you missed the topping or it's going to be coffee. Like, yeah, because you missed the bottom. It works together and that's why it's, it's a marriage of these things. It's not just one and only thing. Like I posted this canva graphic and it didn't work well. You missed the top of the tiramisu, friend.

[Heather]

Okay, now we've got, we've got our, we've got a goal, we've got our metrics, we've got our content. And now we have to make that content right. And I hate this one. I had to add it here. Your effort will be rewarded by your by reach and your laziness by lack of engagement. There is such a thing as high effort and low effort content. And I was telling Corey, I, I do not know how to play pool, but I do know that you have to call your shot, right? So you can't, you can't go to a pool table, break the balls and the ones that get in you, you're like, I got it.

[Corey]

That's what I was doing.

[Heather]

Yeah, you didn't call, you didn't say, I'm going to get eight in the corner pocket or whatever. You have to be able to call your shop for it to count. Otherwise it was just Pure luck. And I feel like a lot of the times we post and we're like, that's. That was pure luck. You didn't say here's what this post is going to do. That. That's me, that's me.

[Corey]

You're not alone in that. A lot of us suffer from it.

[Heather]

So if you think about now, it has to fall within the bucket in a media type. So if you want more video views, the metric we we have to post videos, it would be wild to be like, well I want more views than never to post a video. You'd never get any views. But I see us doing that all the time. Like, ah, I wish I got. I should post more reels. Here's a photo. Like, oh, okay. You know, if you want more link clicks, which is a metric you can track, you'd have to post a link, right?

[Corey]

Yeah, but then people will be like, damn. If you would like information. My cookie class, I'm so sorry. You asked them to do 52 things to get a link, give them a break and give them a link.

[Heather]

You say, well, sometimes the, the. The post doesn't reach as link. Right. Okay, then have one post that goes with the links in the comments. One post at the link of the copy. Try a DM me for content.

[Corey]

Put it in the graphic.

[Heather]

You know, things like that. Work around and see what hits. And I say foundations are built up brick by brick. We can't build a mansion if we're playing a Jenga with our content strategy. So Kelly Cake Pop has taken to the Internet. She is out there getting it. So we did an anatomy of a post and I called it a post post mortem. I'm going to get some Runway out of that pun.

[Corey]

You are going to get it it.

[Heather]

So what I add here and Kelly Cake Pop, who's AI generated added is you can use AI to write your rough draft, but definitely take it back in house. Like I said, we have a local foodies group where a lot of bakers sell and they have now outlawed not only AI generated content but AI generated copy. Because we can start, our audience can start perceiving that this was a hundred percent AI generated and the tells or the cadence. Corey and I were talking about the cadence of do do do do do do or using lists of three and

[Corey]

are very jazzy adjectives. If the adjective doesn't come out of your mouth on a day to day but like AI will do like and very serendipitous. And I'm like, I've never said the word Serendipity. That's how my son asked me to proofread a paper of his.

[Heather]

Yeah, well, Cory and I are reading through these AI tells and talking about. I'm Cory's like, man, this is Archer's homework, right?

[Corey]

I said, archie never said this word in your life, right?

[Heather]

So I can know. Like, I was reading a piece of content. I said to Corey, I know you wrote this because this is how you speak. And she laughed, and she was like, all right, that's how I write when we farm everything out to AI. I I, I, I was listening to this TikTok this weekend. Don't worry Anastela. But the guy said he deems the word AI slop as where the user who has to consume the content spent more time consuming it than the person who generated it. And that's why with. And he said, it's disrespectful for people's time. If you say AI make me a caption, that's two seconds. And the captions 50 pages long. Now, you've wasted so many times because you didn't even read it.

[Corey]

You, you didn't even read. Like, sometimes I'll read through someone's AI caption and I'll be like, it. Like, fubar something way at the bottom. I'm like, they didn't even catch this because they said they ain't got that kind of time.

[Heather]

Nothing worse than like, I'm like, oh, I think this is AI copy. But they've just copied and pasted the whole thing. And it's like, hey, let us know if you'd like to rewrite this. And another. Okay, they didn't even read it themselves. So there you can, you can. And I think AI is a great tool. I'm using it in my life. But as far as content, I would bring it back in. Sprinkle yourself back in. It can be the good. It can create the diagram in which to come back in and do it. But copy formulas or copy frameworks. Attention, interest, desire. The Aida one we talk about a lot past problem, agitate, solution, forces. These are frameworks to help you. Again, guide. It's just like the content buckets, but it's for the copy the caption that goes with your sales pitch. So an example one. Remember, the metric we wanted is event responses. But if you go to the website and you follow along with this. Kelly K. Pop says, hey, guys, come to my vendor expo. And she gives some. She says, 1 pop is $5, 3 pops is 13, 5 pops is 20. Flavors are limited and first come, first serve, and once they run out, they're gone. There's. There's no way for her to track event responses. There's no event here. That event responses requires creating an event on Facebook and linking to that event in her post. Her post isn't bad. It tells people come to the market, but it's not following the strategy of creating compelling content that supports the metrics, that supports the goal. Right.

[Corey]

So I want to say when you come to the SEM group and you're like, well, I did a vendor market and it was, you know, crickets, but. And then we're like, what, what did your event responses look like? I don't know. But you did post about the event. Do you see where you're only doing half of the equation and the other half you've left up for, I don't know, guesswork? And then you're like, wow, that vendor markets don't work for me because people don't like them.

[Heather]

You remember like, when you used to go to like the county fair and that guy was always at the front, he was. Had that little clicker and was counting how many people are there. Like, that's a metric. It was just a manual metric. Now we're using digital metrics. But to count, like he had to see a body walk through the door, we have to have someone respond to the event as going to have an event metric. Right? An event response metric. So she goes back and reworks it. Right? Right. She's listened to this podcast. She loves it. In this one, she's created an event already. The first, most important part to get a event responses is creating a Facebook event. It automatically adds this jazzy photo. It already picks up her image. It tells people in the event what day it is. It's in red. So it's great because telling people it's an event. And then she says, friends, I'd love to invite you to at tags the event, click going on the event so you can get reminder and weather updates. So she's got a call to action there. She's saying, I. You know when you listen to YouTube and it says smash that like button, like comment subscribe, telling people to take an action. We sheeples, we love to be told what to do.

[Corey]

I want to say though, what she is doing though, is half the battle. Creating the event, great. But then contributing to the event by forms of updates on parking, updates on weather updates, what they can find you, updates on what you're bringing in within a Facebook event is a whole nother algorithm and a whole nother feed. If someone responds going or interested in going, they can access that information. But if you just post and ghost, you make the event and then crickets on it. You've left a whole avenue of marketing out there.

[Heather]

Right. So like the, the specific. I like RSVP to car event. I wasn't even. I put interested in going. And immediately my dad's like, are you going to this? Like, oh shoot. It showed him. Because Facebook's goal is this. Keep more people entertained and connected. Right? Get. Hey Glenn, Heather's doing this. Do you want to go with her? Like you found it on Facebook and then you see people and these two friends you have are RSVP to these events. You might be interested in another ping, another notification or the final one they click going and it says this event is coming up soon. Which I always get because I RSVP to my. The events I make in sugar cookie marketing group. So it says the cookie collabs in an hour. We have now we are able to ping everyone who is interested in going to the event in this discussion form. But it's. It's got its own notification settings and you might say.

[Corey]

And Heather referenced this as well. Well, a farmer's market might have a farmer's market page where they post their events. Totally fine. You have no ownership over that. If you said mixing bowl cookie company at the Dale City Farmers Market. And I made that an event on my own page. I do own the event responses there and I do own the content there and I can contribute, I can track, I can see what people are seeing and I can talk to people within there. Now there's two similar events there, but I can still contribute it by way of. Here's the parking. And odds are. And I've seen many a farmer's market page. They're. They're lacking on the information and people are always looking for more.

[Heather]

Right. And a lot of times they're just not managed. So I used to. For some clients we would do the strategy where it's their business name at event created a Facebook event. People would start asking us event questions as. Because that was as close as they could find to a host because there was no primary event. So it's a great resource for people. The odds of someone showing up to her vendor event for both posts are there. Like she could pull numbers from both. However, she cannot track anything from the first. Sure. Oh well, she got some likes. But that's. That's everyone likes everything, right. So just because they like the post doesn't mean they're going, I'll throw you like any, any day. And I'm, you know. So example two, remember, another metric she wanted was video views. So the content must be a video. But no, not in the first one. She got too busy. In this post. Kelly doesn't even post a video. But it's still not a bad post. However, no longer supports the strategy. There's no support to the metrics she has chosen to track. Sure, she may get engagement, but it was unintentional. This is why her marketing feels like it's everywhere and nowhere at the same time. And this is where in terms of pool, you have to call your shot. I'm going to post this because I want video views. So she's automatically. If she wants video views, she's not posting just a still image. Yes, she listens to the podcast and she reworks to post an example too. Kelly wants video views, so she posted, you never guessed it, a video. She grabbed her audience's visual attention. She posted a video. She used a header tag. She posted it in a group. She uploaded it natively to Facebook because she didn't share a link because she knows links are depreciated when you drive people off the platform. She kept it under 60 seconds because she wanted to see if it could reach more feeds that way. And she started with a visual hook. And then she's got a clear call to action. So it says, oh no. That's what you'll be saying if you miss out on this weekend's big bowl vendor expo. Watch my behind the scenes setup video to get 101. I'll show you the best place to park. I'll show you where the bathrooms are, and I'll show you a preview of my cake pops. Nice. So that call to action drives people to the video, that drives the video views metrics. That hopefully drives us towards the 500 goal. Makes sense. Yeah, yeah, it's all coming together tiramisu style. Finally, in our final example, content interaction. If we want engagement, we must post engaging content. Right. So she's got. Actually, you know what? I'm going to make people check this out on their own because I hope you guys are eating it up. The final piece of this was track, track, track. And Corey's personal content bug she's doing. She actually created a spreadsheet for one month and she said, here's the content I posted today, here's how it performed. So she tracked it and I think it's easy to say, well, the dashboard's tracking it. But like every Monday Corey and I meet and we go through the numbers. Just every Monday. I think sometimes we hate to call but we always show up.

[Corey]

You have to look at the numbers

[Heather]

to understand what the content metrics are telling you. Was that good? Could we do it differently? Could we do it more interestingly? Could we try it in a different medium? That's what we're going to try to do. So she can do the best but we're not looking at those numbers until after it's an autopsy.

[Corey]

Yeah, if I get elbow deep in my metrics, I can tell you what's working and what isn't working. If I say, oh, I got the dashboard and I never log in and I don't have the metrics, the metrics are there but I am not accessing them. You will not know what works unless you get nitty gritty in it. I have been tracking posts on views and post on page growth because I'm trying relationship based content. I don't like Farmer's market so you're not going to see me there because I don't like to man a space for eight hours. But what I do, I love a custom order and I'm really working on my pre sales so if I can gather people in one place and engage them on my page they that means the next time I need to make a sale and hawk those wares I have more opportunity to do it because I know what content they want because they've told me and I've tracked it opportunity.

[Heather]

And yes, if you guys want to go check if you like what you heard and you want to go rev visit this and see the last posting example. It's www.sugarcookiemarketing.com popping again because we popped last year so we popped again. That's how you do that now. Not to rush us here, my twin sister, but I do have an appointment in Virginia so I must journey from Virginia. So if we kind of buzz through

[Corey]

this, buzz on through my friend.

[Heather]

Buzz on our next boot camp. I'm excited about this one. This is All Me Kids 3D printing. It's May 7th and 8th so it's a two day and each module typically lasts about an hour and there's probably two modules a day. So we're going to be ordering the printer, we're going to be assembling the printer, loading the filament. I tell you what filament I'd recommend starting with. And then we're going to print an STL we bought from Etsy. We're going to design an STL in cookie design lab. And then we're going to design an STL with Bridge Infusion 360. At the beginning of this, you will not know how to print. At the end of this you will know how to print and you will think of me fondly every time you don't pay shipping costs on your cookie cutters. Like it. So that is May. That's our upcoming bootcamp. In June, we're doing how to record cookie decorating videos. Great if you want to focus on reels or views, metrics, Matrix. In July, we're doing cracking community groups, making them work for you. It's also the slowest month for bakers because most of us are out of town. So we thought, let's lay the framework for our busy season. And then in August, I'm taking in you guys through Procreate. I drew something last night. Chris said it was really cute. It was very cute. You'll see it as a digital download. It's a strawberry. What was the pun again?

[Corey]

I said, couldn't have picked a better mom. Better mom. And then you did very best mom.

[Heather]

Very best mom.

[Corey]

So yours might be better because it's smaller to fit on the text.

[Heather]

We'll see. I'll. I'll do some mock ups. Anyways, that digital download should drop this week. Gossip column. I'm just gonna run through this and Corey can say if she likes it, I gotta take the L on this one. But it's so funny how we can get into our own heads about competition. There's this local baker and they do it part time, but she started commenting on my post from my bakery page. I didn't necessarily care at first, but then I saw her doing it more and more. One post says, can I message you? And I don't know why. It just got under my skin. Like what was she gonna say? My prices were too high, My photos was ugly. I got into my own head about it and braced myself for a fight. I responded five days later. So I was worked up. I had to give myself some space to get your punching gloves on. It turns out she wanted to get out of the baking space and refer her clients to me. And would I be okay with that? So here I'm ready to throw down and here she is giving me business. Lesson learned. I think we can all. I think anxiety and fear of the unknown gets in our heads a lot and creates a lot of defensive behavior.

[Corey]

Well, when think. The problem is, is we all feel like we're shortcoming in some aspect, I'm not the best baker. And now maybe this lady's getting ready to tell me that I'm not the best baker. So it's our insecurities become the loudest thing in the room and then we replace anything normal with the abnormal. Like she's getting ready to tell me I suck.

[Heather]

Corey and I with Corey spent the five hours driving back from Cake Pop Cookie Con, and she was like, here's the 10 personality traits I think you should not do in your relationships. So needless to say, my brain, our brains are saying, hey, think this way. But in reality, the best way of thinking is not what the brain says. The brain's like protection mode. This happened to me once when I was five years old, and I've never forgotten it. In reality, I think we can be our own worst enemies. Cookie Design Lab is the sponsor of the Text in Question segment of the podcast. They're also going to be a part of the modules of 3D printing. I emailed Amalia to see if she wanted to teach live. Yeah, try warm up, but use Code twins to get 15 off. It's a really neat little app. I use it for the digital download. So you'll be getting. If you're in the digital downloads or the memberships that include that, you'll be getting that strawberry. And the cutter will come from Cookie Design Lab, which is why I'll have text on the wall telling you what it is.

[Corey]

The text Design Lab. I just want to show you I made this cookie cutter from it.

[Heather]

Impressive. My little grasshopper.

[Corey]

He was. He was.

[Heather]

He was. Corey's had to switch her filament color out, so now is yellow. Right.

[Corey]

I'm yellow again.

[Heather]

So the text in is hi, twins. What are your thoughts on LinkedIn? If I wanted to get in front of potential corporate clients, I do have some corporate orders going, but I do the bulk of my business. I wouldn't like the bulk of my business to be corporate. I have a profile, but I'm not active on that platform. I just don't know what to post credit. Congratulations, Company X on your grand opening. That sounds just as bad as Happy birthday to Timmy. Thanks.

[Corey]

The great thing about LinkedIn is you can actually tag the businesses when you thank them for their order. And I've had a businesses, you know, I've worked with Neiman Marcus and through Neiman Marcus, worked with other brands that they've had like Paris, Texas and things like that. Was able to tag them and just get on the roster. The biggest thing about LinkedIn, it's not as much as Facebook, where you post content and people will like it. It's actually growing the relationships off the platform and cultivating them on the platform. So when you go to the business networking events or you go and drop off to that corporate client, hey, can I get your business card? I would love to connect with you on there. You're going to have your main profile, your personal profile on LinkedIn in and it's going to be connected to your business profile. We're going to share back and forth from those and that's going to be how you can create that relationship without just feeling like I'm posting and nothing's happening. Because that platform is way different than say, Facebook, which is more relationship based. That one's more like, you know, if people like it, we'll show it. If people don't like it, they'll never see it a day in their life.

[Heather]

Yeah, I would say that Your pitch on LinkedIn is creating content is instead of like, congratulations, company on opening, it'd be like, hey, guys, I was super excited when company that opened contacted me. This is what they purchased for their grand opening. Now they can give each person that comes in an edible thing that can't throw away. They'll eat it. I can actually print a QR code on these so you can drive people to your website or your booking or a special promotion for your grand opening. And it was really fun to be able to get on the ground floor with a new company. Also check them out because they sell this, that and the other. And I'd love to help you with guys support them. Right. So you can kind of use it as the pitch. LinkedIn is so much more different space than Facebook. But LinkedIn also has company pages as well as LinkedIn. I would, I never use Facebook this way. I don't post business stuff to my personal profile on LinkedIn. I would do that. I would actually post it as my LinkedIn profile and just tag my business. I'd have my b. I'd share it to my business, but it would come from natively from Heather Miracle, who if you click on, happens to work at company that makes cookies for everybody, right? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Wrapping this up so fast because I have an hour drive in front of me with a car that has a braking problem. So maybe I'll get there faster because I can't slow down.

[Corey]

Oh yeah, you can't slow down.

[Heather]

You can accelerate the whole I'll get there lightning speed by running. Do you have a twin Trist.

[Corey]

I have a twin.

[Heather]

Yeah, give me a twin select. I was listening to a podcast on Burberry. Burberry, the, the European brand Burberry. So I'm not fancy enough to say. They said it was really known as a very, very high quality cloth. Right. And that Burberry checkered pattern was always just a subtle branding knot inside the jackets. But the jackets were very plain. It was that quiet luxury thing. But in one of the companies that sold the Burberry brand, they, they rolled up the cuffs to show you it was buried. People loved it. The hyper wealthy loved the thought of it. So Burberry took the inside pattern and made it an outside pattern and people ate it up. The brand just popped off because people are. Because it was the checkered pattern that was hidden now became the representation of high quality quality. Sure, putting it on the outside. And they said. But Burberry lost its direction to appeal to people who couldn't afford. They made hats, ties, small things. You know, we've always, everyone had that, a small buy in. They said the me and you, the regular population, we ate it up because now we can have something of status at a price that was affordable. But they said therein lies a problem. It was wanted by the hyper wealthy because it was unattainable people. Yeah, so they said. They said when you looked at their brands in the 90s and the 2000s, almost 20% of it was that checkered pattern. But by now, if you look at them, it's only 5%. They, they sacrificed the checkered pattern to bring the brand back to its quality and they killed off any of the affordable small pieces.

[Corey]

It's so funny Baker's experience that when they think that running sales constantly will get them more business, but you're getting closer and closer to the Wegman Chicago cake, which is unfortunately super delicious, you know, but your custom high end thing is made custom. Like it has to have that custom price tag. That's half of the battle. People buy it to show off. You know, we could always eat Oreos. But no, they want something that has the berries on it that matches the kid's birthday berry first birthday. The more you cheapen your brand to open it up to more orders, the more you actually lose out on what your branding is. That custom luxury market, market.

[Heather]

They said that the Burberry sales numbers actually didn't tank because so many people were sure they were buying the cheaper stuff that the. But they saw the long term ramifications. Is that the reason why the working class me me would Buy it is because we wanted to be seen as a wealthy class. But when the wealthy stopped buying it, the working class was about to stop as well. So they sacrificed the affordability and the number. Yeah. You know, they're no longer making sales from people like me to get back into that wealthy. And now you can see it again. Now, now Burberry, you don't see it as much. They said it was funny at one time it rained in Europe and everyone had the umbrella because it was very affordable. But it made them feel better. So it was interesting that, you know, like Corey says, discount, discount, discount. The reason why discounts work is because it feels like you got something of value you shouldn't have gotten when it's always discounted. JCPenney's case study is an interesting one where they only ran discounts and then decided no discounts. People are like, well, this is. This is. Now I'm. Now I'm overpaying is what their brain said.

[Corey]

Hobby lobby ran a 25% off bakery area discount every two weeks religiously for years, and now it's always 50% off. That means it's actually more expensive. Like it's not a discount all the time. That's just their normal prices. So the people who are running in every two weeks to get the 25% off are now no longer running because it's 50% off all the time.

[Heather]

Which means. Means it's actually 100% the price. It just feels better. I saw somebody in another group and she was like, they're not running their 50 off. They're only running their 30 off. Sad face. Like, she's like, no, I'm not going to get it. But it was like, because Hobby Lobby, you've always run such a steep discount. Anything less than that feels like overpaying.

[Corey]

Yeah.

[Heather]

Even, like. Right. Even if the base price adjusted to make 30% off. Still the same. It's the psychology of money that really changes how we affect it. So like we said, running massive discounts. Is Burberry still trying to say we've lost the high price people? Can we we. But we're losing the low price people as well because they. They're buying it because they thought they got something that they shouldn't have been able to afford.

[Corey]

I know Kaleida cuts runs 20 off twice a year. And why do I know that? Because she only does it twice a year. And I know that my cheap self will be in there at the 20 off getting it. Because she only runs if she ran 2010 off all year. Long, there would be no push for

[Heather]

me to buy because I'm gonna hit it sometime.

[Corey]

I'll get it. I'll get the discount on.

[Heather]

Very interesting. Okay, kids, I gotta jump in the old caro. The old car. So 30, 30 year old Caro. And hopefully I survive on the other side.

[Corey]

God bless you.

[Heather]

Text me if you make it and

[Corey]

I'll be at your funeral if you don't.

[Heather]

Okay, thank you. Sing. Bye.