Episode 12 - How to Use Pinterest to Boost Leads & Sales - a podcast by Vanessa Shepherd & Terrica Strozier of Shes Got Vision

Episode # 12 – All About Pinterest

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Terrica: Welcome to the marketing cocktails podcast. We're your hosts, Terrica Strozier, that's me a brand designer and sugar attic and Vanessa Shepherd, launch strategist and content creator and  lover of all things Disney. Each week, you'll hear our behind the scenes conversation and expert advice on marketing and launching your next offer or product while doing it all ethically and organically.

And given that bro marketer advice, the book. Thanks for spending some time with us today. Grab a drink and let's jump into today's episode.

Welcome to episode 12 of the marketing and cocktails podcast. Today's podcast is all about Pinterest. We are going to talk about the full gambit on Pinterest today from why you should be on Pinterest. If you're not already to Pinterest ads, Pinterest strategy, how I got started on Pinterest and how I started with five monthly viewers and so much more.

So if you're ready to dive in. Take a listen.

All right, guys. All about Pinterest and where. I wouldn't say where it should be your next step. If it's not already in your repertoire right now,

Vanessa: Most people's audiences are on Pinterest. Take, for example, we've had, we've had one client say that their, their audience can't be on Pinterest.

I love when people assume, never assume, never assume it makes you donkey. So this, this [00:02:00] person, they target other people who are in the wedding industry and the travel industry kind of as a whole. So they're targeting travel agents and they're targeting wedding planners and event planners and people who want to get into the wedding space.

And they think that their audience isn't active on Pinterest when the opposite is actually true travel agents. I've picked up on Pinterest really, really, well over the last couple of years, especially. They've kind of gotten a little bit more online savvy. They're popping online more. They're starting to blog more share social media content about, you know, fun vacations photos there people have submitted.

it's actually really crazy to see how many travel agents have globbed onto it and hopped on Pinterest and are actually driving traffic for their local business or their online travel agency. Through Pinterest. It is a long game, but they've invested in it for the long game. And in telling these clients, this they're there, they were kind of like a little bit skeptical, but over time, they're starting [00:03:00] to see that that's kind of the way to move.

but at the same as the wedding industry, like it's not just brides on there. It's people who are within the wedding industry as a whole people who are thinking about getting in, like maybe. It's the, it's the mom who  uses Pinterest to plan her kids, parties now. But when she sends those kids to school, she's like, you know, I have the, all the skills that I've developed.

I'm say help, mom. I don't want to do whatever. You know, my degree has given me, I don't want to go down that career path again. I want to do something that I actually enjoy. I really enjoy this thing. I like weddings. Maybe I want to get into the wedding industry this way. And then they become somebody who pops in and is a potential lead.

Who then becomes a customer like you're playing the long game with people's psychology on Pinterest, but it's so cool to watch it evolve.

Terrica:  I mean, and if you do, if you are not a B to C and more of a B2B, then all of the vendors who were heavy in the wedding industry are on Pinterest. So that's even a better way to connect and find people because if [00:04:00] you are a wedding planner, let's say for instance, You need to have that go-to resource for your clients.

So that may be okay. Well, I need to have like this amazing stationer. I always go to a calligrapher or someone who does this style or this person who can give me this kind of decor or an amazing florist or a photographer

Vanessa:  all those little bits and pieces and there's a break people.

Terrica: Yeah. But those people are heavy on Pinterest and they're heavy on Pinterest because I like to think everybody says that Instagram is like the original visual platform, but to me, Pinterest is all day. Like as soon as you click on it and you search. And if it has this easily, serves as this double duty, that is a search engine plus a social platform.

But as soon as you search, what do you get guys? A [00:05:00] ton of photos. So how can this not be the ultimate visual platform? And if you work in an industry where people. Pick you and choose you initially, because they say don't judge a book by its cover, but we all know that visual, you know, aesthetically, that's what intrigues us.

Everybody says that you eat with your eyes before your mouth. So if it looks unappetizing, you'll never pick up the spoon or the fork and be like, Oh, this is tasty. And I'm like, it's disgusting. Why does it look like that? I don't even want to touch it. If it looks bad, it must be bad. So if, all of these people are on Pinterest  you're going to showcase  the ultimate, visual representation of your work so that when people do it and then people will follow you.

And then the traffic trickles down that way as well, like on both sides of the coin.

Vanessa: Yeah. You get the people that are your customers, so the B2C aspect of it, and then you get the people that are. You're partners in helping to build up and get those customers, those BB people. And that's really cool, like, [00:06:00] especially within the wedding industry, as a whole, like, I had a different client a few years ago and she was, a wedding planner and she did a lot of, she did like printables for weddings, but for people who wanted to DIY.

And it was really cool because she had gotten herself organically and managing her own Pinterest to a certain point, and needed help, like taking it over the top and kind of growing her numbers. And w I took her from, a few hundred thousand kind of views and impressions, a month, all the way up to like over 3 million by the time.

Terrica: Wow.

Vanessa: I stopped working with her, which is really crazy. I'm really cool. But the one thing that I made sure we kept in mind was that. For her specific audience, we always kept in mind that planning on Pinterest starts early. And the way that that happens, if you need like a little visual is taking somebody from inspiration to the shopping cart.

So it's, it's the customer journey. It's no different on Pinterest than it is anywhere else. [00:07:00] Like your basic marketing foundation. But what that really looks like is people. Start thinking about, Oh, I have this event or have this party or have this thing that I need to accomplish. So they start thinking about it.

They start looking for inspiration and it might not even be. Anything that they are like landing on right now, because I think about you, like, if I have something, like if I want to decorate my house for Christmas and I want it to look a certain way, or I want it to look a little different this year, I don't have a set idea of what I want it to look like, but I look for inspiration first.

So you collect a bunch of ideas, you save a bunch of ideas to Pinterest. You kind of start curating them into little boards or sub boards, to kind of really feel out what you want, your party or your event to look like. Then you start getting a little bit more specific on your searches. And then you're like, Oh, I've, I'm super inspired about this one thing.

Or this one style, this one design, like maybe you decide on a style or a color or a theme or something. He started making little incremental decisions and you start your painting starts getting more and [00:08:00] more and more specific. And then the final end, you know exactly what you're looking for. And the ultimate trifecta would be finding exactly what you're envisioning.

Which if it's close, doesn't always happen. but then you make a purchase of something and if it's a wedding you're going through inspiration and narrowing down your choices. And maybe that looks like I need to find a local photographer, or I need to find a, if I'm having like a nationally kind of destination wedding and I'm going to a different state or a different area of my country, I need to find somebody in that area that can provide whatever service so that I don't have to like.

Pay the cost of having somebody fly from where I live to this new place. so no matter whether you're serving B to B or B to C, that journey is going to look the same. and the people you connect with and the way you network and, and kind of get in touch with people might look a little bit different than it does on other platforms.

But you're always going to be thinking about planning earlier than you think you would need to start planning. There are people out there who aren't even [00:09:00] engaged yet. They're already planning their weddings. There's people out there who are, you know, thinking about having a baby, but not going to do it for the next like five years, no matter what angle you're kind of coming at, people are starting to plan early.

And even earlier than sometimes they're willing to admit that they're planning for, Like, you're always, people are always kind of tapping in and curating things from different angles and are different topics, which is really, really cool. So if you can have your content geared towards really planning and planning early, you're going to win the long game a little bit faster because Pinterest is a long game.

It's a marathon. It's not a sprint. You're going to need to approach it and tackle it the way you would tackle a marathon. So you want to set a personal pace. You want to set a pace that, you know, you can keep up with as things get busier, as you take on more clients as you, you know, sell more products and your attention gets divided because life throws some hurdle at you basically like approach Pinterest as if [00:10:00] it's this race where the train is always changing, where it's always evolving, where you're always.

Prepared and knowing in the back of your mind that what I'm doing today might not look the exact same tomorrow, but I'm in this for the long game. I'm going to approach it with good high quality visual content. I'm going to put content that lives on my website. Hello, your blog, real blog feed. and that will be able to allow you to still do those foundational things, creating the high quality content, targeting it towards your audience.

And then only pivoting little things that are going to change. Cause really Pinterest hasn't changed that much since it was first out in beta format, it's had a few aesthetic changes, but the foundation of how it operates has been the same, it's just little things that have changed. Like some features, some tracking features, Even some of the ways the algorithm pulls out certain things.

So there's really no hacking it. If you're always thinking about it in terms of this long game potential, because the foundational [00:11:00] way that the platform operates is the same.

Terrica:  I will speak for, the person that I was before I even, hopped on Pinterest and started to get the traffic that I did.

And. I was able to generate the clarity and eventually subsequently the tracking and the clicks and everything. And everybody wants later, by delving into, the Pinterest for business course that Vanessa created prior to us working with. So guys, I will not take credit. Of that genius. That is not from me.

but I have taken use of it fully. a lot of people from your, the angle that you just presented, which is that Pinterest is a long game and that you should start planning early for a lot of business owners. And I was even say for myself as a designer, and at that point I was think. Well, not exclusively doing brand design.

No, I was still doing stationery too. [00:12:00] Right. So there was a piece of me that was able to tap into a little bit of those. That planning period you were talking about. Cause I'm targeting certain individuals with certain events in their lives and subsequent stationery that they will purchase, and get designed to, accompany that.

But if you feel like you're in a niche or an industry where you can't foresee where the next event will be right. So if let's say for example, you're in retail, you can foresee black Fridays in November. Christmas is coming around. the holidays make such an impact in those fields, but if you're. Let's say, I don't know, trying to give context.

I don't even want to say accountant because of taxes , and that's huge for most people, but if you are in a business skill, per se and [00:13:00] you offer some type of consistent offer marketing, maybe you do social media management. Maybe you do something that people need all of the time than, how do you plan for events? Because yes, we know that ideally business owners will plan for certain, additions.

they will plan, they started maybe they got to a certain point, Oh man, I need to do, like beef up my branding and I need to like really tackle it into the brand strategy. And subsequently I need to do a refresh on my whole brand identity. So I want to like plan to pay for that. When I feel like I'm ready or, you know what my web design, my website needs like a total facelift.

It doesn't even work for me anymore consistent, but then when people get into other industries, They feel like their customers can't see that. And then it makes it equally as hard to get on, or at least to apply a similar strategy [00:14:00] on Pinterest, because then they're like, well, where do I fit in? Like, what am I paying?

What am I planning for? I, you know what I want to give up before I start? Cause that's just too confusing. Let me just create the content on Facebook and Instagram, which is consistently me talking about this thing I do. Supportive material. whatever is new in the industry, but you know what? Pinterest doesn't work for me.

Cause like people, people don't read over there, they only want to look at stuff and my business isn't visual.

Vanessa: Oh, I love those people because get this. Okay. So I've had a bajillion blogs over the years. I love experimentation and seeing what I'm interested in and what I'm interested in is about 10,000 things.

but one of. The blogs has kind of evolved into where we are today. It was a different brand many years ago. but it basically started because I had an assignment in school that challenged us to build a website and to build a blog, which was a new thing, which makes me feel [00:15:00] really old saying that.

But it was a new, a new technology we had to learn to use. keep in mind this wasn't that long ago, guys. Realistically, like this is come a long way in a really short period. 2014 digital technology was still new in university. Weird. Anyway. so we had to, we had to create this blog. We have to create this website and I like.

You know, using things many, many different ways to save time. And I was working a corporate job at the time, plus going to school full-time. So I didn't have a lot of extra time to really blog and I wound up creating a blog that was all about marketing topics. And so I was like, okay, so what's the fastest way I can create content.

I'm going to repurpose all of my school assignments for the last three years and make them into blog posts and make them, you know, put them in the right format and make them readable and not too crazy and too, too verbose , as it turns out it was very verbose and the only people that picked it up where academics, but the crazy part is of these [00:16:00] stupid wordy, big word, like university level blog posts was that they.

They got traffic. I got traffic back to my website, like gangbusters. And it was from other people who were interested in the same topics and like big words, apparently because the comments were from other professors worldwide or from students worldwide or, and they appreciated the fact that I broke down these concepts.

The crazy part was that I.have always had Pinterest as the number one driver of traffic to any of the blogs I've created even on really well, but a lot of people view wise boring. What I like to be excited about marketing topics or business topics, or like any of those like dry things. Yeah. Aren't visual really.

they, I got all my traffic pretty much from Pinterest and a little bit from Facebook, a little bit from Instagram, but back then, I wasn't heavy on those platforms. I had gone all in on contrast because I was, I've been on Pinterest since it was in beta. [00:17:00] so that is to say, you can have a really steady flow of organic traffic.

I didn't run ads. I didn't do any of that, from Pinterest to your blog and, and to get customers out of it. And so this is kind of how the evolution happened. So I had created this stupid school assignment blog. It picked up a lot of traffic from Pinterest. I wound up getting contracts, to do work for people in my local area based on like what they saw on my blog, which was kind of like my portfolio at the time.

And that gave me a second stream of income that I reinvested back into my business while I worked the corporate job and finished my degree. Over time. My brand evolved, my focus evolved what I was interested in, evolved. The whole industry evolved. the economy hit, hit the tank a couple of times. I fear.

So I had to find a way to make it all work and to make it still work. And no matter what topic I picked up on within this like business sphere of what angle I kind of went for and who I was [00:18:00] targeting. Pinterest is stayed my number one traffic driver and the really cool part is that yeah, there's, you know, it's, it's a little bit harder to get picked up and it's a little bit harder to go viral.

Off of some of these, what most people would say are like boring topics that are, you know, more reading friendly than visual friendly, but it'll still help you get traffic. you're not going to go as big or as, as you know, crazy big and as much traffic as you as like a fashion person would, or a wedding person would, or if you're in any of those key industries, DIY bloggers.

You've got a really good chance of blowing up around, you know, whatever that passion point is for you. but we still get a really steady stream of traffic straight from Pinterest, without ads. So we don't have to pay for that. And the amount of time that we actually spend on Pinterest pulling kind of those blog posts over and painting them and repeating them in and doing all those fun things is really minimal in the grand scheme of things.

I actually spend less time creating content. [00:19:00] That goes on Pinterest than I do creating content that goes on Facebook or Instagram

Terrica:  so we're going to switch this, method of this podcast guys. Cause most of the time you just hear both of us, but I just feel like I want to pick Vanessa brain cause, it's a massive one guys.

so  when you started. With the blog that you had to do as a university assignment. And then eventually it transitioned into kind of, to be honest, what is now She's Got Vision, but it started there. What was your mentality or your strategy? Because. Like you said, you, as you were testing and tweaking and you're in Pinterest and beta, so it's not like you already knew like, well you do this and Pinterest, and then you get this.

You're like, no, I'm figuring it out along the way. But eventually when you got to the point where you felt like you at least had a little grasp on Pinterest and its capabilities and how traffic flows in and out, because like you were referencing earlier, [00:20:00] You plan for certain events. Now you're talking about something, like you said, that it's really not visual.

It's kind of dry. Nobody, like you said, nobody wants to talk about marketing. Nobody want to tell us about business. You start throwing in some data and some numbers and concepts and people's eyes glaze over and they're like, I'm out. I'm out. It's been real guys. I appreciate it. You tell me, I need to know this, but it's like watching paint dry and I'm good.

how do you then work to strategize and plan the content that you create and also how it shows up on Pinterest? Because, and guys, I'm not like any kind of Pinterest aficinado  or anything like that gain some success has been great, but I started to learn how I cultivate. My boards and the kind of overarching, themes that they should have and trying to figure out, Oh, my audience like this, though, I will create more like this.

And then I create ones. I think they [00:21:00] are like, and again, no traffic. And I'm like, I'm not doing that again, but in a topic. And I say this because. I'm a designer so I can put my work out there. So it's visual and it makes more sense. I can do things like type biography and color theory and pick it up inspiration and people are like, yes, yes, yes.

But how do you do that when it's marketing and it's just a whole bunch of blog topics?

Vanessa: Well, that's okay. So this is the fun part. My approach. I think I was still like, pretty much anything marketing or business strategy related. And especially since I've seen so many different changes and evolutions over the last 20 years that I've been working in business is I approach it from a perspective that's a little bit unique because to me it's one gigantic experiment.

It's this never ending. Big experiment. And if you broke it down yet, it's probably a bunch of small ones, you know, little breaks and cause we do get moments of consistency and we do get moments of stability on any platform, [00:22:00] but something's always going to change because everything is always changing and it's just adopting that mindset that, you know, it changes.

Okay. It's it's great. And yes, it might, if you're. Really leaning into hacks is definitely going to screw you up. But if you're not leading to hacks and you're going for the foundational things of why something works. You're going to have no problems. You're not going to hit any bumps in the road. So along all the little ways when people were complaining about my impressions dropped, or my saves dropped, or my traffic dropped mine, stayed the same and grew, or, you know, there's a little fluctuation, but a little fluctuation on any online platform is a hundred percent normal.

But the one thing that I've always paid attention to is how are people interacting and reacting to what I'm doing and is what I'm doing actually going to get me somewhere. So we all come from a place of, like, I think these are the search terms that people are looking for, because those are the search terms that I would use to look for [00:23:00] something.

If I was looking for this, but you're not your customer, I'm not my customer. I'm definitely not my ideal customer. I don't, I don't think anybody could really learn from me if they know the exact same thing that I know today. So it's going to be somebody that's, you know, different than me, a little less experienced, that sort of thing.

So what terms are those people actually using? And that's where most people, like, I don't know, panic run the other direction, but like I'm over this. Okay. So this is where the internet is. Your friend and research is your definite friend research is my BFF. No offense to my husband or to any of my friends, but research is my non-human friend.

because you need to be able to go out and start thinking more like your potential customer. And if you don't know who that person is, this is going to be a gigantic experiment. Where are you going to be? Like, I think these are the words that are working, that the people are using because when I type them into Google, Similar stuff pops up.

So you start [00:24:00] with one set of words, you throw them into the key places. Like you throw them into your, description of your pain. You put them on the page and you put them in the, the actual, like SEO, keyword tags. You put them into your blog posts and you hope that this is going to help you kind of drive traffic and you pay attention and you watch.

So basically you find those first best keywords. That's your testing phase. You watch it, that's your assessing phase, seeing how it dies. And then once you have looked at it for three months to a year, anywhere over there. And I say a year, which sounds crazy to a lot of people, but over the course of a year, so many things can happen.

and a key example of this is some of those first blog posts that I published back in 2014 are still driving traffic to our website today. So those it's funny because I can pay attention to those. There's a couple of really specific blog posts that have taken off, but they only peak at [00:25:00] certain times a year.

And those times are typically kind of when people are like having those reassessment midlife crisis moments where they're like, ah, I don't know. I need to figure out what, what my, you know, results would be. I need to figure out this one thing and then they'll, you know, do the search. So those searches peak, but they peak four times.

Over the course of a year, which is consistent with quarters just different days. So you want to be paying attention over a short span, but because Pinterest is long game, you want to be paying attention over the course of a year. And to do that, you can use some really simple, free tools. I'm all about free tools where we can get them.

Google analytics installed on your website. Hm, at least have it, populating the data, even if you have no clue how to read it, just get it populated in the data. Because what starts to happen is once you have Google analytics installed, Pinterest will communicate with Google on your blog and it'll send data and Google be able to say, and at least pull a report for somebody when you're ready to understand it.

Or you have somebody else [00:26:00] on your team who can understand it. And it'll show you the breakdown of how many people came to your website. Because of Pinterest or because of Facebook or Instagram or your thing being on somebody else's website. so that's one really good free tool that you can pay attention to the tools within Pinterest.

Business profile where it gives you some metrics that's really key to be paying attention to as well. If you use a paid tool like tailwind, that'll spit out a different set of reports, with a little bit different data on how you, any of the pins that you paid through tailwind are actually performing.

later does the same thing. Any of the pins you pin through later, they'll be able to populate a report on the performance of those pins as well. so any of these tracking tools are really, really important to pay attention to because they can spit out. Fund reports that will let you know, Hey, like this month, I don't know.

Somebody searched for 25 potato recipes on my, on my website. And it blew up because I don't know we're heading into fall and [00:27:00] people are really into potatoes. by other times of year, maybe it was a lemonade recipe that took off for me. It was a cocktail recipe that took off for me. It was that really cool birthday cake you did for your kid's fifth birthday, pay attention to those things, because those are.

We're going to pop up again and again, if people found value from that blog post enough to actually go back to Pinterest and save the pin again, right. If people are not finding value or they're not vibing, or they're not getting immediately, what they thought they would get from your pain. People aren't going to save it and they're not going to on your website very long.

So you can have a high bounce rate or when people actually leave your website after they've visited from somewhere like stressed. So pay attention to those numbers as well, because that'll start giving you little clues and all these little clues, they fill them as like little breadcrumbs on this cute little adventure we're on.

And you want to be picking up those breadcrumbs. All the time, even if you're not quite certain on what to do with them, but if you [00:28:00] watch them long enough, you'll start seeing patterns in the data. And once you start seeing the patterns, you can see them. So sorry, but they're really helpful.

Terrica: So what if someone's listening and thinking? Okay. Pinterest sounds. Good, I guess. it seems like there is a lot of opportunity for traffic and it's something that I should do in my business. Just like I should blog or I should create some video content, you know, something to add to my never ending to-do list. but then like I know, and you've reiterated, Pinterest is a long game.

So how does someone integrate that in to their strategy when they're like, I need some quick wins along the way, like Pinterest can bolster up my long turn game, but you know, to be honest, I need a cash injection and maybe I can't afford Facebook ads. do I go and try to. Take a shot at Pinterest ads [00:29:00] because maybe no, maybe I think that nobody's really over there as much as people are on Facebook, but at the same time you haven't been on Pinterest, then there's no substance to the ads that you're running.

and then you have all the other do paid traffic options or organic traffic options. Cause everybody's saying, just invest yourself. Into Tik TOK or Instagram or whatever the new thing is because people will pick you quick. You put up a post today, it could go viral in three hours and you could be booked out.

That doesn't really happen guys, but I mean to some people, but it's probably seven people in there. There's always a percent of most people.

Vanessa: The average, Joe. Hi, we're talking to you. I like to keep it. We like to keep it real over here. We talk to average people because average people are fine. that's a great question.

So Pinterest is really good. It is really good for the long game. It's beneficial. If you're playing the long game. [00:30:00] When you are needing a cash injection or something like that, you're not going to get super quick money from Pinterest. I'm going to put that out there, even if you have an e-commerce shop.

So I've worked with a lot of e-commerce people on Pinterest and we didn't get tons of quick instant cash. a, they had problems with their marketing message. They had problems with their product. They didn't really know their audience. There was other things that. Made it really hard for them to get quick money, but it also started to encourage people to really focus on, being able to grow those foundational elements with Pinterest from the free side, as much as possible.

And then when you're ready, you can tap into the paid side, because we all need to keep the cost of everything low. We're all strapped for time. We all need an easy way to do this. But it paint a picture of how I've approached using Pinterest for myself, for clients. And it it's a system that works. but it is designed for the long game because I want to make [00:31:00] a good long-term impression.

I want to be able to keep my audience comfortable, instead of like tapping them out stupid, super quickly with really cheesy bro market crap. So what I noticed and what I they've paid attention with on Pinterest is really great for lead generation. It's really great for sales of physical products. If you're in an industry that you are able to trend quickly.

So if you're in fashion or if you're in, you know, the DIY space, or if you're in a wedding space or those things, you can get, sales pretty quickly, but you still have to be able to stand out. You still have to have your SEO game on point. You still have to have your marketing message on point. There's still foundational things that you need to do.

So I can't stress enough. And why I come back to this kind of foundational piece is because if you don't have that in order, if your house isn't in order, then it's not going to, it's not going to go up. so if you are on Pinterest and you're going to pay and you're going to pay for every single phase of your sales funnel, if you don't have a sales funnel, [00:32:00] yet you need one.

And you don't need to be bagillion of them. You just need one really good quality funnel that can help bring people in to whatever business that you have. So to walk you through how this would work. So if you are in an online business, you should be creating content and it should live on your website. I did that 10,000 times.

So that's going to live on your blog. And you're going to be wanting to create content consistently and saving it to your blog. It can be written, it can be video, it can be photos, it can be beautiful illustrated graphics, but you're going to want to create content that lives in that blog roll. And here's why, because you can actually set it up, within that you start with one Pinterest pin.

So you. Create your awesome blog piece. So in my case, I write, I create a written blog post. I have my cute pin image in there that is signed to grab my audience's attention and stand out and just be unique on Pinterest. I have [00:33:00] a call to action to get them to sign up for email lists. Or if, if when in that blog, it makes more sense.

They're going to actually sign up and the call to action is gonna be around yeah. Product and to purchase it. And then. I have it set up where, when I save and publish that blog, post, that pain image automatically pins over to Pinterest to a specific board. So it's one step I put all my time into creating a really good jam packed kick ass blog post, and it pins to Pinterest for me.

So then I can keep going with my Merry day. I don't have to fiddle around with other tools or other things. I get that over to Pinterest immediately, which also wins favor with the pinch dog rhythm because Pinterest likes fresh content. And if you're creating content consistently, you're then pinning to content pinning your content to Pinterest consistently as well, which is awesome because in one step [00:34:00] it's one and done.

from there, you're going to want to be able to make sure that whatever that call to action was whatever way you have people to get people onto say your email list, that you've got a sequence set up on your email list. That sequence is going to do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. So again, you sit down and you create this awesome.

Email sequence doesn't have to be a time of emails. It just has to be able to take people from point a point B, whatever that is for your business, whatever that is your customer's journey. And between going from point a to point B, you're going to have some good quality. Maybe educational content, maybe it's entertainment content, a way to get people to really get to know you and know like, and trust you.

You would take them on this little journey and you're going to basically date them and develop this sort of relationship with them. And they do that a few times and then you're gonna pitch them a product. that's relevant to how they started that journey. So for us we'll I use this for a really good like tactical example. [00:35:00]

our most popular freebie opt-in is a Pinterest audit checklist. Okay. So from there people go in and they go through an email sequence, all about Pinterest, Pinterest tips and topics, things that can help them use that audit checklist and make a difference and actually get something transformational out of the experience.

After they kind of get that whole transformational journey done, then we present them with the opportunity to buy the pinning for business courses is just the next logical step. So you do your audit, you see where you're at, then you actually need to learn and go away and make these changes that you can use Pinterest more effectively for your business.

So from there they decide to purchase. So even though I'm pinning. The blog post that has a call to action to the Pinterest audit checklist on Pinterest. And that's where I'm focusing most of my energy with the Pinterest content. I'm still able to get a sale out of it in the long run. So with that, I guess, [00:36:00] realistically speaking, I can see other people pop into that same format and.

Without having a product like, so I was like, you know what? I hear you all that sounds really good. I can kind of keep these people and nurture them, you know, on and off the platform. I don't have a product. Like I don't, I don't sell anything. I mean, I sell my services, but Adam, so that you can do this.

I think for services though, this is where it's really cool. It doesn't matter what you're selling. I don't care if it's a product service and imaginary friends emotional support Canadian. Whatever you're selling, you can do the exact same thing. That foundation is pretty darn similar. you have to have a way to create content, to be able to show the world that you are an expert in your zone of genius.

And if you're not feeling like an expert, that's okay. We all have those moments. Just know that whatever topic is picked, that you're most passionate about and that you're willing to keep learning about and that you're willing to help others through [00:37:00] that is a topic that. Fits in your zone of genius. And that is an amazing thing, own it.

Okay. Moving on. so no matter what topic you're on or what you're providing or what way you're providing things to people, you can build it out in a flow like this. It's called a sales funnel, produce quality content that lets people know that you're an expert and that actually moves the needle for them in some way, the amount of content on our website.

That actually helps people do something from a to Z. I was literally the whole alphabet on there. You can go through a whole bunch of different topics and actually move the needle in a bunch of different ways. All through our free content, all that free content has some sort of a call to action, whether it's to a service or whether it's to get on my email list or whether it's to buy a product.

There's always a way of having a call to action. That's reflective of what you're doing in business today, and you can update it. That's the joy of it. So if [00:38:00] today you're selling services and then you come to the point where you're like, man, my services are so booked out, but I want to create a product. I want to create an ebook.

Now you can rotate the call to action out. You can either keep it as services or if it's relevant to the blog post and where people are at, you can swap it over and have the call to action. Be to buy your ebook, to go through on their own.

Terrica: I mean, this is the same advice. I, I gave a friend recently who's in the real estate industry.

And if you know anything about the real estate industry is really difficult to promote yourself. And certain digital arenas. There are a ton of restrictions on Facebook ads. even certain, email platforms don't support the real estate industry. So it can be really difficult to consistently, garner more leads and eventually try to warm those people up and then turn them into buyers or sellers, or maybe, you know, cause that's where you're going to make your money.

[00:39:00] but one thing I suggested to her was Pinterest and she's like, yeah, I kind of heard of it. Cause I tried all the traditional, lead generation things. And you know, they've kind of worked maybe some of the fall, you know, a little bit flat, but I said, do you know how well you can show up on Pinterest?

And she said, I mean, you know, talk to me a bit like. Tell me, it's like, you know, I heard it, but I don't, a lot of people don't see themselves in it. And the reality of it is, and just like Vanessa said, you can create so much educational content, you know, go, there are countless blogging platforms, for you to sign up really easily.

you don't even, depending on what you are, you, you have to have your own domain and your website. I would suggest that you do that later so that you can, you know, own your traffic and not be branded by somebody else. But I get that people start at different places and you can blog about what you [00:40:00] teach your clients all the time.

So if you're something like real estate industry teach them what it takes to qualify, to purchase a home, how you can. Work on your credit. If your credit doesn't meet the minimum score, what type of financing is available? What type of down payment assistance is available? How do you select a realtor that fits your end goal?

What are like some signs that maybe you need to jump ship, you know, from this realtor or a deal going bad? What do these terms mean? That sounds like Latin. I mean, some of them probably are, but that sound crazy. And that you have like, no idea what that means. And your realtor is talking to you and you feel like one of the kids and the Charlie Brown in the classroom, would you like, well, I don't want while.

And you're just like, I don't know what they're talking about, but I'll tell you nod your head. Let's say at the right points. And then you hopefully have a chance to like grab your phone and start Googling because you [00:41:00] have no idea what's going on. You can provide so much content to a arena. That is what seems to be pretty.

I wouldn't call it mundane, but. You know, it's common. It's like, I see them on every corner. Oh, they're selling a house they're selling well, you may see it all the time, but people have no idea about any of these things that are like common knowledge to you. And you can take this out of the real estate arena.

You can put it in another one. What you think is common sense for you is like, French or not even French, let's think of a really hard language like Russian or, you know, something like that. Or German German is really difficult guys. if you're not a native German speaker, of course. but putting information out there is, will help empower these people to eventually get to a point where they understand a bit of what you're offering.

Now. They can see how they may need someone like you. So, you [00:42:00] know, your call to action could be hop on a call with me a 15 minute discovery call, and then you go more in depth and really connect with them as a person. So guys, Pinterest is for everybody it's for everybody. So welcome safe space for all business owners

Vanessa: and people often ask, well, I know it's a place where women hang out, but dudes don't hang out something on there.

Terrica: My husband does

Oh, so does mine. It was funny because. I gave him my old iPad. I created a Pinterest profile for him. I was like, here you go. You want to see what it's about? Quit saving ideas to my Pinterest. Like you're screwing up. Cause usually my business profile to save like personal, like, Whoa, like this is not okay.

So here I'll create your own profile, go hard. And he was like, I'm never going to use that. I was like, well, you're not, you're using my profile's opinion. Your ideas. Yeah, I'm going to guess you're going to use it now. He's actively on Pinterest more often than I am. That's crazy. And I do that for [00:43:00] work, so it's hilarious.

but yeah, guys are on Pinterest. Women are on Pinterest. Kids are scrolling. Pinterest. I don't know how many times I've caught the grandkids looking for inspiration on Pinterest and coming up with ideas. Now they always find the crazy big ones. You know, like the ones that look like Martha Stewart did them.

I don't know why or how, but it goes to show what high quality visuals will do. it'll attract everybody. Yeah. So it's, it's a good thing to do, but that's a great example too, of the fact that it's not. Just like the everyday, you know, Kipsy really niche things on Pinterest anymore. It's a little bit of everything.

You can find everything from how to break down our car and rebuild it to how to bake a cake, to, you know, fashion stuff, to shopping stuff, to business stuff. It's really become an all encompassing thing. And the really cool part too, is that by [00:44:00] market like Pinterest, Mexico is going to be different from Pinterest, Canada, which is going to be different from Pinterest us from the way Pinterest shows up in great Britain.

Like it's different by market. They've done a good job of segmenting it out so that you're really only seeing, more where you live. So you have a better chance of a little bit more of the local marketing or at least your, same language. Cause if I, my feed was suddenly full of like Spanish pins. I, I wouldn't be able to connect to that content the same way it would if it was just English, because you probably can read it.

Yeah, exactly. I wouldn't be able to understand it. I, it would look pretty, but I'd be like, what does it say? Google translate doesn't work on here. Anyway. I digressed really fast. Either way moments are made on Pinterest. So think of your marketing. Think of the content you're creating. In terms of moments.

And I know that can be really hard for some niches it's can be really difficult to kind of think out of like, Oh my gosh, how to moments really? How do they [00:45:00] work for me? Like say you're an interior designer. And you're like, okay, people come to me to redo the bathroom. How the hell can I apply moments to the bathroom?

Okay. A lot of people will hire that out by if you're people like. What I see in my neighborhood and what my own family is like, we do projects together. We plan them together. We bounce ideas off of each other. We share inspiration with each other, and sometimes we even tackle the work together. Those, that process of planning, getting inspired, actually doing the work.

Those are moments. And you might not think of them as moments you might think like moments are only birthdays, really not anything where you can make a memory is a moment. Any quality time you can spend with somebody in whatever capacity, you can have quality time with your dog. You have quality time with your clients.

You can have quality time with your family and friends. Those are moments. Those are moments that are going to change your life in really, really good [00:46:00] ways. Those are the things that are going to be memorable. They're going to stick with you that you're going to be able to pull on and that marketers align with nostalgia marketing down the road.

you're using a bathroom as example, but then if you don't do the work yourself, cause, cause I tried to put some simple, you know, it just snaps and glues and then I got to try to cut it and there's spaces. I won't do that again, but if there were, there was money. And a budget and my husband and I was like, you know what, it's time for a bathroom redo to me the moment it's going to be that reveal that ability that I can go into a space that feels calming and tranquil and updated. I don't worry about the faucet dripping or the paint. That's appealing a little bit right here. Like I can go into Zen place and that is the moment. It actually, it's a moment. Every time I opened my door and then I'm going to remember back on.

Maybe the interior designer hired or the contractor and [00:47:00] everything they did. And then I'm going to tell everybody, Oh my God, I love my bathroom guys. You have to use X person because they were amazing. Their process was made, but the end result is like, like everything. I have this many Oasis in my home and that could be for everything.

This is a question as we wrap up about everything about Pinterest, and I know that someone's listening and probably fast forward to some of this, and it's like, are they ever going to talk about it is Pinterest ads and, I'm giving this all to Vanessa guys because she already is a Facebook ad genius.

So, and she has  managed everything from. What like really small budgets, people are spending a thousand dollars on ad spend to people who are spending six figures or more a month on ad spend. So she's done the full gambit. So I'm interested to hear even personally, and I work with you, the perspective on Pinterest ads, are they worth it?

Is [00:48:00] that the new go-to as everybody wants to jump ship from the Facebook train? is it. Like, is there drawbacks in a different way? Is it worth people's time? Like if they're like, Oh, I want to go to Pinterest, but maybe I need to develop a Pinterest profile. Is it worth my time to dive into Pinterest to try to like subsequently like take advantage of these Pinterest ads?

That's

Vanessa: a great question. I've worked with Pinterest ads quite a lot. I actually. Was doing full-time Pinterest ad management before I ever started doing Facebook ad management. So it's kind of cool. They're kind of cool to work together too, but that's a story for another day. on Pinterest, I will say if you don't have your foundation in place, Pinterest ads are going to suck for you the way that Facebook ads suck for you.

It's the same on both platforms. And the fact that if your marketing foundation isn't rock solid, if your message isn't rock solid, if you are not setting yourself up for success in the beginning, Your results will be crap. And I can really confidently [00:49:00] say that because I've worked with hundreds of people on both platforms.

And every single time, when I looked at their marketing and I was like, Oh, you like your messaging's off, or it could be tightened up here. Maybe it was your email sequence. It could be tightened up. Maybe it was the way they position their product. Like whatever the hole was, whatever that leak in the funnel wise, if they didn't tighten it up, their ads perform like crap.

And if they weren't willing to tighten it up, their ads still perform like crap. And then they got upset and whatever, every single time I gave them, you know, the really detailed instructions and tips on how to tighten it up, even suggestions on what they could use for copy, like give it back to their copywriter and the people who took the advice and ran with it, their ads improved on Pinterest.

They improved on Facebook. Like they, their results always improved. The more they tighten that foundation up. So if you're really considering, and you're trying to look for like quick ways to make bucks. And if you want to, if you know, you heard that phrase pay to play and that's how you do it. [00:50:00] If you're don't have your marketing foundation tightened up, it's going to be really, really hard to be profitable and have that heat of play mentality.

I would honestly tell you, and I, I tell this to all our clients. If you are wanting to do Pinterest ads, tighten the foundation at first, because you can go and just create some brand new pain and promote it right away. That pain has to live on Pinterest and the more organic social proof it has on Pinterest, the veteran's going to do when you turn it into a paid ad.

So if your content is falling flat on Pinterest today, it's not going to be any better just because you put paid ads in behind it. And that's the reality of the situation. So take the time to improve the foundation, to improve the pain, to improve the content behind it, to actually set up a sales funnel and make sure your email sequence is on point.

Get all of that stuff in place before you ever waste your money on Pinterest [00:51:00] sides. When you are ready, when the foundation is tightened up, those Pinterest ads will perform like gangbusters. It's the same with Facebook. If your foundation is the same and it's all set up, it's tightened up and people are like, yeah, they're vibing with it organically.

Once you go over to paid ads, they convert like gangbusters and it's awesome

Terrica: And see that gives like insight. And it also tells me that our next episode should be about marketing foundations, because I know that somebody has listings. Like that sounds great. What do you mean by that? My stuff is great. You know, I've created X, Y, and Z, and people buy it and people tell me they like it.

And I don't know what you're talking about. So if the ads aren't converting it's because, maybe my ads aren't pretty enough. Or maybe I haven't spent enough money, or maybe I need a new strategy. Maybe your strategy doesn't work, but it really like gives context and truth to like a [00:52:00] house. If you have a shaky foundation, it doesn't matter.

what type of masonry you use and how, like how much you spent on the windows. And the roof is gorgeous and everything is good. So shaky foundation and that little tree root that's traveling underneath your crack foundation expands your whole house comes crashing down. It only holds for so long.

Vanessa: Exactly.

there's so much that goes into building like a great quality marketing foundation, making sure you have it set up and you can you'll see success. Even if you don't have all your art things together, they're not tightened up. There's there's holes in our, our staff. We're always tightening and making improvements to our own marketing foundation.

But we're still making sales. We're still working with clients, but every time we take the time to tighten that foundation up and to make it even better and refine that message and, you know, make the visuals just a little bit more appealing, the results get better. It's amazing. So if you're doing awesome [00:53:00] today, I need to take the time to really fine tune your marketing.

They'll get even better tomorrow, which is amazing. So yes, we should definitely do that as the next episode. Yes, guys. So look for the next episode to be all about marketing foundations. this conversation has been great. I love Pinterest. It's become, you know, one of my. No, not one of my favorite social platform and where I show up.

So I'm glad that we could address Pinterest and how you really can attack it and how it really could work for your business. We're going to wrap this episode up. If you now feel so inclined to hop on the Pinterest wagon and Pinterest still sounds like overwhelming to you. Believe me. I understand. I was there at one place.

Terrica: Take a look at our pinning for business course, we are going to drop the link in the show notes. And this is a really comprehensive course. And guys, you can tackle [00:54:00] this in a weekend, to audit your current Pinterest profile. If you have one and if you don't, it shows you exactly how to get started from the basics of creating your profile all the way to giving you a little insight on Pinterest ads.

To how to create your boards to how to structure your parents properly and, to how to schedule them too. So guys, everything is in there for you to, really tackle Pinterest effectively. This is what I purchased for Vanessa two years ago almost. And that took me from about. Five monthly viewers all the way up to 150,000 monthly viewers.

So if you're interested, the link will be in the show notes. So take a look.

[00:55:00]

Thanks for listening. Y'all you can find the show notes at she's got vision.com/podcast. If you've enjoyed what you've heard today, please leave a review and subscribe to the podcast. And because word of mouth is still the best marketing Avenue. Please tell a friend to share it. If you do, don't forget to tag us at she's got vision on all platforms until the next time y'all were wishing you much success.

And remember, there's always time for cocktails.

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