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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 250 - 1,000 Word Pictures, in preparation for this week's Cookie Photography Bootcamp, photography is on the brain of the twins, and that's because a huge part of food sales comes from great photos.

Consider yourself - do you tend to order things off the menu that have pictures? A study shows that restaurants saw a 30% increase in sales when pictures were included on their menu.

"Restaurants with high-quality photos can see up to 30% higher sales on average — showing just how powerful great menu photography can be. In fact, nearly half of Gen Z diners (46%) say food photos influence their decision to try a new restaurant, according to the DoorDash Delivery Trends Report. "

🖼️ Photography's marketing value

Better photos, better ingredients, better pizza, Papa John's. Only kidding (Heather can't resist), but better photos do increase the perceived value of a product. Doesn't matter how good the product is, if the photo screams "this was baked in a dark dungeon," you're not going to move product.

And great photos are a great way to flex your skillset. If you live in an area of stiff cookie competition, photography can put you a cut(ter) above the rest. By being able to really dial in on your details with great photos, you can push product faster than the next kitchen.

Corrie adds that investing in your photography skills now can allow you to use current photos for years to come. "I got really good at photography years ago. Now those cookies from 4 years ago? I can use them to sell quickly even today. Good photography pays it forward."

🖼️ Lighten up!

In the Bootcamp for Cookie Photography (you can sign up at www.thecookiecollege.com for $13), we focus a lot on lighting. Photography = photon = light. Photography is the capture of light, so good lighting sets the stage for a great photo. Finding good lighting is a must if you want to fall in love with your photography.

Light boxes, three-point lighting systems, and overhead lighting are fine in a picture pinch, but bakers should really focus on indirect, natural (sun) light for pictures that pop off the newsfeed.

🖼️ Back up that background

Your kitchen's granite countertops are designed to distract (from your husband's inability to clear the crumbs from the toaster). As such, using them as your backdrop is distracting. Investing in a backdrop can clear the clutter and make for some clean product shots. Don't overspend - a matte white finish (or marble if you're feelin' fancy) is all you need to start leveling up your photography game.

🖼️ To the big stage!

Referring to the "pyramid" worksheet, build from the bottom up. Pyramid style staging keeps it simple: a backer, a tea towel, a baking tray, a plate, and your cookies. Sprinkle some props in the periphery (and don't be afraid to crop the prop), and you've set the stage for cookies that create a want in your clients.

Not sure if you nailed the staging? Take your photo to the nearest unbiased friend (or twin) and ask, "What did your eyes see first when I showed you this photo?" If the answer ain't "them cookies, giiiirl -wooohooo," rethink the set and take it back to basics.

👂 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 250 - 1,000 Word Pictures.

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 248 - Bootcamp Recap, we wrapped up our first pilot for the Cookie College 2026 Bootcamp configuration - and it went pretty well! Thanks to all who put up with some bumps and bruises for round one.

🥾 What's a Cookie College Bootcamp?

In 2026, we're taking a different approach to adding new content to our top membership - The Cookie College. Instead of adding new classes all willy nilly, we're adding a monthly collection of modules that focus on a specific topic. Bootcamps last between 2 - 3 days, and each day has about 2 hours worth of content. Recruits also get access to a private Bootcamp Facebook group where we discuss topics, break down worksheets, and host Live Q&As.

The cool part about Bootcamps? You don't need to be a Cookie College monthly member to join. Bootcamps are $13, and they're a great way to "taste test" the content in The Cookie College. And bonus - if you sign up after attending a Bootcamp, you get $13/off the Cookie College membership (forever).

Nothing else changes about our memberships and the content - we're just adding the new feature of Bootcamp Intensives!

🥾 Bootcamp Day 1 - Event Setup + Marketing

Day 1 of the Bootcamp covered setting up a cookie class event using Eventbrite (and their nifty 2025 / 2026 event dashboard redesign). Attendees got access to a free Cookie Class Kit (🍍🍎🍓🍇 Fruits & Frosting), and we used the included Event Listing copy to build out Eventbrite as well as set class limits, add DIY kit add-ons, and set sales dates. We also had Eventbrite push the event listing to Facebook for better cross-marketing.

📅 Then we created a marketing campaign using the techniques we talk about in Sugar Cookie Marketing - working with content buckets (silos) and content types ot create a really robust strategy that would hit just about everyone in your target demographic. 🎟️🎟️🎟️ Repeat that strategy 3 times over a 6-week promotional schedule, and you're gonna move some tickets.

🥾 Bootcamp Day 2 - Class Setup + Instruction

Day 2, we actually set up a fake class so we could talk about what we use, why we use it, and what we'd do differently. It's helpful seeing the types of class tech along with hearing why we set up classes the way we do.

Then we pretended to teach the intro to a class, breaking the third wall so that would-be instructors could understand the flow of it (Bootcamp attendees also got our class script that matched the Fruits and Frosting class).

🥾 Bootcamp Day 3 - Follow-up Marketing + Live

By Day 3, "recruits" got access to the module on follow-up marketing. Follow-up marketing helps us take past class attendees and turn them into future sales by getting them into our remarketing funnel through email list segmentation, Facebook groups, and follow-up emails (copy also included in our Class Kits).

Corrie and I ended with an hour-long Live Q&A in the private Bootcamp group, where we answered questions from members about teaching classes, class promotion, and woulda-coulda-shouldas. It was a lot of fun!

Next Bootcamp - 📸 Cookie Photography. It'll be a good one! More info comin' this week.

👂 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 248 - Bootcamp Recap.

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 246 - The Reviews Collab, we're talkin' reviews as we see 2026 really start to rev up - and perfect timing too - the first ever Reviews Collab is this Friday at 11:00 AM (est... edt??).

💕 About Friday’s Reviews Collab!

The Friday collab is pretty simple, but it's a marketing power play. You'll take a selfie holding a red heart cookie - that's it. The magic happens when we combine the collab participants, giving you engagement with a direct ask to your audience to leave you a review on a specific website.

• 💗 Date: Friday, Feb 6, 2026
• 💗 Time: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM est
• 💗 Hashtag: # SCMCollabLove (remove the space)
• 💗 More Info: https://www.facebook.com/events/1168981642056798/

💕 Setting Yourself Up for Reviews

To get reviews, we must make it easy for people to leave reviews. This means having your review profiles set up correctly (Google Business Profile, Facebook Page, Yelp, NextDoor), and we must link to those profiles - like on your website and your Instagram bio link (using apps like LinkTree and Shorby).

To have a review profile show up in search engines, you need to have it fully optimized with pictures, website links, paragraphs describing your business, addresses, etc.

🫀 Remember - the more clicks it takes to perform an action (like asking someone to leave you a review), the less likely they are to complete the action. If the shortest distance from A to B is a straight line, the shortest distance to getting a review is a direct link.

💕 Responding to Reviews

Bold statement - we think 100% of your reviews should have a response from you. Yep - even those "just star ratings" and those bad reviews. Why? When people read bad reviews, they're also seeing if you're the type of business owner who will make an effort to acknowledge and make an effort to turn a bad experience around.

⭐⭐⭐⭐ In fact, an imperfect review profile can actually be seen as more trustworthy when you nail the response. People aren't perfect, and neither are businesses - so embracing the bad review is actually a decent strategy.

💕 How to Ask for Reviews

Asking for reviews can feel awkward. It's like, "Hey - you just gave me a lot of money! How about giving me even more!" Which is why the reviews collab is a neat idea to blame "the Sugar Cookie Marketing Group" for making you ask - because it's a part of the rules to participate.

But we need to make peace with asking for reviews, because it's not if, it's when you end up with a bad one. Padding those review profiles with our fan-favorite clients can really help offset that one-off reviewer.

💕 Bracing for Bad Reviews

Bad reviews hurt. But you know what hurts more than a bad review? A bad review when you only have 2 good reviews. That means 33% of people who ordered from you HATED your cookies. By bracing for bad reviews by getting 9 great reviews, we move that 33% down to just 10%. 20 reviews? Now it's only 5%. Bad reviews are par for the course of business ownership (heck, just check this podcast's reviews) - knowing how to handle bad reviews makes you a good business owner.

👂 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 246 - The Reviews Collab.

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 245 - Gimme Gimme Strategic Giving, it's the season of requests to donate, sponsor, and give to local causes, PTAs, and networking events.

It's all about strategic giving in January - and we're here to tell you - it ain't all bottom line blues when it comes to this form of marketing (you see that right there? We didn't categorize it as "selling").

🎁 First up - What is strategic giving?

Strategic giving is the opportunity presented to your bakery to partner with companies that move your business forward, while not necessarily generating income at the immediate start.

🎁 The benefits of strategic giving.

With every strategy, there are pros and cons - but for strategic giving done right, I think there are more positives than negatives.

• 🎀 Giving is good, makes you feel good
• 🎀 Support your customers

When it comes to strategic opportunities, consider your local audience first - they're likely connected to communities, causes, and PTAs - a win-win when you can support them and get exposure.

• 🎀 Reach people you wouldn’t normally reach
• 🎀 Cheaper than paying for an ad
• 🎀 Create relationships with new people
• 🎀 Showcase you working in your community (rally behind a like goal)
• 🎀 Get more orders

Strategic giving is marketing. In the same way you'd run a Facebook ad and spend money to acquire new customers, donating to a raffle can have the same effect - but the catch is it's a slow burn. 🔥 Patience is key with this form of marketing.

• 🎀 Break into an industry
• 🎀 Downside of strategic giving
  
  

🎁 Downside of strategic giving.

Like we said - what goes up must come down. With anything that has benefits, it could also cost you, and with strategic giving, that's build into the name. Because it's a gift, there's no guarantee of a return on your investment. But in another way - the return is the *feel good* feelings you get from supporting a cause or community.

• 🎀 You might not get any new customers
• 🎀 It impacts profitability

I like encouraging people to make a budget line item for strategic giving, that way it doesn't feel like a bottom line buster, 💸 but rather a marketing invoice you're paying through product (or monetarily if that fits your strategy).

• 🎀 Can leave you open to bad reviews
• 🎀 Loss of potential future opportunities

🎁 Creating a Strategic Giving Goal.

A wo-man with a plan! Create a giving goal, then create a marketing campaign around it. Do you want to use strategic giving to increase your social media impressions? Partner with a cause that's active on socials. Want to support a cause you vibe with? Find a charity that directly impacts that and partner there.

• 🎀 Do you want awareness? Social media?
• 🎀 Support a cause?
• 🎀 Last-minute opps

Using community groups to find quick strategic giving opportunities is a really neat (but also a lot of work) method of giving. Finding someone who dropped a cake and posted about it = offer them free cookies. Community groups are an amazing way to reach hyper-local customers.

• 🎀 Do you want to reach a new audience?
• 🎀 How many opportunities are you willing to take?
• 🎀 Maybe it’s just not the right fit for you right now.

🎁 How to turn down opportunities

You need to have a boundary around giving because it can get out of hand and burn the baker out real quick.

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In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 244 - Good Cop, Bad Cop, AI Slop, we're takin' on the touchy subject of 👾 AI, aka artificial intelligence.

👮 Bakers are quick to police other bakers in the comment sections on posts that ask how bakers are incorporating AI.

🤬 "It's cheating!"

😠 "It's lazy!"

😤 "It's the easy way out!"

😡 "It's lying to your audience!"

🤬 "I'll NEVER use AI! It's hurting the environment!"

However, AI is creeping into more and more businesses as tools to help with copy, updating and post-processing photography, summarizing emails and increasing workflow, and creating websites and marketing materials - and for good reason. AI is a cost-effective way to minimize production costs and labor while also being, at this time,💸 free to use.

The topic of today’s podcast: ✅🚫 where is your personal line when it comes to AI integration into your bakery?

And if your line mismatches that of another baker's, does that make you morally superior, or is it a case of mistaken identity of the use of different tools - 🖨️ ie, a baker who uses Eddie and one who only hand pipes.

📏 Taking the example to the extreme - the baker who does “from scratch” and buys a box mix, the baker who makes the batter themselves, and the baker who raises the cow and churns her own butter. In all three cases, a baker was baking in the kitchen. Who is business savvy, and who is ethical - and who is allowed to play judge and jury?

👮 AI impacts trust.

And we agree - ⭐️❌❌❌❌ using AI to dupe your clients into thinking your skillset is better than you can produce is a recipe for disaster, upset customers, and bad reviews. ✋ However, you gotta consider the invisible hand of the market - it always sorts things out. If someone takes advantage of their client base, give it time - the bad reviews will direct clients elsewhere.

But what about AI just sprucing up the background image? We see a lot of bakers "okay" with this level of AI use, and it does help sell more product since better photos = better sales.

And then consider the even more blurry lines - when AI can recreate the style and skill of decorating you are at - is that a lie? Or is it using a tool to help you sell cookies you haven't baked yet that you can 100% reproduce?

👮 AI devalues the craft.

Using AI can be a shortcut that's not fair for bakers who have suffered through learning the basics of even more than just royal icing. Just 5 years ago, research for starting a business required a dozen Google searches. Ten years before that, you were at the library doing your research. And that's not fair.

But is it really not fair? 📚 Consider that Google replaced the library and the need to go to the SBA office to get a business license. 3-D printers replaced a large majority of metal cutters. 💻 Websites replaced a large need to work a vendor market. Suffering is par for the course when it comes to running a business, but as technology evolves, 🏆 there's no reward for doing it the hard way.

👮 AI is killing the environment.

💦 I'm just going to link to someone smarter than me on this - Why is Everyone So Wrong About AI Water Use?? by Hank Green - but if you make the "environmental claim" - 💧 and trust me, AI data centers are in Northern Virginia and they are u-g-l-y amd loud, but it's important to be informed on both sides of the argument. 🫧 "The video concludes that while AI data centers will use a lot of water, their projected increase in water use is small compared to existing industrial and city uses." That's YouTube's AI summary, ironically