Simple Pin Podcast: Simple ways to boost your business using Pinterest

Pinterest eCommerce has exploded over the last year. Today we’re highlighting links to the latest tools and resources you can utilize to help you understand the new eCommerce features on Pinterest. Leveraging these resources will be an important part of your Pinterest marketing strategy in 2022. These new eCommerce features work for both physical and digital products. So if you’re thinking this doesn’t apply to you because you don’t sell a physical product, think again! The information in this episode definitely does apply to those of you who focus on selling digital products. Over the last year, Pinterest has been doubling down on eCommerce. They’ve been adding new features and working hard to fix all of the glitches.  Pinterest and shopping go together like peanut butter and jelly. Pinterest has said they inform pinners on 83% of their purchases. Pinners find inspiration on Pinterest and then they want to buy something.  If you’ve listened to this podcast for any length of time you have heard me talk about my experience with a Pinterest ad for the Solo Stove.  If you are new to Simple Pin let me give you a recap.  About a year and a half ago, I saw an ad for this amazing outdoor fire pit. I love an outdoor fire but I hate the smoke! So this ad describing a“smokeless fire pit” really appealed to me and I clicked on it.  The hitch was the ad didn’t go directly to a buy page. Instead, it took me to a retail page with no option to purchase. From there, I searched all over the place but I did not enough information to find the stove and purchase it. In true Pinterest fashion, I was inspired and really wanted this fire pit so of course, I saved the Pinterest ad.  One day while talking to Melody, my marketing director, I mentioned this amazing Solo Stove I had found on Pinterest. She told me that she had just seen one at Costco. Obviously, I had to go to Costco after that conversation. Sure enough, there it was. I bought it immediately, fired it up, and I love it! It literally is smokeless.  Since then, I’ve purchased it as a gift for several people and anyone who comes over always asks, what is this thing? Literally, off of that one Pinterest ad I’ve “sold” at least 10 solo stoves.  The same thing happens every single day for other pinners. They find great products and they want to buy them. As a consequence, Pinterest wants to empower pinners to spend money and make a purchase when they are ready. That meant Pinterest had to help eCommerce marketers easily sell their products on the platform. So they came up with this suite of amazing Pinterest eCommerce tools. Since March of 2020, when they launched the Verified Merchant Program, they’ve worked through a lot of trial and error to iron out the kinks in the Pinterest e-commerce tools. To help move through this trial and error process, Pinterest introduced the Pinterest Business Community (PBC). It’s a great resource for sharing your feedback and getting a response from Pinterest.  The PBC has a lot of moderators and you can learn from other Pinterest marketers there as well. The eCommerce features on Pinterest are still new and they come with glitches, changes in numbers, and some frustrations. Getting set up in the PBC is going to be the best way to troubleshoot any issues that pop up for you.   Being on our email list and in our

The moment Pinterest came on the scene marketers have been trying to crack the code to getting more exposure and traffic. Frankly, this is how all social media and search platforms work. We want to be successful, drive traffic to our website or make more sales. Makes sense, that’s how you grow a business. But what happens when you get to that place where you’re chasing all the advice, but not making progress. You’re stuck on the hamster wheel of searching for the “golden ticket” and it’s just not happening. That’s when it hit me the other morning… Pinterest marketing advice is like dieting advice. Someone always has a method, system, structure or THE answer. Before we dive in… I do want to tell you about our Simple Pin Ads Society.  It’s our membership community that’s designed to guide you through the ins and outs of how to advertise on Pinterest. Through live coaching calls, workshops, and an exclusive membership forum, you will have all the tools you need at your fingertips to build, start, and run Pinterest ad campaigns for you or your clients. The Ads Society is only open for new members to join a few times per year and it’s open now! You only have until Tuesday February 1st to join before the membership closes again. Don’t wait to grab your spot!  PINTEREST MARKETING ADVICE to PLAY THE LONG GAME First, knowing your “why”. First, knowing your “why”. First, knowing your “why”. First, knowing your “why”. First, knowing your “why”. First, knowing your “why”. First, knowing your “why”. First, knowing your “why”. First, knowing your “why”. First, knowing your “why”. First, knowing your “why”. First, knowing your “why”. First, knowing your “why”. First, knowing your “why”. For Further Listening/Reading: * Is Pinterest still relevant?* Pinterest marketing predictions for 2022* How to evaluate your Pinterest marketing strategy

Content marketing can feel laborious and intensive, especially for shop owners. But there are productivity hacks and tools to help with e-commerce content marketing that not only serve your end buyer but also help you find new customers without spending too much time on content creation. Today, Ashley Alderson from The Boutique Hub, shares a great behind-the-scenes story about growing her business and weaves in six quick, actionable, and valuable tips for creating a manageable ecommerce content marketing strategy. Ashley is the founder and CEO at The Boutique Hub, a membership that brings together all the resources boutique owners need in a community of over 7,000 members from the United States and eight other countries. It is the largest global connection point in the world for boutique owners.  How The Boutique Hub Came to Be Her business is great success story to share. But it sometimes seems like every good business success story starts with a failure — Ashley’s is no exception.  Ashley grew up in North Dakota (not exactly the fashion mecca of the world) and had a love for fashion. Rodeo was a big part of her life and as she traveled to rodeos she discovered boutiques in all the cute towns she visited. The idea grew in her mind that she wanted to be able to shop these cute stores in one central place. I felt like fashion was so New York or LA and believed the rest of us in this  world deserve to feel beautiful and have unique things too.— Ashley The idea for the Boutique Hub became Ashley’s answer to the “What about us?” question. It started as an online shopping mall for boutiques and then took off from there.  While building her online shopping mall of boutiques, Ashley talked to boutique owners and found what they needed more than anything was a community where someone could help them see the forest through the trees and be a voice for the industry.  She noted that at that time, it was such a dog-eat-dog world and the concept of community did not exist. She thought to herself, “there’s got to be a better way to do this.” So The Boutique Hub evolved from that online shopping mall. Ashley launched it with the motto of community over competition. It resonated with people because they needed connection more than they needed anything else. Getting Defrauded Unfortunately, we all make mistakes and when Ashley made this pivot to a new idea, she met a real pain point in her journey. While she was building her membership in The Boutique, Ashley met a guy on Twitter who seemed to be building something very similar to what she was trying to do.  Imposter syndrome was hitting her hard at this time. She was questioning “Who am I to launch a startup and build a membership? What do I know?” So, having a shared vision, it seemed natural to partner with this guy.  They teamed up and he convinced Ashley to give him a majority share of the company, change the name, and add him to her bank account. Ashley already had an initial version of The Boutique Hub established with a healthy list of clients. He convinced her to merge her list with his. It all seemed great until she discovered his client list was nonexistent. He kept putting Ashley off, telling her the legal papers are in the mail and they would get everything finalized soon. But those papers never came. 

As the landscape for ads has changed drastically in the online world, business owners are wondering where to put their ad dollars next, especially with iOS updates and increasing costs. Pinterest is a good choice, but people are confused about how Pinterest fits into their overall marketing plan. They want to know how Pinterest ads in 2022 will work.  Our SPM Promoted Pins Director, Erin, is here to help us break down where we think Pinterest Ads in 2022 are headed. She makes a strong case for why you should diversify your ad dollars by investing in Pinterest ads (aka promoted pins) for your business.  Erin is an amazing member of our Simple Pin team. She has figured out how Pinterest ads will work for many different types of businesses. I’ll let her tell you more about her role here at Simple Pin and then walk you through what she has learned. Erin started with Simple Pin Media six years ago managing organic clients and then shifted over to the paid side of advertising on Pinterest. In the past year, she spearheaded the launch of our Simple Pin Ads Society, a membership where we teach VAs, Pinterest marketers, and business owners how to run ads on Pinterest.  Take it away Erin! Pinterest Ads in 2022: What You Need to Know Looking into 2022 has been very exciting for me. I feel excited about the future of Pinterest ads so let’s chat a bit about whether Pinterest ads in 2022 are a good idea.  Spoiler Alert – the answer is 1000% YES! Back when Pinterest went public, we warned that this free train we’ve been riding for 10 years won’t be free forever. The time has come. It’s time to buy your ticket! Up until this past summer, I was heavily involved in both paid and organic Pinterest strategies/management. During that time, I began to see a shift — especially with accounts that focused on both paid and organic advertising on Pinterest.  We also started to see traffic dip for accounts utilizing a strictly organic marketing strategy. But we also observed that the traffic for accounts that incorporated both an organic and paid ads component  was growing.  We know that when organic pins are posted on Pinterest, they are first seen by all of your followers. Then they are shown to customers who behave like your followers.  When you use paid media targeting, pins reach people way beyond your core audience. That results in a high potential for finding more people who will love the product you are offering and are ready to convert. Pinterest Conversion Insights A couple of years ago, Pinterest launched Conversion Insights. When that happened, I knew that moving forward with Pinterest would mean we needed both a good paid and organic strategy.  Conversion Insights is a tool that integrates organic and paid conversion reporting all in one area. It’s still in beta, but from what I can tell with clients that we’re working with right now, it’s fairly accurate. 

Let’s talk about Pinterest marketing predictions for 2022. There’s no doubt that since 2020, Pinterest has changed. We have a push for more shopping features as well as keeping people on the platform longer.  I would label 2021 as the year Pinterest changed and 2022 as the year we see how pinners will adapt to the change.  PINTEREST MARKETING PREDICTIONS FOR 2022 So what does Simple Pin Media predict will be important on Pinterest in 2022? * E-commerce sellers especially will need a healthy balance between organic and paid ads.* Idea Pins will continue to be important for organic traffic – helping to build up engagement, impressions and followers.* Idea Pins will elevate income for bloggers with affiliate opportunities, which allows people to make more money off their affiliate sales in a way we haven’t see before on Pinterest. * To follow up on this monetization strategy, the Creators Hub for earning money from Pinterest will become lucrative. Which means a slight shift towards more influencer-based marketing, but with more of a Pinterest twist. Not so “in the moment” like we see on Instagram, but products or tools we use long-term. More evergreen. * You’re going to have to get in front of the camera to record video, which is something you’re not used to with Pinterest marketing.* Video Pins are going to gain traction. Predictions I’m unsure about as we head into the new year: —> Pinterest TV will either live or die. I’m not sure how people are going to take to this, so the jury is still out.  —> Pinterest Takes…I’m still not sure about this one.  How the pinner will adapt to all this change is still on the table. I believe Pinterest has a plan to train pinners how to shop on Pinterest, so jumping on the Idea Pin creation train will be good for creators as the pinners “catch-on” in the coming year.  Tell us your thoughts on these predictions and share yours with us on Instagram — @simplepinmedia.  For Further Listening/Reading: * How Pinterest’s Goals for 2021 Should Influence Your Marketing Strategy* Is Pinterest Still Relevant?* Pinterest Video Pins Creation Tools* Pre-made Canva pin templates (with bonus Idea Pin template offer)* Creative Best Practices straight from Pinterest

Is your Pinterest marketing serving your business in the way you had hoped? I figured since it’s mid-December, it’s a great time to talk about how to evaluate your Pinterest marketing strategy.  I’ve had a lot of frantic emails and DMs on Instagram from people who are worried about all their Pinterest statistics (e.g., monthly viewers, followers, etc.) Let’s chat about key performance indicators for Pinterest marketing as it relates to your business. I’ll give you a framework to evaluate your Pinterest marketing strategy and plan your direction for 2022. I’m going to walk you through the framework we use here at Simple Pin when we’re trying to figure out if something is worth the continued investment for our business (aka ROI).  We ask a set of key questions and look at analytics to answer them.  evaluate your pinterest marketing strategy: 3 questions to ask yourself Let’s get started with the first of three essential questions that guide my thoughts while I’m evaluating the past year. 1. Why is Pinterest an important part of marketing my business?  There are some important things to consider with this question. First — what goal does Pinterest help you reach in your business? Is it: * product sales?* email conversions?* traffic?* affiliate sales? List all of your goals and then circle the top three that you think Pinterest helps you reach. Second — remember that Pinterest is a search and discovery network that requires a long-term investment for marketing. You might be looking for new buyers, new readers, and people to start following you on other channels. Keep in mind that it’s more like Google and Youtube in the marketing sense. For me, Pinterest marketing serves our beginner Pinterest marketer avatar. These are people who are curious about Pinterest marketing. They want to know the “how-tos”.  Related: The Pinterest Tutorials Hub: A Collection of “How To” Posts I am very clear about my Pinterest marketing goals. My goal with Pinterest is not to gain clients. We don’t get clients through Pinterest.  Part of that is because we haven’t targeted clients on Pinterest. Our clients find us primarily on Google. Pinterest brings to Simple Pin the people who are going to read our blog, listen to the Simple Pin podcast, or who will eventually want to join the Simple Pin Collective. So our goal with Pinterest are to use it for educating marketers who are new to the Pinterest platform. It serves us by driving traffic and attracting email subscribers.  Once you know why Pinterest is important to you, it’s time to answer the second question. 2. What are youR key performance indicators (KPIs)? 

Have you found yourself asking the question “Is Pinterest still relevant for my business?” You’re not alone. Let’s go there. There’s no doubt that Pinterest has changed. Marketers see it and so do pinners.  Let’s walk through a little bit of history on Pinterest and talk about what’s working right now as the platform iterates itself into Pinterest 2.0. I recently hosted a live training about what’s working on Pinterest right now. It was designed to answer a pressing question that is currently on the minds of many Pinterest marketers: Is Pinterest still relevant? I think it is. Let’s talk about the 3 things that are working right now on Pinterest. For Pinterest marketing,  the goal is to get in front of the dreamers, the planners, and the people who will connect with what you have. It’s all about connecting with the searchers looking for their best life without all the noise.  Pinterest is the outlier among the social media marketing tools.  Related: The Transition from Facebook Marketing to Pinterest Marketing Facebook is for groups, heated discussion, and reminders that it’s someone’s birthday.  TikTok is great for dancing, engagement, and I’m not really sure what else since I’m still trying to avoid it.  Pinterest is for the introvert and person searching for an answer to their problem. It’s a search and discovery network whose reason for existing is to promote ideas and products for those looking to be inspired. Platform users spend a long time planning and searching before they actually make a purchase (at least three months). This recent quote from Pinterest sums it up perfectly: Your customer isn’t coming to Pinterest to hunt for likes, or see what everybody else is doing. They’re looking to find what they actually love.— Pinterest In a recent article on the Pinterest business blog, Pinterest said that people who use Pinterest weekly are 7x more likely to say it’s the most influential platform in their purchase journey vs. social media platforms.. Furthermore, shoppers on Pinterest have 85% bigger baskets than shoppers on other platforms and they spend twice as much per month.  I don’t know about you but I’m happy to help you figure out how to be part of that spend.  In the golden days of Pinterest, you would pin a beautiful image to your board, keyword the pin description, and then share it across several Pinterest boards. Then you would sit back and watch your traffic grow (as well as your ad revenue, email list, and product sales).  It was a simple platform with a beautifully orchestrated plan for marketing that resulted in great traffic.  When the pandemic hit in 2020, a surge of people flooded the platform, growing it to over 400 million users worldwide. Those sourdough bread recipes were being pinned faster than teenagers checking Snapchat. We could see the clicks rising and the businesses being positively impacted. 

Having success with one business doesn’t mean you have it all figured out. Every niche has its challenges, struggles, and competition. Today’s podcast is a story about overcoming hardships in business and discovering things on the journey that help build a sustainable revenue stream. My guest is Debbie Gartner, better known as The Flooring Girl.  Many years ago, Debbie started a business where she went to people’s homes to help them select the best flooring to meet their needs. She eventually created a website and a blog to support her business. I found our discussion refreshing because I’m always so paralyzed about trying new things and worrying they’re not going to work. But this is truly the way that successful online businesses evolve. Debbie’s “rags to riches” story reflects that.  Let’s dive into my conversation with Debbie and explore how she achieved sustainable revenue stream in her business by trying different things to get where she is today. The path to sustainable revenue is not always a straight line Debbie says she started with nothing and didn’t make money online until she learned about blogging back in 2010. In 2011 she started her website and avidly worked on learning SEO (search engine optimization). Her primary goal was increase traffic to her website. Around this time, someone introduced her to the idea of monetizing her blog. Her reaction was: Oh yeah, whatever. I don’t have time for that. In 2015, Debbie learned more about monetizing her blog. She believed she had already tackled the challenging part by learning all about SEO. She believed that all she needed to do was add some affiliate links.  She imagined making $10,000 a month without much effort. She says she quickly discovered that that was an incorrect assumption. In 2016, her life took a turn and she found herself in a big mess. She was $238,000 in debt and no longer had her flooring business (and was not allowed to work in the flooring business for 2 years).  At the time, she lived in an area with an extremely high cost of living (New York City) and she owned her condo. So moving back home with mom and dad wasn’t an option. Debbie had no idea what she was going to do. She thought about working for a painting company because that business was related to flooring. But it was winter and there wasn’t enough demand for painting services. Eventually, she did get the painting job but it was only a part-time gig. So she decided she would try to learn how to monetize her blog because blogging was something she did know how to do. She also knew that it would take a while to build an income blogging, so she took on two additional part-time jobs. She did some freelance blogging and SEO for people. She planned to muddle through for two years until she could return to the flooring business. But it didn’t work out that way. Debbie says it was such a devastating time for her. She needed to make about $10,000 a month just to pay her bills and the income just wasn’t there. She found herself juggling credit cards, putting payments on whichever had the lower interest rate, and paying the minimum 10% every month,

We all know that Pinterest marketing works well for bloggers and content creators, but what about eCommerce businesses? Discover if Pinterest is right for you as we listen in on a conversation between with Kate and Vivian Eccleston, our eCommerce specialist for Simple Pin Media. Twice a month in the Simple Pin Collective we hold a coaching call so members can ask questions related to the topic of the month. This month’s topic was how to get people on Pinterest to convert into customers using all the shop integration features available on Pinterest. Vivian is passionate about working with eCommerce clients. Earlier in the year, we asked her to research all aspects of Pinterest and eCommerce to help us figure out everything we need to know to help our clients here at Simple Pin. I asked Vivian to join me in the Collective and share everything she has learned about eCommerce, product tagging, and the Verified Merchant Program. Today’s podcast is a recording of that conversation. We’re going to review the current status of these new Pinterest features and then we’ll answer some of the questions posed by our Simple Pin Collective Members. Pinterest for ECommerce Product Tagging on Pinterest There’s a lot of conversation and confusion around product tagging on regular pins and idea pins so let’s start there. Vivian sees product tagging as a great feature for showcasing your products and creating a direct link to your product page, especially as we get close to the holidays. You do not have to have shop integration to tag products on regular pins. Anyone can tag products on regular pins. Related: Holiday Selling on Pinterest Vivian shared a great example with gift guides. She says you can create a pin about the gift guide and link it to your blog post. The cool thing is that you can tag up to eight products from your gift guide that will be featured right next to or right below that pin. In her experience, there are some glitches associated with tagging digital products (they often don’t show up after you’ve tagged them). However, you can tag any of your physical products. You can also tag affiliate products. Gift guides are not a novel concept for our Collective members. We even have videos on how to create them in the Collective Learning Library. However, we’ve never really been able to directly link to products on a pin like we can with product tagging. So the great news is even if you don’t have a Shop tab on Pinterest, creators can still utilize this product tagging feature on regular pins! In addition to tagging standard pins, you can also tag products within idea pins. Currently this feature is only available on iOS or Android devices. It will be much easier to tag your idea pins if you have an integrated Shop tab. Product tagging in idea pins is still a bit glitchy, especially when it comes to tagging via a URL.

Today we’re going to be talking about seven strategic elements that are vital for marketing on Pinterest right now (end of 2021). Although every strategy is unique to each individual business, There are seven elements that must be incorporated into a successful Pinterest marketing strategy. Strategy is such a buzz word on Pinterest. People drop their “strategies” in Facebook groups with some tantalizing numbers and people go crazy. But I’m here to tell you they’re not really giving you strategies, they are sharing tactics. Using tactics is fine, but having a strategy is something different. An effective strategy means knowing the purpose behind using Pinterest as a tool for moving your business forward.  For example, my strategy for Pinterest is to use it to grow my email list to connect with new listeners and readers and then funnel them towards one of our SPM membership groups (the Simple Pin Collective and the Ads Society). Here at Simple Pin, we discovered that when we added the question “How did you hear about our services?” in our discovery calls, the most common responses were: * SPM podcast* Google* referrals We wanted to know how our membership people find us so we took a look at our Pinterest traffic. When we did, we realized Pinterest is a great platform to help us grow our email list and get new members.  It’s really important that you know who your audience is on Pinterest because audiences can be different on each of the platforms you use. For example, followers on Instagram use that platform much differently than those who use Pinterest. There are different ways to connect with each of these audiences, so it’s important to know who you need to target on Pinterest and how you can connect with them.  Related: Is Pinterest Social Media? Regardless of what strategy you land on, here are seven key elements to keep in mind as you make your strategy work on Pinterest. If you focus on these main strategic elements, you will crush it on Pinterest.  It might take a while. It’s not going to happen overnight, but you will be able to tweak your tactics as needed without freaking out about what everyone else is doing.  Marketing on Pinterest: 7 Must-Have Strategic Elements Focus on Diversification Having your content in a variety of pin formats helps you show up in search results more regularly. Before we just had standard pins, but now video pins and idea pins are all the rage. Who knows when Pinterest is going to introduce another format of pins! It’s really important that you don’t just create standard pins. You also need to create pins in the newer formats as well. We’ve emphasized idea pins (formerly story pins) in many of our recent podcasts. I know that some people push back at this suggestion. But I’m here to tell you that it’s really good for your business to use all ...

Being an author in a heavily digital age can be a challenge when it comes to marketing a book. In this episode we are diving into the world of self-publishing and talking with Jason Logsdon of Amazing Food Made Easy about how to promote your book using effective marketing strategies. Even if the thought of writing a book is only a distant possibility, by the end of our discussion you just might find yourself inspired to get cracking on your first book! It has been on my dream list for quite a while to write a book on Pinterest marketing. After listening to Jason’s tips on how to self-publish, I’m definitely on fire to potentially lean into that in 2022.  In this episode, we talk all about: * how writing a book is very “doable”* the benefits of book authorship* why you should avoid traditional publishing* and so many other valuable tips. Before we get into all of that, did you know that Simple Pin Media has an email list you can join? There are so many benefits to signing up! Our Simple Pin newsletter is a weekly high-level touch-point designed to keep you up-to-date on what’s going on in Pinterest and what’s going on in the Simple Pin world. In addition, we always share some great resources. We publish every Wednesday so you won’t miss a beat when it comes to any of the bits of information that Pinterest is releasing. In exchange for subscribing, you’ll get our signature Pinterest Keyword Planner designed to inspire creative marketing ideas for your business.  Let’s dive into self-publishing and how to market your book with Jason. Backed by 12 years of blogging experience, self-publishing 13 books, traditionally publishing two books and hosting several podcasts, Jason started his Makin’ Bacon! blog to help food and lifestyle bloggers monetize their blogs beyond the ad network. All of these experiences led to the creation of his master course, Self-Publishing Made Easy. how to write a book fast Twenty years ago, authors who self-published a book were often responsible for financing, promoting, and distributing the book.  Now, when Jason finishes writing a book, he puts it up on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing service (better know as Amazon KDP). When someone purchases your book on Amazon, Amazon prints it and ships it directly to the customer. With this method of publishing, there are almost no upfront costs or fulfillment responsibilities. You can devote 100% of your time to writing a book and promoting it to your audience.  According to Jason, self-publishing a book can be accomplished in one month if you know what you’re doing. He says timing depends a lot on your goals and how familiar you are with your topic. But in reality, most people take 6-12 months to get a book out (especially if they haven’t been planning the process ahead of time). If you have future plans to write a book, Jason suggests that you do some planning about the content you’d like to include in that book when choosing topics to cover on your blog. When Jason wrote his second cookbook, 90% of the content was from his blog.

With all the changes on Pinterest, are you asking yourself “Is Pinterest a search engine anymore?” We answer that question and talk about where Pinterest is headed in this episode. Over the past year, we’ve seen many changes on Pinterest. Many of you who have been using the platform as a marketing tool are asking if Pinterest is still the place you want to market your business. If you’re new to Pinterest you might be wondering if it is the right place for your business. Today, we are going to cover several topics, including: * ROI and Pinterest* the evolution of Pinterest* where Pinterest is likely heading in 2022. You’ll learn why we believe Pinterest is different from other platforms, which makes it continue to be a valuable marketing tool. First, I want to remind you of all the places you can find Pinterest marketing resources created by Simple Pin Media.  * The Simple Pin Media website – Our website has all the resources we talk about on the podcast.* The Simple Pin Podcast – We produce one SPM podcast episode per week that is followed up with a newsletter-style weekly email containing all the latest Pinterest marketing news. * Free Resource Guides – Be sure to download our Keyword Planner, Pinterest Image Guide, and our video course for Pinterest beginners.* Instagram – We share even more Pinterest tips on Instagram! Get to know me and the SPM Team on a more personal level, and connect with us directly through direct messages. Onto the question of the day: Is pinterest still a search engine? Pinterest still operates as a search and discovery network. The pinner’s intent on Pinterest still drives what content is served up.  You’ll often hear me speak this phrase: Pinners don’t care about you.— Kate What do I mean by this? I mean that pinners are mainly interested in the benefit they can receive from your product, content, or service. They are not there for conversation. Understanding this pinner mindset is vital before you start marketing on Pinterest. Pinners are interested in you hitting them with the “Aha!” moments of great ideas. Pinterest is the ultimate repository of life hacks.  Pinners find you by searching for something, which leads them to your content and then onto your website.  There will be a lot of people who bounce away quickly. Other people will stick around to look for more or they will save your pin for later. Let’s explore the idea of someone who is planning a kitchen remodel. This pinner is going to save hundreds of kitchen remodel ideas. Later, they will narrow these pins down to the ideas they actually plan to incorporate into their own remodeling project. Eventually, they might arrive at your website looking to make a purchase for this project.  Pinterest is the place where pinners search for and gather ideas so they can take action on them later.  Pinterest Marketing ROI The time you spend on Pinteres...

Static Pins, video pins, idea pins…we talk a lot about what it takes to have a successful Pinterest strategy, but that is only one piece of the puzzle. In this episode, we are going to address another key piece…your website branding. Today we are talking about branding for your business and why you need a well-branded website for success, especially on Pinterest. We’ll explain what branding is and breakdown the key elements. We’ll also discuss the important role brand identity plays in making you memorable to your audience.  But first, a reminder. We have many resources on our website beyond the Simple Pin Podcast, including the Simple Pin Collective. The Simple Pin Collective is our online membership community for those who want to go deep into Pinterest marketing. Inside the Collective you’ll find a complete and continually growing learning library, a community of mentors with specialties and strengths to match any need, and discussions about Pinterest trends, updates, strategic planning, creating great images, and more. My favorite part of the Collective is the Q&A coaching call that I do twice each month. It’s an hour packed with great information. We answer all your questions and help you troubleshoot your marketing message on Pinterest. We would love to have you join our community so we can help you maximize your marketing effort each time Pinterest introduces something new. Let’s dive into my conversation with  Madison to learn all about website branding and how you can make sure that your brand has an identity that stands out. Madison is a food blogger turned web designer who runs Grace + Vine Studios. She helps clients create a brand identity and website that reflects their long-term goals for their business. Madison majored in graphic design in college. After graduating, she found herself in a typical corporate job working 40 hours a week. She began blogging and opened an Etsy shop for design in her free time.  Related: Creating a Pinterest Strategy for Etsy She discovered that most of her food blogger clients need educated on topics like building an audience, creating your brand, and designing a website that is strategic, beautiful, and connects with their ideal audience. She decided to go all-in on that side of her business about three years ago. Website Branding 101 Madison shared that, for most people, branding is all about the visual appearance of your business. If you close your eyes and visualize a store like Target, you’re probably imagining their logo. But you’re also visualizing what the store looks like inside. You see yourself pushing your red cart with your Starbucks cup in it.– Madison But that visual is only one part of branding. Your brand identity needs to be nailed down prior to the visual aspects of your brand. Brand identity includes things like: * understanding who your target audience is* knowing your...

Ready to get your Black Friday Marketing plan in place to make more sales during the holiday season? Listen in on a Simple Pin Collective Coaching Call as we formulate a strategy for her small business! Have you ever wondered what happens inside the Collective, on a coaching call, or a consult call here at Simple Pin?  Today I’m doing something a little bit different. We are taking you behind the scenes as I host a coaching call for one of our Collective students. Susan of Susan’s Soaps and I had planned to talk about how she can take advantage of Black Friday sales. Our conversation turns into how Susan can create an evergreen strategy that is supported by the sales cycle throughout the year. We also talk about how to utilize her story as part of her marketing strategy. I’m hoping this chance to listen in on our coaching call will help all of you, whether you sell physical products or digital products, or you create content. It’s a great call full of valuable information you can take advantage of this peak selling season to help boost your sales or those of your affiliates.  Before we dive into this episode, let’s chat about our Simple Pin Collective. Are you a business owner that wants to create a powerful Pinterest marketing strategy that will help grow your business?  We would like to support your goals in the Collective. The Collective is your Pinterest hub for: * coaching* training* action-taking. It’s a paid membership that gives you access to a powerful community with all the coaching, materials, and feedback you need to feel confident in your Pinterest marketing.  Inside the Simple Pin Collective, you’ll find a complete learning library covering every imaginable topic on Pinterest. You’ll learn the basics of Pinterest and how to leverage some advanced tactics to help you attract your ideal audience on Pinterest.  You can learn more about the Simple Pin Collective here.  Black friday marketing & HOLIDAY SELLING ON PINTEREST Susan has been making handmade, all-natural soaps and skincare products for over 20 years. Her motivation for starting her company evolved from her own skincare issues and the desire to find a solution to her problems. Susan entered the online sales market about 15 years ago and actively started marketing on Pinterest three years ago. She is wondering how to increase her sales, specifically around holiday events like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, etc. PINTEREST IMAGE TWEAKS TO CLARIFY MESSAGING Susan says her top blog posts and pins get all kinds of traffic, but both have high bounce rates.  She believes part of her problem is that people who find her on Pinterest think she is going to teach them how to make soap. However, her goal is to sell them a bar of soap. She wants to know what she can change to get the correct message to pinners so they will stay on her website longer and find her products.

Today we’re talking about what it means to be a Pinterest creator. Pinterest has been using this term more frequently this past year, but what does it mean? It seems to be evolving and changing at the same time Pinterest is changing. I’m diving in with Tabby, the social media manager here at Simple Pin, to share what she’s learned from managing client Pinterest accounts, the Simple Pin Media account, and investing in the Creator’s Forum inside the Pinterest Business Community (PBC). But first, did you know Simple Pin offers an extensive list of organic and paid Pinterest Management Services including one-time services like account cleanups and one-hour targeted consult calls based on your business industry? Our services leverage eight years of Pinterest management experience backed by data to bring you the latest tactics, best practices, and diversification on Pinterest. Using our signature Simple Pin Framework, we’ll help you reach your ideal customer. Our Discovery call team is ready to meet with you to learn all about your business goals and guide you toward the service that will be the best fit for you. Find out more about our services and products on the Work With Us and Simple Pin Products tabs. Let’s share our perspectives of what it means to be a Pinterest Creator in 2021. What does it mean to be a pinterEst creator? Let’s define what the term Creator means to us here at Simple Pin Media. I believe a creator is anyone on Pinterest using the platform to market their business. A Creator is someone putting their creative content or products on Pinterest to increase their reach and awareness for their brand.   I love how Tabby’s definition (below) takes it up to a more personal notch.  Tabby defines creator as everyone Simple Pin Media speaks to and that includes: * podcast listeners* our blog readers* clients using Pinterest to market their content (product sellers, teachers, bloggers, etc.). This year, Pinterest has really focused on this term Creator and we want to unpack how they are using that term. Pinterest used to talk a lot about the pinner. When I would talk to someone at Pinterest they would always say “we serve the pinner first.” The focus was always on how to give the pinner a good experience.  Although the term Creator was used, it wasn’t as prevalent or forward-facing as it is now.  Words or phrases like Pinterest Creator Program, creator platform, and creator monetization are becoming more front and center, which signals the shift we have seen in 2021. Tabby explains the difference is that Pinterest is now speaking to creators in a way that indicates they want them to be more present on the platform. Pinterest hasn’t asked creators to stay on the platform in order to increase engagement in the past. But that is the direction that Pinterest is heading in now. The platform seems to be evolving its marketing strategy. When you go to their website and read about Pinte...