Let’s face it, this is going to be a very unique cookie-selling year. Many councils across the nation are canceling booth sales due to their local COVID restrictions. Nonetheless, the cookie sales must go on. If your girl is allowed to set up a physical cookie booth and can do so safely, remind her to mask up, practice social distancing, and request her booth visitors to do the same. However, this next cookie season will rely even more on the digital cookie program.
Going digital will empower your girl to find creative ways to reach customers with her cookie business and develop a digital connection with her buyers. After your girl reviews the Girl Scouts’ online safety pledge and guidelines, The Startup Squad has some sure-fire digital cookie strategies below. She’ll level up her digital cookie-selling powers in no time!
Sales
This year, more than ever, girls should focus on their “why” and not their “what.” As much as people love cookies (the what), your girl can attract more orders and larger orders by focusing on her why. Why she’s selling cookies, why she needs help to meet her goal in this most challenging of cookie seasons, why the cookie funds will help her community. Engaging stories drum up sales, so encourage your girl to be a storyteller in her videos and email messages that focus on her why! And when it comes to the what, the cookies, have her describe the cookies in a way that will get people interested and excited to try each product. It’s one thing to explain that she’s selling mint cookies, it’s another to describe them as the chocolatey, minty, melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness that so many know and love. Finally, its easier to get an existing customer to order more boxes than it is to find a new customer. Encourage her to ask her customers if they want to donate a box or two to the needy or military.
Marketing
The digital world can create opportunities for your girl to expand her customer base across the globe starting with her digital cookie page. A catchy name, a unique slogan, and attention-grabbing visuals are just some of the ways your girl can make her online cookie shop standout. Her cookie video is a great opportunity for her to act like her fave entertainer and sing about the cookies or do a dance number. It’s all about having fun! Check out this video from a girl whose creative cookie duet with her dad has been watched over two million times!
To kick off cookie season, your cookie CEO can create her own digital sales event on Facebook Event or Instagram Live. Share her digital cookie link and news about the event on your social media accounts to help bring in a huge audience. Your girl can even reach out to influencers with large networks and ask them to share the link to her page. Speaking of influencers, have your girl guest star during your next work Zoom call so she can pitch your co-workers to help her hit her cookie goals!
Merchandising
Your girl can add a personal touch to her cookie video production by creating a custom colorful display of the cookie boxes and using an eye-catching unique background (or even a virtual one!). Good lighting is also key for your girl’s videos so online viewers can see her cookie business in the best way possible. What’s more, proper lighting allows prospective buyers to better see the cookie boxes as your girl highlights and describes each one. Last but not least, remind your girl to wear her troop uniform with pride in every video!
Customer Service
Whenever your girl sends a virtual or physical thank-you card to her customers, she builds a strong, lasting connection with them. Impressed customers always come back! Your girl can also tailor each thank-you message to fit the people she’s communicating with. For example, she can inform previous buyers about the nut-free or gluten-free cookie types they have yet to buy. Or remind her customers to stock their freezer with boxes to last them until next cookie season. Canva is an easy-to-use and free online graphic design tool that’s great for every type of digital or printed card.
Excited for your girl to build her cookie empire, grow her entrepreneurial confidence, and flex her digital marketing skills? We know we are! And we’re going to share on The Startup Squad’s social media accounts the digital cookie page of one lucky cookie seller. Check out The Startup Squad’s Instagram page for details about how your girl can be The Startup Squad’s preferred digital cookie seller. And download our handy tip sheet to keep these tips and more with her throughout the cookie season. We wish nothing but sweet success for your girl!
Brian Weisfeld
Tinybeans Voices ContributorI've always built businesses, from a childhood gummy bear business to adult gigs at IMAX and Coupons.com. I founded The Startup Squad to help girls reach their potential and my book series, The Startup Squad, is published by Macmillan. I live in Silicon Valley with my wife and two daughters.
