137. Baking it Down - Surviving Q4

Baking it Down with Sugar Cookie Marketing 🍪

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😵‍💫 Surviving Q4 - the fight for the newsfeed

It's the time of yeeeear... when the reach is low and the engagement is even lower. What gives?! I'll tell ya what - the deep pockets of big corporations capitalizing on the "year-end consumer" who is primed to pay.

It's a fight to the feed death in Q4, and we've got some tips and tricks to help you gain some ground.
🥊 Reset Expectations.

We're in a battle of the business and the newsfeed is the fighting ring. Bigger companies with bigger pockets are paying bigger bills to win Facebook bids. Lots of 🅱️ Bs, but the 💯 A+ will be earned by the page that understands this and uses it to create compelling content to fight through the feed clutter.

💁‍♂ Listen - it's going to be harder to reach your audience. Your engagement will be lower. And that's okay - because knowing this will help us to create a better campaign to adjust to the deeper pocket punches.

🥊 Be Annoying.

Corrie is very adept at this (lol). But seriously - no one is being annoyed by your posts because no one is seeing your posts. So 👏 be 👏 annoying! And don't just post the same thing 10 times - yeah, that's not ✨quality✨ annoyance. We need to be ✨creatively✨ annoying.

• 👊 Use the Stories feature.
• 👊 Host a Facebook Live.
• 👊 Post a Reel.
• 👊 Create a poll.
• 👊 Make a feed post.
• 👊 Run an ad.

All of these are features to sneak into the feed and annoy your audience in a way they don't think is annoying - but it's everywhere all the time.

🥊 Be Consistent.

Be consistent! It's so easy to get all those holiday orders in, tuck your head between your legs, and head off to the kitchen only to reappear in January wondering if all the sales followed the groundhog back into his burrow. We may get busy - but we can't be too busy to market - unless we're willing to leave the sales to our competition who is willing to be present on their pages.

🥊 Test. Test. Restest.

Your audience shifts into 🧠 "year-end consumer brain" in Q4, and adjusting your content will be a necessary step in making sure we're still resonating with that audience. How are we gonna do that? Test and retest! Long-form content (example below), short-form content, different creative (aka pictures), videos, Lives, emojis (Corrie thinks I use too many... 🙂😄😆😅😂🤣😊😌).

Test it - see how they respond. Then retest it again - see how they respond ✨ again ✨. Wash, rinse, and repeat until your audience is primed to react, respond, and reach for their wallets. What works in 1️⃣ Q1 isn't likely going to work the same in 2️⃣ Q4. Adjust accordingly.

🥊 Learn to Pivot.

📆 Sometimes you hoped your audience would like Advent Calendars and sometimes your audience just happens to 🚫 not like Advent Calendars. 😭 We can't cry over spilled meringue powder - but we can pivot!

💃 If advents don't sell, swing back by pivoting to DIY kits - test, test, and retest and see if that hits your audience's sweet spot. Test PYOs, test cookie classes, test DIYs, test customs - and keep pivoting until you find the product your target audience flips for.
🥊 Admin Day.

Set aside an admin day - this is a day you are NOT allowed to touch a Bosch, Kitchen-Aid, or oven. On this day, you realign yourself each week to stay on top of posting, follow-up, invoicing, and customer relations. ❌ This day SHALL NOT BE A BAKING DAY ❌ - 🤑 no matter how tempting the rush fee charge may be.