Summary:
In this episode Kat Jarman shares the Pinterest marketing system she uses to drive tens of thousand of clicks to her website every single month for free along with some powerful lessons she learned while building her digital business.
Links:
Software recommendations:
- To design graphics: Canva.com
- To automate your social media posts: Viraltag.com
To find out more about Kat’s business: Craftercoach.com
Transcription Episode 87: How To Use Pinterest To Get 20,000+ Clicks Per Month
Welcome to the Project Ignite podcast, a podcast designed to skip the hype, skip all the fluff, bring you real, actionable tips and strategies from real digital entrepreneurs that are actually doing it, to help you grow your business and income on the internet.This is your host, Derek Gehl, and today you’re going to be meeting an infopreneur and solopreneur/digital entrepreneur that has been leveraging the power of Facebook and combined with sales funnels and blogging, to build a really cool online information business that helps women from around the globe sell their handmade goods on Etsy.
Now, we’re going to be diving into some Pinterest marketing strategies and get into some really cool stuff, but before we do that, I got to say, this interview’s kind of a special one for me because just a few years ago, I met this incredible lady when she attended one of my workshops in Australia, and she knew pretty much nothing about online marketing at that point, had never run a business and, if I am correct, was working as a part-time bookkeeper, and she’d enrolled in my training, and she really took action.
Since then, I’ve had the privilege of watching her incredible growth as an entrepreneur. I’ve witnessed her successes along with some inevitable stumbling and a few little failures along the way, as every entrepreneur experiences. But what I witnessed was some incredible perseverance and willingness to learn and adapt and try new things, which I truly believe is the real driver of success as an entrepreneur.
So without further ado, I’d like to welcome Kat Jarman to the show today.
Kat, thank you so much for being here to share your Pinterest strategies.
You’d never gone down that road. So just to start things off, just sort of walk us through the journey that you’ve had so far, because you’ve learned some incredible lessons along the way, and you’re now seeing the results of that and the perseverance paying off.You posted in my Facebook group a month ago a really cool post that had some really valuable insights into it, and over the last year, I think you’ve really started to see the fruits of your efforts start to pay off.
You posted you’d had your first four-figure sales day. Your business has grown over 1,000% since the beginning of the year, and those lessons that you shared in that post to the rest of my Facebook group had a huge impact, and your post got more action in my Facebook group than any of my posts have ever gotten, so it was so well written.
So before we get into the Pinterest marketing tips stuff, which I do want to get into, because I know you’ve been crushing it on Pinterest, I want to dig into a little bit of the stuff that you posted there and some of the lessons, because I think a lot of people listening are going to either relate or be relieved to hear that what they’re currently experiencing while they’re growing their business is totally normal!
Does that make sense? Are we cool with that? Can we do that?
Okay. So, originally when I … I think I signed up for your program about four years ago, and that’s how I started with online business, and one of the very first things I did was try and figure out what my niche was, because that’s what we all do.And at the time, I thought choosing a niche was make or break, so it had to be the best niche in the world, and it had to be one that was going to make me lots and lots of money, and if I made a mistake on it, it was the end of everything.
And what I didn’t realize at the time was, that business that I originally started, I’ve had, sort of, two or three different paths since then. And so, yeah, that comment was more about, just, getting people to begin quicker, because whatever it is that you start with might not be what ends up working for you.
That’s such an important message, because I know people that are starting out … Or, listeners right now, they’re sitting on the sidelines going, “Oh, what should I do? What should my business be?” And they’re waiting for that perfect idea, right? And they have this mindset, similar to where you were, that it has to be good. It has to be the big idea.And I can say with a fairly high degree of certainty that of all the people I’ve worked with over the past, you know, 15 years helping grow businesses online, very few ever stay in the first niche that they started in.
But here’s, I think, the big lesson to take away from that, is … Well, let me ask you this: Had you never started in that first niche, would you have ended up where you are today sharing your Pinterest marketing strategies with us?
Yeah, and that’s it, right? So it’s a whole part of the journey and the path, I think. You have to pick something and start going down this road. And as I always like to say, is, it’s sort of that action creates opportunity, right? You start to … Through that process of looking and building and trying stuff, you learn and that’s what leads to these other opportunities, like your Pinterest marketing tips expertise.And the other thing, there’s no such thing, as an entrepreneur, as failure, right? It’s just learning, all the way across the board. So, again, for everybody that’s listening, what … And I’m sort of rambling on more than Kat is right now. It’s such a powerful lesson, right?
Because I see too many people that fail to ignite, fail to launch, and it’s because they’re not sure if their idea is perfect, and I think, you know, any entrepreneur will agree there’s no such thing as a perfect idea. Just pick something and start growing. So that’s really, really important.
And when you say “move faster,” what would you have … Now, you’ve said, “Okay, yeah, I did need to go down this path. It led me to here.” But if you did start over, what does “move faster” look like?
There’s a lot of things that I think I moved too slow on, and I still do it now. But I’ve learned a few lessons along the way, and I try not to do it as often.But it started back when I first began your course, and it took me, literally, six months to choose a niche. So that’s my very first lesson in moving faster. Because if I could go back and do it now, I would have picked something the first day I’d started, and then I’d probably be six months ahead of where I am now. So there’s that.
And things along the lines of if you try something and you want it to be so perfect that it takes you a month to plan and execute a webinar or you have a sale to your email list and it takes you three or four weeks to figure that out and execute it, the best advice I can give is cut that down.
If something’s going to take a month, cut it down. Make it take two weeks. That way, you just gain momentum faster.
It took me a long time. I feel like everything that I’ve learned and done, I’ve taken a very, very long time to do it. So probably two years into it was when I first started getting help from other people, and that’s insane, because there is so much to think about and so much to do when you’re running an online business.There’s sales pages and email funnels and webinars and product creation and lead magnets, and all that stuff, and you can’t move fast by yourself if you’re handling all of that by yourself. It’s just impossible.
It absolutely is, and here’s the reality of it. If you’re not a programmer or a graphics designer, for example, why try and learn that and layer that on when, as we all know now, you can go and hire somebody for a fraction of the cost compared to what it would be to hire programmers.Okay, let me take a step back. You can now outsource technology way cheaper than hiring people to do it for you in your country now, in most places.
And so, I see people struggle with the technology and give up and get frustrated and slow down their progress, when really that’s not even where they should be spending their time. But what was the mental block for you that stopped you from outsourcing sooner?
I found outsourcing difficult, so I didn’t know what to ask for or where to go or … The process of explaining to somebody what I want them to do I find very hard still to this day.But there’s things that people can do better than I can. And if I’m struggling with creating graphics or doing the things that aren’t what I should be doing, it’s kind of a way to get yourself down as an entrepreneur, as well. If you’re not doing the stuff that you find fun or that you’re good at, it’s really hard to keep momentum day after day. So, even for that reason, if nothing else, you really need to get help on the things that you shouldn’t be doing.
Yeah. So, emotionally difficult. I’m not one to get super emotional, but, you know, you’re going into, especially online businesses, especially for a lot of Australians, is, you’re doing something that most of your friends and family aren’t doing, and so you’ve got that whole … Nobody understands why you’re putting so many hours into something that isn’t making you any money, or is making you little money at the time.So you’re constantly fighting against the doubts and people telling you, “Why don’t you just go and get a job?”
People still say that to me now, which is quite funny, but, you know, you need the support, I suppose, and so, emotionally for me, I had to go and find that support from other entrepreneurs, and thank God that there are so many awesome people out there to help counteract some of that negativity. So that was one of the things that I found the hardest, was, feedback from family and friends.
And probably also just the roller-coaster that running an online business is. So I could wake up in the morning and I might have two or three sales in my emails. But they can be overshadowed by one email from somebody wanting to quit or, you know, somebody leaving a comment on my blog that’s not very nice. So, that is what I struggle with, I guess, every day.
Yeah, and so we’ve got two things there. Starting with the last one first, it’s particularly when you’re in a business where you’re an expert or it’s centered around you, as well. It’s hard not to take things personally, and yay for the Internet. People have way more balls in saying nasty things than they ever would consider saying to somebody’s face.And so, as an entrepreneur online, once you’re writing, once you’re putting yourself out there, blogging, creating videos, stuff like that, you got to have a thick skin, because you’re going to take some heat. You’re going to take some flack, and there’s the trolls that exist out there that have nothing better to do in their lives. And so, I think if people can be more aware of that coming into it and have that thick skin, I think it’s good.
Now, let’s rewind now to the first point you brought up, which is the emotional difficulty of starting a business. Now, you said in Australia, because nobody else is really doing what you’re doing. I think that is not just Australia. That is such a global thing.
Now, obviously in North America, there’s more people depending where you are that are starting to do this kind of stuff, but it’s, again, I look around my area where we know lots of people now where I live. There is one person in our social circle in this entire neighborhood through schools, family, stuff like that, that knows what I do and gets it and has a similar business. That is it.
And so, I mean, it is a bit of a lonely journey being that entrepreneur. And one of the things you said is, people are like, “Why don’t you go get a job?” They don’t understand what you’re putting the time into. And it’s interesting because had you gone out and you had leased a store and brought in inventory and had something they could see and touch, they would get it.But when you’re starting out and you’re telling people around you, “Hey, I’m starting an Internet business,” yeah, people scratch their heads, because they can’t see what you’re doing, right? There’s no tangible evidence. So I think they’re more likely to give you the advice that they think is good, right?
And that can be tough, particularly when you’re in one of those down moments, right? You just launched something or you had a bad sales day or a crappy customer and somebody says, “Oh, why don’t you just get a job?” You’re like, “Oh, okay.”
So from your perspective, why is it worth it?
A lot. Like, a lot. I can remember the last couple of jobs that I’ve had. Quite often, I would just go and stand in the bathrooms, and I’d be like, “This is hell. I need to get out of here.” And that’s what I would do multiple times a day because I just hated it so badly.So, for me, the biggest reward is not having to do that, not having to go to a job where I have to listen to people tell me about things that I don’t care about or, you know, opinions or politics or gossip or just even people telling me what to do.
And I’m not degree-qualified or anything, so any job that I was ever going to have was going to be something where I’d eventually get bored, because it’s generally not possible to move up without having some sort of university degree. So for me, it was always just going to be administration or something that just bored me to tears.
So as far as I’m concerned, all of the challenges and the doubt and the times where I didn’t make the money that I should’ve been making, it’s all 100% worth it, because my “why” is so strong.
Yeah. I just want to highlight what you just said: “My ‘why’ is so strong.”
It’s difficult, and you need to, when you’re in those low points, say, “Well, what’s my alternative?” Right? You know, and Kat, in your case, it was, “I could get a job again. I hate that.”
And so, what is your “why”? And here’s the real, I think, revelation that every entrepreneur comes to eventually, is, it’s not really about the money. It’s about what the money and the business can give you as far as lifestyle goes. And that’s huge!And you know, more and more people, it’s fascinating, and I know you’re seeing this as well, is, more and more people are starting to wake up and go, “Hey, it’s not about making millions.” It’s about making enough to be able to support the lifestyle that you want to support, right? And you know, that’s what’s amazing about this.
I’m totally going off a tangent here, but that’s what totally excites me about today, right? We have technologies easy. There’s lots of opportunities out there. People just … Well, let me throw this back to you. What do you think the number one reason is is people don’t make it as an entrepreneur online? What do you think?
Totally. Not even remotely true. Over the last few weeks I’ve done some interviews with some entrepreneurs that do massive stuff. I interviewed an entrepreneur. He’s built three businesses to seven, to eight figures, and we were talking about exactly that.Like, you start something … Most of the time if you come up with a new campaign or a new idea or a new funnel, the likelihood that you’re going to hit it out of the ballpark on the first try? If you do, great, but it’s slim to none.
So you’re going to put it up. You’re going to put work in. It’s going to go fall flat on its face. And then you have to go back and you have to reanalyze it, and tweak it and test it and tweak it and test it, but then eventually, you get there.
I mean, if I had to ask you how many times have you redone webinars or redone Facebook ads or tested new landing pages or other Pinterest marketing tips to get to where you are?
That is so true. Because again … Okay, so … a confession from the industry, okay? Everybody sees the launch is out there, and people say, “Oh, I just did a product launch and sold $500,000, and I did this, and I did that!”First of all, when people are using a lot of that hype, I know for a fact because I see behind the scenes, a lot of it, they round it up. And two-
A lot. Two, everybody throws gross sales numbers out there, and gross sales numbers mean nothing, and in many of these businesses when you peel back the layers, these massive launches made almost no money and actually very little profit.And, you know, in so many cases, it’s exactly what you said. You don’t have to worry about the results other people are getting. Worry about the results that you’re getting and look for ways to improve them.
Now, one more question for you, and I keep saying one more question. I don’t know how many more times I’ll say that. If you had to pinpoint skills, you know, the technology, the strategy, the marketing, the selling, the … What is probably the most important piece that the entrepreneur needs to know?
I really do. I really do. And that’s probably what maybe took me so long, is because I’m really good at all of the other pieces, and I tend to avoid the things that I’m not good at, so that would be marketing and selling, in the beginning.And so, I would avoid it. I would avoid things like webinars or pitching on a webinar or asking people to buy my stuff or emailing my email list with a sale. Things like that, and, yeah, if I could go back, I would do a lot more of that type of thing sooner.
So that was a test for you. I wanted to see what the answer was, and you passed. And it’s funny because I have this conversation a lot, and the most successful guys, now, everybody I talk to are like, “It’s the selling. It’s the marketing.” Right? That’s where the secret sauce is.Everybody gets focused and they want to play with the click funnels and the new technology and the new WordPress plugin, and all … Those are just means to deliver marketing and make it easier.
But here’s the thing. I learned it as well. And you know where I learned it? When I was 18 and 19 years old going door to door selling flippin’ vacuum cleaners for $2,000 to people that didn’t want a vacuum cleaner when I knocked on the door, and I didn’t even know it then, but I was learning about selling and learning about the process.And it is! It’s a process.
So for all the people that are listening going, “I haven’t been getting results, but I’ve been using Clickfunnels. I use Leadpages. I have an opt-in offer. I have an e-book. I have this stuff, but it’s not working.”
I would challenge you to say … I would suggest that you need to look at your marketing, your sales process, because that’s where it’s broken, and that’s where you need to spend your time. And it is something that can be learned. I remember, I think one of the first times you did a webinar, and, I mean, you were stressed!
It totally does. And so, okay, listeners, everybody listening here, there was a ton of nuggets in there, valuable tips. If I was going to summarize it, if you’re just getting started and you don’t have any idea, just pick something.
Find an idea, something you’re passionate about. Get started with it. If you are working on something, start testing faster. Start trying stuff faster.Outsource the stuff that you’re not good at. Focus on the stuff that you are good at. Where you bring the value is in the strategy, in the marketing, in the selling.
You can’t outsource strategy. You can outsource web design. You can outsource graphics. You can even outsource copywriting and stuff like that, but you’re the person that has to put the strategy behind it. You’re the person who has to come up with that.
And so, where do you learn that? You learn … That’s the marketing side of things, and that’s really the direct-response marketing. And that’s what we do online. We don’t brand; we’re direct response marketers.
And that’s what Kat’s been learning over the last three or four years, is, direct response marketing on the Internet: taking people off of Facebook, off of Pinterest, walking them through a process that takes them from not knowing who she is to investing in her product, in her training, in her business.
And she’s done it because she’s focused on the right stuff, and I think some of these lessons that she just shared with you are going to help accelerate that process for you, as well.
That was awesome, Kat. Now I want to shift gears a little bit, because I promised our listeners we were going to dive into Pinterest marketing tips, and you’ve been doing Pinterest really well. Right now, as far as I understand, it’s your number one source of traffic? Free traffic, too, correct?
Okay, so let’s split the difference there and call it 20,000. To get a click to a website, a visitor to a website now, we can quantify the value. Let’s say that average click, if we were buying it from Facebook or we were buying it from Google, let’s shoot low and say it was a dollar. That’s $20,000 a month in free traffic you’re getting using things like Pinterest marketing tips, right?So there’s lots of value there. But you said something that was interesting, and that was, it works for me because of the business I’m in.
Yeah, exactly. Commerce. Things like recipes and fitness. What else is on there? Everything. Survival does really well on Pinterest for some reason, and that’s actually a real male niche, but it’s … Anything that’s visual, as well, does quite well with Pinterest marketing tips.So there’ll be artists and photographers, and things like that. There’s a whole range, and I think if you’re thinking about using Pinterest marketing tips and you’re not 100% sure, just go and have a look and see if there’s anybody like you doing really well on Pinterest. Yeah.
Not really. No. The best you can do … I mean, you can type in whatever you want into the search bar on Pinterest and do a little bit of research that way; see what comes up.The results say how many repins they’ve had. If you type in the word “Etsy,” you’ll see things come up that have had 30 or 40 thousand repins, so you can generally say, “Okay, that’s a pretty popular topic on Pinterest.”
Anything that does really well … If you do Google keyword research, you can kind of translate that a little bit to Pinterest as well, and, I don’t know, generally just do some research on your competition and see if they’re crushing it with Pinterest marketing tips. Then you probably can too.
Yeah, I use Pinterest in a different way to a lot of people. A lot of people think it’s more of a social media network, but it’s not. It’s definitely a search engine, which is awesome because when I use Pinterest marketing tips it sends me heaps and heaps of traffic.But yeah, you do need to keep in mind that most of that traffic is going to be from mobile, because that’s … The Pinterest users, they’re sitting down after a long day and they’ve got their phone in their hands and they’re scrolling through Pinterest. That’s mostly how users use it.
Okay, so if you asked me how many followers I had on Pinterest, I would kind of laugh and ask why you care, because as far as I’m concerned, I’m not there for the social aspects of it.People don’t have conversations with each other on Pinterest. They’re not keeping up with each other on Pinterest like they do on Facebook or Instagram. People are literally going to that search bar, typing in something that they thought about that day that they wanted to have a look at.
Maybe they’re redecorating their house and they’re looking for ideas, or birthday party ideas, or it could be anything. They’re not socializing. They’re looking for stuff.
So now, here’s the next thing I want to dig into, which is I think the real secret to success with Pinterest after looking at what you did.I think a lot of people, they go, they create their, you know, their board. They throw up a couple of images, and maybe once a week, they go in, pin something, and never get anywhere with it.
What is your approach? What Pinterest marketing tips do you use? How often are you pinning stuff, repinning … What does a week on Pinterest look like for Kat Jarman?
Yeah, it’s pretty busy actually, and you’d be surprised how many times a week I get somebody email me and say that they literally tried Pinterest for a couple of days and it didn’t work for them. And what they’re doing wrong, it’s that consistency and that showing up every day, and that’s what I do on Pinterest.I show up every day using Pinterest marketing tips. I don’t anymore, because I’ve automated it, and my VA does a lot of it. But typically from my website, I’ll be pinning, probably, two or three pins per day, and then I also do maybe another 10 to 20 of other content that doesn’t come from me.
So that’s every day. And Pinterest can be a slow burn, and you need to keep that frequency and the consistency up to get the results, to get the traffic. If that’s what’s important to you, that’s what you have to do.
Okay, so for the images, what has worked for me is I just create images for all of my blog posts, and I use Canva.com for that, because I’m not very good at graphics. And I could outsource it, but I found that to be a little bit difficult, so I just decided to use Canva, and I have probably 100 blog posts, so that gives me scope to pin 100 of my things every two months, I suppose.And you don’t just have to pin a blog post once and it’s gone. You can repin that blog post as many times as you like.
So it’s just a matter of having a little bit of a bank of content built up, and depending on what business you have, it might be blog posts that you’re creating images for and pinning, or it could be, in the case of my Etsy sellers, they’re pinning items from their Etsy shop, so it just depends what content looks like for you.
I’m including text and that’s because I am borderline on Pinterest, because as you said before, people don’t really come there for information-type products. They’re kind of there because they want to find something pretty that they can look at to put in their house or some clothes to wear, or whatever.
And yeah, you know, one of the Pinterest marketing tips that I want to point out here that you shared, because I think a lot of people think about this the wrong way, and that is, repinning the same content over and over again.And so, I liken it to Twitter, for example, and this was kind of a revelation for me not all that long ago, as well, is, when you pin something or when you tweet something or when you post something in Facebook, it has a very short lifespan before it’s been seen and it moves down in the algorithm.
And now, people, unless they’re coming to your board and actively looking, they’re not going to be seeing it. So repinning it is constantly bringing it to the forefront, and that’s where something like Viraltag, I assume, automates that process to repin stuff.
But you know, the same falls true with Twitter and the people that I’m talking to that are getting the highest volume of engagement off of Twitter, it’s … They’re tweeting every half hour. And at first, I was like, “Wow, aren’t you driving your Twitter followers crazy?” But no, because people don’t look at every tweet. Your cap, you have sort of half hour when it’s in people’s visibility and then it just disappears, right?
Which is fascinating because, I mean, they’re moving billions of dollars of product now, so for everybody that’s listening, if you’re going, “What are they talking about?” Etsy is spelled E-T-S-Y dot com, and it’s the biggest online marketplace for handmade goods. Okay? So people making stuff, hand arts and crafts, and all sorts of stuff, and they’ve expanded their scope slightly, but that’s what it’s about. So if you have physical products, particularly in any of those types of categories, I’d recommend go and have a look at Etsy.It could be another channel that you could plug into, and if you want to know how to do it properly, head over to Crafter Coach, and Kat could teach you how to do that, as well.
So on that note, Kat, thank you so much for taking the time here, and for sharing your Pinterest marketing tips and your journey and candidly sharing your ups and downs, because I think that’s important for other entrepreneurs going through the process to hear. So again, thank you so much.
Awesome. All right, everyone. That was Kat Jarman. And as always, any of the links we talked about in this interview will be included in our show notes, along with the entire transcript of this episode, and as always, you’ll find it at projectignite.com/podcast.And don’t forget: if you haven’t already done so, if you like what you heard, head over to iTunes, leave me a review, leave me a rating, and subscribe, or if you don’t use Apple, head over to SoundCloud, or we’re now on Google Play, so you can find us there as well.
So now it’s time to take all the strategy and Pinterest marketing tips you’ve learned here today and apply that final essential ingredient to making it work, and that ingredient is action.
So, go forth, take action, apply what you’ve learned, and stay tuned for another info-packed episode of the Project Ignite podcast.
This is your host, Derek Gehl, signing off.