Send us a text

Send us a text

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 235 - Private Class + The Vendy Blendy Pt 1, we're doing a two-part two-part series (not a typo) so I can check the box that we effectively spammed you with the Vendy Blendy this week while also providing some marketing value.

We're teaching an in-home private class. Now, typically, you've heard me state (vehemently) that we don't teach private in-home classes anymore after a wild adventure with a class of 5 - 7 year olds once years ago, but Corrie said, "For the podcast!" so for the podcast, we must.

👩‍🏫 The Private Cookie Class - Pt 1

Mary is the client here, and she found Corrie through her custom cookie Instagram when Corrie had cross-promoted an in-person cookie class we were hosting back in October.

Mary DMed asking if we would be open to an in-home private class with her and her friends, so Corrie said if she was willing to play "private class guinea pig," we're in. Mary happily took the bait, and we set these parameters up months before the event.

• ✅ She had to sell all 10 tickets.
• ✅ All 10 tickets needed to be sold 2 weeks prior to the event.
• ✅ Mary had to handle the marketing.
• ✅ We allowed her to sell individual tickets (versus a lump sum payment) through Eventbrite (yes, we incurred the fees).
• ✅ We were not offering a discount.

📧 I followed up with Mary via email each week once we sent her the class link (since I was managing the Eventbrite, she didn't have access to attendee lists) with the list of names + a confirmation of her class details.

To keep it easy, 🖼 we sent her the photo collage of our Cookie Class Kits membership class offerings (hey, yeah - we like them so much, we teach them ourselves), and she went with "the pie slice Thanksgiving one" - risky click here, because we actually have two pie slice Thanksgiving classes, but I can't get Mary to confirm.

That said - I have requested a picture of the event space, and that will be the challenge to overcome this Thursday when we finally teach the class. Next week's podcast will feature a pt. 2 recap on how it all went - stay tuned!

🛍️ The Vendy Blendy - Pt 1

Now back to Vendy Blendy spam - each year, our returning list of Vendys gets shorter and shorter due to turnover in the industry, so to replace the shops that dropped out or disappeared on their marketing, we worked on finding fresh blood that y'all begged for - and let's just say, it's comin' together nicely!

️🛒 If you're new here - the Vendy Blendy is a private Facebook group that opens for only 24 hours on Black Friday (Nov 28th). We gather a bunch of cookie-related shops and get them to offer you all 25% off or more. It's utter mayhem - the deals aren't the only fun part because each shop can make 3 sales pitches to ya 🎁 while also hosting their own door prize giveaways throughout the day.

🤯 Not overwhelming enough? Hold on tight - 🎁🎁🎁 the event also hosts the "BIG Door Prizes" given away all day on Black Friday, too. It's organized mayhem, and folks love it. And we think you'll love it too. Go "Pendy" so you can "Spendy" this "Novemy" at the "Vendy Blendy"!

Find all the info you need at https://www.sugarcookiemarketing.com/vendyblendy.

👂 Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or watch it on YouTube) by searching for Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 235 - Private Class + The Vendy Blendy Pt. 1.

Send us a text

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 234 - Food-Tography, we're concluding our "📅 Content Theme" for the month of October, which focused on... well, focusing that camera lens. 💡 Check out #OctoberPhotographyMonth in the Sugar Cookie Marketing (Group) to see more content on staging and gear.

📸 Food photography is a must when it comes to slingin' sugar cookies. Our customers "buy with their eyes," meaning that the photos have a big part in selling our bakes. If your photo quality and staging are poor = your business bank account will soon follow.

While we may be able to get around not having a website, posting up lackluster photos will rob you of sales. So investing in quality gear to produce quality product photos is a business-savvy expenditure. 🤑 But we do talk about the cost-conscious approach in this week's Baking it Down podcast episode on cookie photography.

📸 The Power of Photography

Good photos sell food! Consistent, high-quality photography can act as a watermark for your brand (especially when you dial in your own photography style), making your products instantly recognizable. Easily recognizable = branding. You're seein' how this all works together, right?

When your photos do the talking, you won't have to pitch as hard. Consider your own buying process. When you want a car, you search up "Mercedes" and see glamorous photos of beautiful red cars with big boys and sparkly wheels. What you don't see is the car covered in a layer of dirt and bird poop.

Showing the car and our cookies in their best light will increase sales.

📸 Lighting

The best option happens to be the cheapest option = ☀️ the sun. Indirect natural sunlight is a phrase you've heard us spout for YEARS on this podcast. Having a mobile setup (backdrops help with this), where you can follow the ever-moving sunlight around your house, will help with "chasing daylight."

🕯️ Otherwise, you may need to consider a lighting system, a diffuser, and/or a light box (harder to use - I always find myself frustrated with them).

📸 Cameras

Cell phone cameras have come a long way and can really hold their own next to dedicated cameras. That said, for me, the dedicated camera still adds that extra pizzazz that manufactured blur and digital zoom just can't recreate (yet).

If you have an older cell phone, with how quickly technology and built-in cell phone camera abilities have increased, it may be worth the upgrade to the latest model. Otherwise, consider a dedicated camera - specifically with a macro zoom lens - to really capture that cookie.

📸 Stands

While 92% of bakers opted for hand-held photography (meaning no stands), when it comes to videography, you may have to consider a stand setup. Moft is a neat stand that uses the cell phone's mag-safe magnet for quick setup. ShopCanvas lamps have a built-in light and a goose-neck clamp, and dedicated tripods can help with heavier cameras. Have an Arkon mount? You can make that work too, although the ball joints don't lend themselves to easy adjustment.

📸 Software

If you're not taking your photos through software (cell or desktop), you're leaving money on the table. Post-processing software like Lightroom or Snapseed can make the difference between dull pics and products that pop off the page. I'd wager just about every creator you jealously look at and think, "They take such good photos," is using a post-processing software to level up their photography game.

👂 Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or watch it on YouTube) by searching for B

Send us a text

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 233 - Podcast Guest Christina with Boujee Baker Boutique, we hosted our first-ever remote podcast guest! You all wanted fresh blood (er... dough?), and the people get what they want!

Meet Christina Cenera with Boujee Baker Boutique and Stormy Acre Cookies based in Warranton, Virginia. Yep, she juggles both a brick-and-mortar supply shop and a bakery business, all while raising 5 dogs (with alpaca manifestation incoming).

• ️🛒 Shop Link: https://boujeebakerboutique.com/

Her unique perspective of being both a supplier and a baker makes Episode 233 an interesting listen this week. And yes - she's a Vendy in this year's Vendy Blendy!

🤔 "What's one thing you would have done differently?"

Christina has opened two businesses in the last 5 years, now running both concurrently. What would she have done differently, we asked? She says she would have saved more money before opening the brick-and-mortar storefront while also spending less on remodeling costs. Looking back, Christina said while the customizations were nice, they weren't a necessity in hindsight, and having that extra cash on hand (she estimated $50k in startup costs) would have been a nice padding.

🤔 "How have you been able to wholesale so many brands?"

Christina's simple take: don't take no for an answer. As a former saleswoman, she's learned that "no" isn't a rejection of her but rather a challenge to find a better way to pitch. "I heard no way more than I've heard yes," she states. She takes a "boots on the ground" mentality, going to CookieCons, signing up for the Vendy Blendy, landing in Heather's inbox 3 times to ensure she's a shoe-in for the podcast - and it's that level of hustle that is really paying off for her. She's a "No Girl" and proud of it.

🤔 "How do you do it all?"

She's found a way to make her businesses fit around her life and not the other way around. The supply shop is open 4 days a week, the bakery is active 2 days a week, and Sundays are reserved for cookie classes. She's consolidated her websites for both companies and did the same for her social profiles. Basically, she's making a hybrid approach to compromise on what's best practice versus what's best for her lifestyle.

🤔 "What tip would you give first-time Vendy Blendy goers?"

"Definitely stay up for the final hour." Yesss - what happens after hours, stays in your wallet. Chaos is the theme of the Vendy Blendy, and it doesn't stop until the shoppin' lady sings at midnight. If you're new to the Vendy Blendy, tune in this Thursday at 6:00 PM for our "Intro to the Vendy Blendy" Facebook Live.

👂 Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or watch it on YouTube) by searching for Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 233 - Podcast Guest Christina with Boujee Baker Boutique.

Send us a text

Send us a text

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 231 - The 2025 Vendy Blendy, we have VENDY BLENDY on the brain!

Each year, 🦃 at the end of November, deals roll around in stores and across your screens, prepping everyone for the Christmas season. From malls to boutiques- the steals are endless! So, what about a day of deals just for bakers?

🫡 The Vendy Blendy answers the call. A deal-lovers' day specifically for the bakers of the world. Let’s cover the who, what, when, where, and why so you can know exactly what to expect for the 5th annual Vendy Blendy come November 28th.

• 🛒 Date: November 28th, 2025
• 🛒 Time: 12:01 AM - 11:59 PM (24 hours)
• 🛒 How to Join: Just request to pendy!

🛍️ What is The Vendy Blendy?

The Vendy Blendy’s main location is in a Facebook group called, you’ll never guess, “The Vendy Blendy (Sugar Cookie Marketing)”... we aren’t great at creative naming, I’ll tell ya that, BUT it’s a fun spot where chaos goes down for 24 hours on the day after Thanksgiving, on November 28th.

Each year, vendors (Vendys) from the baking industry and around the world come together and offer discounts, door prizes, and incentives to get bakers to buy from their shops - things like cookie cutters, baking mats, baker shirts, cookie scribes, STLs, software, takes a deep breath, cake pop molds, recipes, meringue powder, sprinkles, class kits, online courses, transfer sheets, packaging, cookie tags, cookie backers- the list truly does go on and on and on aaaand it’ll all be 25% off or more!

👉 You can access the current list (which is always growing) of vendys at http://www.TheVendys.com

Just like most awesome things in life, it’s here for a good time, not a long time, so you’ll be able to shop the deals and steals for just 24 hours, and 💥POOF💥, it’ll be gone. 🤫 We shut down the group and boot everybody out, and we don’t talk about it again until next year. It truly is the best day and only day of the year!

🛍️ Who is The Vendy Blendy for?

If you’re just window shoppin’ or if you’re there to stock up on all your 2026 packaging options - this sale is for you. 🚪🎁 The shops all host door prizes, plus the Sugar Cookie Marketing Group, who puts it on, will be giving out free-to-enter BIG Door Prizes all day just for being there- you ain’t gotta purchase one single thing for a chance to win.

🌎 While most of the Vendy's shops are based in the US, we have many that aren’t, and you can score deals from across the world! So don’t think that because you don’t have a US zip code, you can’t win, because you totally can!

🛍️ When is The Vendy Blendy

The Vendy Blendy is a 24-hour online event that goes down from midnight on November 27th to midnight on November 28th. It’s exactly 24 hours long. The event is hosted in Eastern Standard Time, so you may need to do some time conversions.

The Vendy Blendy group is a private group on Facebook, so you’ll pend until the day of the event. Admins and Mods are already in there setting up the group and makin’ sure the pinned posts, discounts, and directions are all set up. At midnight on November 27th, we will start letting anyone pending into the group.

🛍️ Where is The Vendy Blendy?

This event does take place on Facebook, but the shops will let you check out from their individual websites. The Vendy Blendy Facebook group will be a hub that day where you can snag the discount codes, cheer on your favorite shops, and win door prizes all day long.

You’ll access the shops, discount codes, and websites from a pinned Google Sheet within the group on the day of the event.

Send us a text

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 230 - Nothing Old, Nothing New, Corrie wanted to cover returning customers - clients that have ordered from you in the past and then reorder.

They're massively valuable to your bottom line because returning leads cost less to acquire. That means you have to spend less time and marketing dollars getting someone to order from you a second time than getting someone to order from you the first time.

And this makes sense, right?

• ✅ A returning client already knows you exist.
• ✅ A returning client already knows your ordering process.
• ✅ A returning client has built trust with you when they placed their first order.
• ✅ A returning client is 15 - 20% more likely to reconvert when reengaged.

To drive the point home: 🤯 It can cost 5 - 25 times more to acquire a new customer than to re-engage an existing or returning lead. So for every dollar you spend to reacquire an old lead, you'd be spending $25 to replace them with a new lead.

Higher marketing costs = lower profits.

If you're a good baker-turned-marketer, you should be asking this question: 🤔 "How can I increase my returning customer base?"

🧠 Smart question - and there may be a few culprits at fault as to why you don't have people re-knocking on your proverbial front door.

🙅‍♂️ 1. If you take big breaks or take the summer off, you're going to lose clients.

If you're taking big, inconsistent breaks (like the summer off or January off), you're going to frustrate your current base of clients. They can't return if your doors are never open. If a customer who ordered from you in June returns to place an order in January only to find you've closed up shop until March, they'll need to source another baker - a more reliable one. Hey - put down that pitchfork, if you need to take a break, do so. But remember the cost of taking breaks like this - it will impact your returning customers.

🙅‍♀️ 2. If you're constantly changing your offerings, you're losing clients.

If you listened to this week's podcast, I lean into the "hybrid model" - a give and take. No one solution fits everyone, but finding a mix of solutions can still be an effective approach. That applied to a busy menu. Yes, trimming your menu down to the fan favorites (that you also like baking) can prevent analysis paralysis (or choice paralysis), but changing up your menu too often can drive away past customers who lost their favorites during a menu purge.

Create a list of your best sellers and stick to it. Sprinkle in some "seasonal drops" and "limited editions," but be consistent in your long-term offerings.

🙅‍♂️ 3. If you're not easily searchable, you're losing returning clients.

🔍 If I can't easily find you on search, socials, and email, you're not easily findable. Imagine a client who only ordered from you a year ago. How likely are they to be able to remember where to find you? Oftentimes, clients go to search engines with a slew of keywords they hope can connect them with past vendors.

🕵️‍♂️ If your website doesn't show up or your maps listing is nonexistent, you're losing any clients looking for you.

🙅‍♀️ 4. If you're not relevant on socials, you're losing returning clients.

I get it - ya get busy and posting to social media falls to the back burner. "But I'm busy, so my marketing is good, right?" Yes - however, marketing results are delayed - meaning what you do today you won't see until a month or two from now.

Send us a text

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 229 - Do the Reels Collab, we're hypin' up the marketing behind the Blind Baker Reels Collab on September 26.

✅ Register here:

• https://form.jotform.com/SugarCookieMarketing/blind-baker-collab

🎥 This cookie collab is different from the others we've run this year for 1 simple reason: it's video-based.

Instead of posting an image of a logo-turned-cookie for the Main Street Collab or posting a selfie like we did for the Meet the Baker Collab, this Blind Baker Collab has bakers recording themselves.

✍️ Here's the breakdown - participants in this cookie collab with blindfold themselves and hit RECORD as they pipe a jack-o'-lantern onto a white iced circular sugar cookie (I’ll provide an inspo pic).

Then, on September 26th at 11:00 AM EST, bakers will post that video to their Instagram using the hashtag #SCMCollabCircle (note the 2 L’s in collab) and spend the next hour engaging with other Reels. 📼 Instagram converts all videos to Reels, so all ya gotta do is upload the video, add the caption, and post.

📉 But this Blind Baker Collab will be the lowest attended cookie collab we host this year. Why? Because folks hate recording themselves on video. But in a video-first social media sphere, this is the piece of content that will push the needle for your post reach.

🤳 It's a Reels world, and we're just livin' in it.

Vertical videos are the marketing flavor of the month, and based on TikTok's extreme popularity over the last Covid-confined 5 years, it's not looking like it's going to let go of the limelight anytime soon.

Video (all video, not just vertical video) should be a part of your marketing content creation schedule each week because...

• 📹 Watchability - Our audience prefers to digest content via video versus text on a web page.
• 📹 Conversions - Adding a marketing video to a landing page can increase conversions by over 80%.
• 📹 User Generated Content - 84% of consumers have been convinced to buy a product or service after watching a brand's video.
• 📹 Search Engine Optimization - Videos can rank separately from web pages and also can help web pages rank higher in search engines.

TikTok is growing, and Facebook knows it. Meta (parent company of Facebook and Instagram) has slowed the reach of image-based content to favor video-based Reels instead (Reels = Meta's branding of TikToks).

What used to be an image-based platform, Reels paved the way for vertical video content to compete with the ever-popular TikTok. As a result, image content has been pushed aside to favor the reach of videos on Instagram.

Statistics aside, your audience wants to connect with you - which is why this Reels collab focuses on you, the baker, rather than your skill set (we don't expect anyone to pipe a perfect pumpkin whilst blind folded).

The goal of this collab is to put a face to a name a

Anecdotal evidence also supports the "Reel reach" theory. Corrie recently completed a 25-day series on Instagram using Reels to run a "freshness test" on her heat-sealed cookies. Each day, she recorded a minute-long video snackin' on a cookie. As dumb as that sounds, the con