163: Pins to Cash: Selling Digital Products on Pinterest

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I hope you enjoy our episode today and my special guest today is Kate All. Kate is the owner of Simple Pen Media, a Pinterest marketing agency. And I wanted to bring her on to chat with her today. And I'll tell you kind of what sparked this whole conversation. I'm on Kate's email list. I've been on it for many, many years. And in her weekly newsletter I saw a YouTube video in there which was how to Sell Digital Products on Pinterest. So I went to that YouTube video and watched it. I've actually watched it several times since then and I was like, you know what, I have got to get Kate on the podcast because I know that all of you guys are going to be super, super interested in this. So Kate, as you know, I have a ton of questions for you, but before we get into all of those, can you tell the audience just a little bit more about you?

Yeah. And I love that. I love that you watched it multiple times. I have to say I was like, yes, more views for us on YouTube. So we're a Pinterest marketing and management agency. We've been doing it now for 10 years. So I like to think of myself as a Pinterest educator, but also a little bit of a Pinterest historian. Like what have we seen on the platform? What changes have we seen and how are we going forward? And I find that Pinterest, when they communicate information to clients, creators or sellers, there seems to be this lost in translation, it feels like too marketing speak or to corporate speak. So we like to take what we're hearing from Pinterest, distill it down into really actionable items that don't overwhelm people in their business because we have limited time and we don't want to sift through everything. So our goal is to really make Pinterest marketing approachable, efficient and really productive for your business.

And I can say that I definitely rely on you for that. And if anybody's been listening to this or been on my email list, you know that one of my goals this year is to place a lot of emphasis on Pinterest. And I know a lot of you are also interested in this. I know there's been a lot of Google changes, SEO changes. So we're looking for other avenues to kind of drive that organic traffic to our website. And I am focused on it for Pinterest. I have three different Pinterest accounts. And we're definitely going to kind of get into some of the questions that I have for Kate here. But one of the things that I found interesting, Kate, when I was watching your video and you mentioned this at the very beginning of it, and of course the video was all about how to sell digital products on Pinterest, but you also mentioned you can't sell them on Facebook or Instagram and I was like, you know what, that is true because I do have two Shopify stores and I know I can connect my catalog and sell them on, you know, sell them on Pinterest, but they don't allow digital products on Facebook and Instagram to be sold. Is that, am I understanding that correctly?

Yeah, it's a huge bummer too, because when we've tried to like backdoor it and see if we could list our products on Facebook or on our Facebook page or even try to do it on Instagram and you can't. And I actually find that really frustrating because there's so many digital product sellers on those platforms. But Pinterest has been super friendly to digital products by saying, you bet, you can do digital, you can do physical, and we will support all integrations.

So even if somebody doesn't have a Shopify store like I do, but they have digital products, maybe they have memberships or online courses or even low cost digital products. Can you talk a little bit about why they might want to consider Pinterest in their marketing strategy.

Yeah, I would say number one is when we look at marketing options overall, we put Pinterest in the bucket of YouTube and Google. It's very much search based. It's a cold flow of traffic. And if we put Instagram over in the Warm or TikTok or Facebook, it has a completely different place in your marketing options. So what we find is that a lot of people, they might focus on Google. It tends to be the thing that we all know, we want SEO, we want to get ranked, we want to get seen, but then we kind of jump ship really quickly into the warm based marketing, forgetting that cold traffic is just as valuable as warm traffic. And so we like to tell people if you have not added Pinterest to your suite of marketing options, it's a good idea to one, go over to the platform, search your name, search the type of products to see if actually Pinterest is already hosting ideas or even people are saving your products already. And if that's the case and you see a market there, it is 100% a good idea for you to diversify. Especially with all the Google updates. The helpful content update. I know that I just talked to somebody who is worried about the March updates that are happening. So anytime you can keep a really good content or not content flow, but a traffic flow coming to your website and Pinterest provides that, we always say you should pursue that option.

So I think you made some really good points there and I can tell you that I'm all in on Pinterest. I know how important it is for my business, especially for the long term strategy of it. But let's talk about the ways that we can sell digital products on Pinterest. Even if we don't even have, you know, even if we don't have a Shopify store catalog that we can connect there, I know there are other ways that we can do that.

Yeah. So here's an example. Let's say somebody has a really great meal plan. It's all digital. When somebody signs up for it, they either get connected to a particular app, I've seen that pretty common. Or they get a PDF download each month. If we're going to use Pinterest, then what we would do is we would have a couple of different options. One, content. A blog post, either short or long, always, always helps your, your content get seen on Pinterest. Because what you don't want to do is you don't want to say here's a meal for March. Well, somebody might not be looking for that they might not be searching monthly meal plan for March, but they might be searching things on, you know, how do I make dinner every week? Is there a meal plan that works for saving money on groceries? Grocery saving meal plan. So if we go from that perspective and we target the people and where they're searching, they come to our website and read this blog post, whether short or long, and then the option is your March meal plan. Now you're taking them through this whole journey and you don't have to have a Shopify store, you don't have to have any of these connections, but you've just really bridged this gap between the pain point and the solution through this process of pinning a pin. And then it answers the question. You know, people get curious, they click on it, they come to the website, read and then they purchase the product. That's kind of our most common pathway for people who maybe don't have a Shopify store but still want to sell digital products.

So I love that. So basically taking the pin, linking it to the blog post and the other thing I just want to mention here, and this is something that I'm working on, I haven't actually done this yet, but I have it in my strategy even for my Shopify stores, having blog posts there and maybe even, you know, linking to those blog posts instead of directly to the actual product in the Shopify store. Would you say that's a good strategy?

Yes, 100%. One of the, an older example that we used, we worked with a client a couple of years ago, which feels like it was probably five, right? Like all time runs together now. But one of the things that they were selling were grief boxes. And so it would be if somebody's lost a pet or a parent or a child or anybody who's important to them, they're experiencing grief. They were able, they were, you know, they had a website where they had all their products. But what they realized is that the Pinterest user was asking the question, what do I give to somebody? What meal do I take to somebody? How do I console somebody? So they started writing these short form blog posts that attracted and solved that. You know, really the primary question here are five things you can take to somebody. But we also have these grief boxes. And what we find actually with E commerce is that yes, we want to pin our product to Pinterest, but people in Pinterest need more context. They really need back at that first pain point. They need a solution or they're curious or they're dreaming. And so I think it's really important for anybody who sells digital or physical products to really come from that vantage point of being open to writing short form blog posts. And we get a lot of pushback from people who say I don't want to do that. And it's really hard for a Pinterest strategy to work and I would argue kind of any strategy to work without a form of content that warms people up to the why of why your product even exists on the market.

So I love that and you've definitely sold me. So I have that on my to do list for my Shopify stores. I haven't gotten there yet, but it's on my to do list. So here's the next question I have for you now. A lot of people listening, they might have a course, whether it's, you know, it could be even be like a mini course or a monthly membership that might be low cost. So something that would be somewhat of a low barrier for somebody who might not know them as well, maybe coming from Pinterest. Should they pin do pins directly to their sales page or their landing pages or what would you recommend there?

Yeah, I've done this in the past too. Cause I used to have a membership. I used to have a course too as well. All before we had the Shopify store. And that's what we would do is we would lead to the the sales pages or the landing pages so that people could actually read and they could learn more about it. We actually found when we tested those compared to a blog post or even compared to like a simple email opt in, it was really hard to get people to convert. We found that a lot of people were, were there but they weren't really saying yes. Some of that could be price point. We do find that anything less than $30 or anything on the consumer side if it's less than $20 is kind of an easy yes when it comes to business to business products. It's a little bit tougher, you can do a little bit higher. But I would say that to the landing page, which is the sales page. But really get crafty about maybe a really cool email lead magnet that's free and then down the funnel or down the nurture sequence, then there's more conversation about the product and they might be more open to buying it because they've been nurtured by you. So try a bunch of different things. And that's what I tell people as well is that your data will tell you what's working or not working. So really trying to dig in and say, okay, I'm going to try pinning to my landing page for three months and I'm just going to see how many sales I get. I'm going to see, you know, how many people land on it, do I get any sales after they land on it? And maybe at the same time, I'm also going to pinpins to my email lead magnet that leads to the purchase and I'm just going to be able to compare and contrast what worked and what didn't work. And a lot of people will try it for a couple of weeks and then they're like, oh my gosh, this is not doing anything. But Pinterest traffic is really slow. So that's why we always tell people, give it a good three months to get good information and good data about what you would keep doing or what you will stop doing.

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So I love that and I like what you said about kind of testing it and maybe, maybe one of as you were talking about that, one of the things that came up my mind, try the lead magnet and then maybe have a tripwire. That's another thing.

Yeah, we've done that too as well. That's been an interesting test. I highly recommend that.

Okay, so let's talk about connecting or doing pins directly to our products. Let's just say we have a Shopify store and I'm assuming this works. I don't know anything about Woocommerce. I'm sure you do. I'm assuming this works with like Woocommerce and stuff.

It does.

Okay, so walk us through how that works and how do we set that up so that it works.

Right. So Pinterest has tried to get super smooth about the integrations. I Think It's Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce. There might be a new one that is like Adobe Commerce. I think I heard that was coming down the pike. And what this means is that Pinterest has like a simple turn it off and turn it on button. Like it's. If you add the code kind of. I am not a techie person. So when we went through this, it was kind of. We went into the Shopify back end and did a few things and voila, it was like all connected. So when you connect through those integrations, you get what is called product pins. You can also get product pins when you upload your catalog. Let's say you have a different site that you sell on that's not part of the quote unquote approved integrations that Pinterest has. When that happens, you allow your products to be updated and refreshed every 24 hours into these product pins, which is pretty cool because for a lot of sellers for a long time, the main frustration was my price has changed, my items have gone out of stock, and I have all these pins out on Pinterest and how do I get rid of them? And you really couldn't because people would pin it. And then once it's out in the ecosystem, it's just out there. Whereas if you update your catalog, since it refreshes every 24 hours, then all of a sudden that will update. And if you're out of stock on an item, all those pins get removed from the platform. So that's like the auto way that it's done. A product pin just gets pulled from your product listing. It kind of does without you doing anything. Now there's another option that you have more control over, and this is creating your own image from scratch. We will usually use Canva. It's always going to be a two to three ratio. It's a vertical pin. And we might do either lifestyle shots. So even if you have a PDF, we've had many photo shoots where we print off our PDFs and we take them to the photo shoots so that people can see them either open on a table or open on an iPad. It looks like it's a desk. And we have a little more context by using text overlay, which the product pin that is automatic will not have that. So in this way I can decide, okay, I want to create a pin that leads to my Pinterest planner. It's in my shop. People can either get it digitally or they can actually have it printed and shipped to them. And I can show what it looks like. I'll upload that pin to Pinterest and then I'll link to that shop listing. So that image doesn't live on the shop listing, but the image on Pinterest gives it way more context.

So that is related to connecting our catalog, correct?

Yeah. When you connect your catalog with you'll get the product pins.

That is correct, but that is different from being a verified merchant. Can you explain how all that works? Because I think that's confusing to folks.

Oh, so confusing. I really wish Pinterest would tighten up their speaking of wording, tighten up their wording so you can connect your catalog, you can connect your Shopify. You can do all of that at any time. Now, if you want to become a verified merchant with Pinterest, which essentially gives you the blue check mark, we all like fawn over blue check marks whenever we can get them. Then you would apply to be a verified merchant, which means Pinterest is going to be looking at all of the details of your shop. They want to know your shipping terms, your return terms, your address. They want to make sure that if they are putting their blue check mark, their stamp on your Pinterest profile, then they're saying, we approve this shop so you can apply for them verified merchant. And it'll walk you through the steps of what you need to do. And then it is a little bit. Here's kind of some pitfalls. You can only apply once and appeal twice. So before you apply, make sure you go through their checklist. It changes every so often about what Pinterest needs. And if you don't have any of your information public, we've even had people denied because their LLC name was different than their shop name. It's kind of a whole rigmarole. But when you do get verified merchant, you get the blue check mark. It says what your shop is. And I don't believe there's any extra analytics information that you get. I still think you can get that with uploading your catalog manually or even through the integrations. You don't necessarily have to be a verified merchant to get access to all of the analytics. It's really just Pinterest saying we approve you and we support you as a shop on Pinterest.

So all good information. I love the fact that you don't. You can still connect your catalog without being a verified merchant. So thanks for clarifying that. Now tell us a little bit about video. How can we use video to sell our products on Pinterest?

Yeah, Video is having it's really interesting right now. I'll say. Video had this really big boom. It was doing really well for a lot of our clients. And on Pinterest, a video that's less than a minute, 30, even less than a minute, is always going to do really well because people on Pinterest, they scroll by really fast. One thing to note is that videos don't always autoplay when you're scrolling through. So sometimes people don't know it's a video unless it has a little timer in the upper left. And then sometimes, well, all, all the time, it won't play with sound. So it's really important to note that video is, I guess, an important component to your Pinterest marketing. But it feels like right now static images seem to be doing better than video. However, we do have a few outlying accounts where they've uploaded potentially like repurposed reels or YouTube shorts or even TikToks. Whenever you upload to Pinterest with your video, please, please, please remove any watermark. Just like every platform, they don't want someone else's watermark on the video. But once you upload it, you can link to whatever place you want it to go. You just want to make sure you optimize the pin title and the pin description. And it's really important to use text on the actual video. We were just at a conference and we were looking at some people's videos and a lot of times people would do the video but they would forget either captions or they would forget text that went over the top because they assumed people were listening to it. But especially on Pinterest, people are not listening. Like it's kind of a barrier to get people to turn on the sound more so than it would be on Instagram. So using, I think we use Cap Cut is one that we like. And then Opus AI is another tool, but just have either a cover image to start buzzy words throughout the video, something that's going to kind of captivate their attention.

So that's good information. People aren't aren't listening to your videos on Pinterest. Kate, before we wrap it up here, do you have any last minute tips for the audience?

Yeah, I would say in having conversations with other business owners right now, I know that there are so many options for you to choose when it comes to your marketing. In fact, it's so overwhelming sometimes. I find it for me as a business owner super overwhelming too. But I always tell people you want to make sure you have at least two traffic drivers and two Audience drivers. And I find right now that Google, with its moment of ups and downs, some people choose YouTube and some people choose Pinterest. If you have never investigated Pinterest as an option for your business, I would highly encourage you to do so because it still does drive traffic. When we look at analytics of business owners, we see Google and Pinterest, especially if they've been using Pinterest, tend to be in the top two traffic drivers. And that is organic for free traffic that is not paid. Whereas we see on Instagram or Facebook, there isn't. Those aren't big traffic drivers. So if you have not tested Pinterest to see if it can be a good option, I would highly encourage you to do so and then just spend at least six to nine months playing around with it, testing it, seeing how it works and how it doesn't work. And then you can of course listen to my podcast and figure out how you can test and try different things. But I think most of all, I just want to tell business owners that are landscape of marketing tools is shifting and changing so fast and it feels like it's every other Tuesday, that it's really important to grab onto something and just hold on to it for a little bit, test it, try it and see if it's going to drive the results that your business needs right now.

And I can attest to what you're saying in terms of Google and Pinterest being my biggest organic traffic strategies, which is why I place so much emphasis on it. So, Kate, thank you so much for joining us today. Can you let everybody know where they can find you and definitely let them know about your podcast and your YouTube channel?

Yeah. So we have the Simple Pin podcast. You can find that on all players. Go ahead and subscribe to that. And then YouTube has been, I would say, like our test. You know, I identify with people who are testing out Pinterest this year. YouTube has been the thing for us that we've diversified into and really trying to get feedback about what videos people need. So you can find us over there at simplepin Media. And then my website is simplepin Media. We have the newsletter that you get every Wednesday too. And that's just a really brief overview of what's happening in the news, what things have changed. My kind of thoughts about Pinterest marketing. And I'm in the weeds with you. So even right now, our Pinterest traffic has taken a weird dive. We're trying to figure it out. It is definitely not something that I just teach on, but we definitely practice.

In the day to day and I'll make sure that those links are in the show notes. And Kate, thank you so much for chatting with me today. I loved our conversation.

Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

Thanks for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed this episode today. If you love the show, I'd appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform.

Have a great rest of your day.

And bye for now.