16: How to Attract Students Using Pinterest (without feeling salesy)

Welcome to the Course Creators MBA podcast. I'm your host, Destiny Kopp. And in this podcast, we're covering actionable tips to grow your online course business. And I'm so excited to have a special guest with me here today. I have Isabel Packin. And Isabelle helps course creators grow visibility and attract dream students using Pinterest. She does that through her signature program, the Fast Fab Pen formula. And in her 15 years of marketing experience, from large corporations to small businesses, she's gathered a few tricks up her sleeve. She knows what it takes to attract the right audience, get the word out about your business, and turn browsers into buyers. Isabel, thanks so much for joining me today. I'm so excited that you're here.

Thank you so much, Dissany. I'm really excited to be here as well.

Now, I have a lot of questions for you. We're gonna be talking about Pinterest today, and I know a lot of our listeners are very interested in Pinterest and how they can use Pinterest to grow their business. But before we get started, can you tell us a little bit about you, your journey, and how you got to where you are today?

Absolutely. So, like you mentioned, I started in corporate marketing. I worked for 14 years, actually 15 years in corporate, going from some of the Fortune 500 companies as well as working for small businesses, but always in marketing. And at one point throughout my career, I really wanted more freedom and independence, just like a lot of us course creator do. And I wanted to start my own business. Now at the beginning it was a consulting business and what I realized is that most of my clients and most of my email list growth was actually coming from Pinterest. So I really decided to double down on Pinterest strategy and really growing my business more using Pinterest. Because at the same time as it was growing my business, it was also taking me the least amount of my time. So I really like that. And just as I was using that and telling some of my friends, they started asking me more and more about helping them grow their own business using Pinterest. And so that's how this old journey of using Pinterest started. And from there, my consulting business evolved into a course creation business and helping other entrepreneurs use Pinterest for growing their own businesses.

So very good. And today, like I mentioned, we are talking about Pinterest and how online course creators can attract students using Pinterest without feeling salesy. And I know a lot of our course creators, myself included in that when we are going out there and promoting Our course, whether it's on a webinar, a five day challenge, or you know, how, however we're doing it, one of the things that we don't want to do is feel salesy, but we kind of end up feeling that way. So can you tell us a little bit about why most course creators end up feeling salesy and what we can do to avoid that?

Absolutely, yeah. That's something I always hear as well from my clients. And they're really concerned about feeling salesy because quite honestly, like, nobody wants that. Right. But I think the reason why often us course creators end up feeling that is first of all really our purpose as course creators. We're really there for helping make a change in people's life. And the last thing that we want is to feel salesy. But we put ourselves in this situation because we're constantly asking for the sell. We're constantly creating, you know those emails, hey, last chance to, you know, on the court clause day, last chance to purchase. You know this, the cart is going to be closing in a few hours and we're constantly asking for the sale. And what I want to propose here, and what I've been teaching my clients as well is instead of being pushy or feeling salesy, how about creating a marketing strategy that attracts people to us so that once they actually come into your sales funnel or your business funnel, that they're actually wanting to purchase from you, they want to work with you. So the benefit, of course, for us as course creators is that it doesn't feel hickey. It really feels good. And it's better for the clients or the students as well because they're not feeling like they're being sold to. They're really feeling like they are buying into something that will really help them. So this is what we'll talk a lot about today. Like, what is that all attraction marketing methodology.

I cannot wait to dive in. And to your point, I had a friend that I was an entrepreneur friend I was chatting with last week and she, she was on somebody's list. I think this person was promoting another social media platform. It wasn't Pinterest, it was something else. And she's like, I've gotten, she's doing a launch, which is fine, we all need to sell. But she's like, I've gotten six emails from her in the past two days. I'm like, okay, so that is salesy for sure.

Yeah, exactly. It's like we're actually trying to convince people when really they should just be wanting to get our help. Right. So this is about like, how do we become better marketer and smarter marketers so that we're actually attracting people and the right kind of people, of course, that really need our help.

So one of the things I wanted to ask you, and you know, I've said this several times in the past, Pinterest is one of my favorite platforms. I get the majority of my website traffic from Pinterest, but I'm sure I'm making some mistakes there. So can you tell us what is the number one mistake most people you're seeing most people make on Pinterest?

Absolutely. And I'm happy to hear that you're saying that Pinterest drives most of your traffic. That's awesome. That's often what I'm seeing with people that are using Pinterest. And the number one mistake that I see is people think that it takes at least six months or more to, to get some good traffic from Pinterest. There's this myth out there that Pinterest takes a long time to drive traffic. And that's, that's just not true. And it's not, it's not people's fault. You know, it's not our listeners fault. It's really about a lot of people, a lot of Pinterest experts out there saying that. But that's based on old strategies, that's based on things that happened in the past. But when you're actually using new and innovative marketing strategies, you can really drive your traffic much faster from Pinterest. And so, you know, it's important to adopt those innovative marketing strategies. I will allow you to grow your audience much faster, to grow your visibility, to grow your email list and really make an impact in more people's lives, the people that really need your course. So that first of all for you, you can get out of that trap that we're often stuck in. Right. When we're not growing our visibility fast enough, we just feel stuck. And when we actually start implementing strategy, we can really start impacting more lives. So there are ways to really drive traffic much faster using Pinterest. And that's what we'll talk also about today. So super excited about that.

Yeah, I'm excited too. And I'm getting traffic, but I'm not sure that I'm actually converting that traffic into clients. So can you tell me what is your favorite way out there for attracting clients using Pinterest?

Absolutely. So I use a four phase approach and I'll talk about each approach briefly and talk about the key points for each of Those phase. But I love that you mentioned that you're attracting traffic, but it's not converting in sales. And that ties in so well. When I first phase, the first point and the first phase that I use is the attraction phase. And really what I see a lot of people do with Pinterest, and they'll start driving traffic to their site, they'll create a Pinterest profile, they'll start creating graphics, and then they'll say, well, my email list is not growing or not getting sales from it. And that's really because they missed the first phase. And that's the attraction phase. And that's really about becoming crystal, crystal clear about who our audience are. And when I say crystal clear, I mean getting on the phone with our ideal customer and really interviewing them, really getting deep into what are their pain points, what are their problems, what are their fears, what are their objections to not solving their problems? And then what would a breakthrough look like once they've added all those problems away? What it would look like and feels like for them to really have those problems lifted from their shoulders. Right? And once we have this piece really clear, then that's when we can create that ideal customer avatar. And the reason when I say ideal customer avatar, often people will tell me, yeah, yeah, Isabelle, I've done that exercise before, but it's not working. And the reason it's not working is that you're not getting on the phone, you're not talking to your ideal customer, you're not speaking in their language. And the only way to do that is by getting on the phone with them. It's only once you have that and you have very clear idea of your ideal customer avatar that you can start creating a Pinterest profile. Start creating graphics and all this good stuff and boards. This will absolutely inform you. And I want you, when you're thinking also about your ideal customer avatar, to start with the end in mind, with the product that you're actually selling. And that ties very well as well with my second phase. The second phase is called Engaged. And that's really about creating an email marketing strategy. Now you might tell me, you know, Isabel, we're supposed to talk about Pinterest here. Why are we talking about email marketing? And really, it's because I don't want you to start driving traffic to your site until you have a strong email marketing strategy in place. Because what's the point of driving traffic if you're not actually capturing them as part of your email strategy and developing that know like and trust factor, right? So one thing I really want you to think about when you're creating your freebie is I want you to create that freebie with the objective of stirring desire for your paid products. Because that's really at the end of the day what we're doing. So what do I mean by that? When you start with your product, maybe it's a course about how to start a garden or a course about dating or what have you. I want you to think about what are the first few steps that somebody would need to do to as a prerequisite for your paid product that will help you create and stir desire for your paid product because you will allow them to feel that they can take a first few steps that will allow them to really get a quick win, right? They will feel like they can finally do this, like they're able to do it. Often you will find that the reject or the objections to buying your course will be that they'll say, I don't know that I can do this. I don't know that I have what it takes. I don't know that I'm ready. And your freebie really needs to be there to help overcome that first objection. So I really want you to create a freebie or lead magnet or an opt in or whatever you call it that would include like three to five steps that will help them to achieve those quick wins and that is in direct relation with your paid product. Now the third phase that I want you to look into is the growth phase. So now that you've got your traction formula, you've got the right people in the door, you've got the, your email marketing strategy is nailed down. Now it is time to start driving traffic to your site using Pinterest. And I want you to use innovative marketing strategies because a lot of this old stuff doesn't work anymore. So for example, you may heard that people tell you to pin manually, to join more group board to pin more often. These are old strategies that don't work anymore with the things that work now on. Pinterest is more related to using automation tools, to using mutually beneficial communities. And what I mean by mutual beneficial communities is very specifically talent tribes. Talent tribes are such an amazing tool and what they are, they are a group of people of business owners that get together and that exchange each other's pins, they share each other pins onto their own profile. And that really allows you to get your content in front of other people's content and that allows you to dramatically increase your reach and your audience. So that would be the Phase three, that's really when you can start growing in driving more traffic to your site. And then the fourth phase is accelerate. So that's really when we start adding fuel to your growth. And we do that using Pinterest ads. So advertising platforms. And I know that Destiny had some question about ads, so I'll just, I won't talk too much about that phase of it and I'll let you ask your question if that's good with you.

Well, I mean, you actually did lead right into my next question. So the attraction stage, the engaged stage, the growth phase, when we talked about the tailwind tribes and I, you know, I just wanted to make one comment on that. I'm actually in 10, 10 tribes right now. And I will say that being in those tribes to your point, that is where I have seen that my growth, you know, traffic to my website, that is where I've seen that high amount of growth. And I can honestly say if I was not in those tribes, and these are mutually beneficial type tribes. Right. I'm sharing their information, they're sharing mine. And when you go in there and look at some of those pins in some of those tribes that I've been in, you know, my stuff's been shared a lot. I think some of it getting, you know, definitely into the thousands, if not more.

Absolutely, absolutely. They're beautiful thing. And it's all automated as well. Right. So it's a very quick way to reach a lot of people, a lot of. And using the audience of other people basically that share the same audience that you have and really drive so much engagement for such a little time investment. They're absolutely beautiful thing to leverage for Pinterest. Absolutely.

So let's jump right into paid advertising on Pinterest. I've done a little bit myself. I don't necessarily consider myself an expert in it, but I think I figured some of this stuff out. But first, let's talk with who should consider Pinterest ads.

Absolutely. So I want you to start considering Pinterest ads once you've got your, the first three phase that we talked about. Once you got your attraction strategy, your engagement strategy and your growth strategy figured out, once you start organically knowing how to drive traffic using Pinterest, then it's time to start adding money to the fuel. I see too many people going straight into ads when they don't really have a strong understanding of how to use it organically first. So I want you to start having your, like I said, interaction, engagement and growth strategy really figured out before you Start investing money.

So do Pinterest ads really even work? Have you seen success in them for either your clients or your students or yourself?

Absolutely, absolutely. They really, really do work very, very well. Of course, you need to know what you're doing. Right. As with anything. And here's a funny story for you. I've actually started seeing some Facebook advertising specialists starting using Pinterest ads to advertise their Facebook ads course. So that's interesting.

You know, I'll have to definitely look into that.

Exactly as we're seeing, you know, if, if. And I'm sure you have destiny, any Facebook advertising or Instagram advertising. It's. It's a rising platform that's really expensive. Right? The costs are rising on those platforms and I'm not seeing the cost raising as much on Pinterest. It's a relatively new platform, It's a few years old, but it's very efficient in terms of there's not as many competition on them. So the costs are still relatively cheap. And right now is a really, really good time to take advantage of that. So while Facebook and Instagram, you know, it can cost like $2.50 or whatever to have a lead on Facebook ads or Instagram ads on Pinterest, it is not the case. What I've seen for myself as well as for my students and my clients, the lead acquisition costs on Pinterest are much, much, much lower.

Very good. So tell me about mistakes that you might see people making with their ads. Can you give us some hints on maybe how to set them up and things to avoid?

Absolutely. So what I'm seeing people making mistakes. Especially first of all, if you're using, you know, there's just like you would see on Facebook and Instagram, there's like this boost button on Pinterest, it's like a promote pin button. Do not hit that button.

Okay, that's good to know.

That is not a good thing to do because it's not an optimized strategy. The second thing that I see a lot of people make mistakes on Pinterest is they'll start driving engagement ads. Now these what an engagement ad on Pinterest is, is basically you're driving clicks. Sorry, you're driving repins. Save or clicks or close up, which basically mean either somebody saved it or they made the pin bigger and you're paying for that. It's a very poor use of the platform. The objective that I recommend almost like 99,9% of the time is to use the traffic objective. So right there, from the get Go. That makes it much, much easier. And the other thing also that I'm seeing a lot of people make mistakes on Pinterest ads is they'll start especially I see that with beginners, they'll start adding and investing in ads without having a clear strategy before going in, without having a clear funnel. Now you don't need like, you know, anything fancy or you don't need this complex, you know, six step funnel or anything. But you need to have at least, you know, what's your content, what are you driving your ad to and what is the objective of that ad? Is it to grow your email list? Is it to sell a tripwire? Is it to just drive traffic for the sake of traffic? So you need to have a clear path in terms of how will you monetize that ad. So that would be another third mistake that I would see a lot of people make with Pinterest ads.

So do you see a lot of people selling directly from the Pinterest ad, like going directly to like a tripwire?

The tripwire strategy is a very efficient one. It depends though, if the actual path to it makes sense. Right. So does the content actually lead in a very kind of organic and effortlessly way into the tripwire that you've set up, then that can be profitable? I've done that in the past and it worked very well for me. I had a tripwire strategy and that worked very well. But it needs to have a very clear link into both. Right. So I'm seeing some people driving traffic to a piece of content and then it goes into a tripwire. That doesn't really make sense as a second step, if you see what I mean.

Yeah, yeah, sure. Well, let's just say that, you know, people listening here, like, you know, Isabel, you have absolutely sold me. I definitely want to look at utilizing Pinterest to grow my online course business. So what can the course creators do right now to start using Pinterest to successfully attract students into their online course?

Absolutely. So I have created a free Pinterest roadmap and includes five easy steps to get started successfully. Because I want you to not waste any time trying to figure it out or doing it the wrong way. Not. None of us were so busy, right? We don't have time to waste. So I've created a free roadmap. It's got five easy steps to use Pinterest successfully. Even if you have already started, I think you might be interested in seeing some steps that you may have missed. Now you can get it for free. It's that fabpinformula.com so fabf a b pinpinformula.com and you can get it there for free.

Thank you so much. And thanks so much, Isabel, for sharing your expertise with us today. Like I said, I absolutely love Pinterest and I think for a lot of course creators out there who are just starting their online course business or really need to drive traffic to their site and they might not be getting that traffic yet from Google, I think Pinterest is definitely something that they need to check out. So can you tell people people how to find you before we close it out today?

Absolutely. So they can go on my site. It's isabelle.com so I'll spell that for you guys.

French Canadian in the notes here on the podcast.

Awesome. Perfect. Thank you so much, Destiny. I really appreciate it was an absolute pleasure for me to be here with you today and I'm looking forward to seeing what your audience will be doing with this with the content. So I'm looking forward to more people using the power of Pinterest.

Thanks so much, Isabel. Course creators out there. I hope you enjoyed this episode today. And again, I will include all the links in the show notes just so you have them. Would love it if you could rate and review our podcast on itunes. Have a great rest of your day. Bye for now.