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Q&A & Student Hot Seat

Lesson 37 from: Unlock the Power of Pinterest

Melanie Duncan

Q&A & Student Hot Seat

Lesson 37 from: Unlock the Power of Pinterest

Melanie Duncan

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Lesson Info

37. Q&A & Student Hot Seat

Lessons

Class Trailer

Day 1

1

Bonus Video with Purchase: Create/Convert to a Business Account

07:39
2

Bonus Video wtih Purchase: Business Resource Center

04:25
3

Bonus Video With Purchase: Your Profile

06:27
4

Bonus Video With Purchase: How to Create Boards

10:16
5

Bonus Video With Purchase: How to Edit Your Pins

03:17
6

Bonus Video With Purchase: How to Follow

02:01
7

Bonus Video With Purchase: How to Pin

07:46

Lesson Info

Q&A & Student Hot Seat

Okay, Awesome. Well, first of all, people are giving their ideas already for what they're going to do. We have, Durie says, behind the scenes. I just did it on Facebook. I'm about to do it on Pinterest, and I will definitely work on my testimonials board. This weekend, Lovett and Bergen Co. 24 made an about page. I'm so happy to hear that. Here's a kind of a general Natalie Hickson wants to know a little more about about branding. Is it the look of you and your website or the message both making sure it's all the same on every platform? Can you give us a little more? D All of the above, I'm definitely not an official branding expert. I do spend a lot of time studying and working people in their brands. It's definitely the visuals matching up with the text, also matching up with consistency. So I know and I'm so excited. Christine's gonna do a full session on this after lunch, and she is truly a branding expert. But she will tell you that you know it is the images. You use the language ...

that you parrot those images and then also making sure that it's consistent. You know, I talk to you about Pinterest, making sure that the pin looks kind of similar to what they're gonna experience on your website. So it feels like a consistent journey. It's a smooth transition, a lot of your pins. You want to try to keep them if possible, and similar brand colors is on your website. So it feels like a similar experience. But that's all. Three of those were critical to Brandon Great Kate Creative wants to know if you should include multiple calls to action in your emails or just limit your called action toe. One thing. Fantastic question. And there are different schools of thought on that. I tend to very, very strongly recommend one called Action. You'll see a newsletter format is popular sometimes where people do like a weekly newsletter, and there's like content. There's ads on the side. There might be like check out this article and I also recommend this article, and then I have a training down here. I think when called action is always strongest way. But that being said you have to have a strategy that you know each step of the way because you don't wanna have Onley one called action if you don't really know how that plays into your overall goal, and we'll be talking on this a lot after lunch, talking about identifying these main goals and then cream that plan around it that gets the results. So it is very, very important. Teoh actually be able to understand what you're trying to achieve and then explain it very clearly and concisely with one called the action to your email reader. A couple of questions from Pretty Kitty when you were talking about getting the emails are getting images of people using our products or services. Yep, What do you recommend as the best practice? Asked them to email them to us, ask them to directly put them on a Pinterest board or what I say. You know, it's really funny because when I started to collect images for luxury monograms, for example, I just kind of put something on our Facebook page and was like, Hey, you know what it stemmed from? I'm just remembering is a customer sent me a photo so unsolicited Ah, customer sent me a photo. Oh my God, I love my pillow shams. So much like here, took a picture and send it to me, and I went, well, that's really cool. So I then went on our social and reach out to people and said, Hey, you know, if you use our items in your home, we'd love to see what they look like. Send us a picture. And I think at that point since it was new, we offered people. We said If you send us an image will give you a 10% coupon on your next order. So there was some sort of additional incentive, but for us, it was really valuable. And once other people so months after that, more and more people kept submitting it because we kept featuring stuff on our Facebook page on our Pinterest page, they would see, Oh, this company features pictures of their customers using stuff. So then we didn't have to ask for it as much because they were exceeded across the brand experience again. We don't put it on our website because it's not really an optimization for us on our actual Web page, but it is something sometimes they're so feel put on social media or you'll email out. It's kind of like a round up or something that you don't necessarily have to have a tab on your Web site. And but the more customers see that you do that, the more will naturally submit and voluntarily participate in that time capsule. Is there a legal form to keep on file to use for somebody's testimonial? Their images, etcetera. Do you need to get that clearance? That is the perfect Segway into my I'm not a lawyer. E take no responsibility for anything I say. No, I'm kidding. I do not know the official protocol. I do know what testimonials that can be, something that would be really aware of. I have something I learned. It's kind of interesting for a product page, so you have a testimonial from one student for one of your courses, and you want to use their testimonial on a sales page for a new course you just launched. You have to clearly explain these are results from X course, not the course listed on this page, and in most cases you actually don't want to use testimonials from another product or service and use them to sell something that's different. It could be the same thing. If your wedding photographer and you're selling more wedding photography packages, you could, of course, use a client testimonial from that. But I'm speaking strictly like information products or something like that. You want to use testimonials that pertain toe what you're selling. That's a legal thing I have to be aware of. But in terms of using people's testimonials, you always want to ask them. Let them know what it's going to be used for. Like you've heard me talk about earlier. I think it was on Day two or Day one. I always do a link or talk about their website in the testimonial, so they get some promotion for it. If you change what they say, you alter it. You have to have it approved by them. You can't just twist their words or shift their numbers a little bit and sneak that in there. It has to be directly from them or you can collaborate on it. I believe that's what I know, at least that you can collaborate as long as they give final approval for their words and their likeness being used. So I'm totally putting her on the spot here But Rachel told me earlier that she launched a Pinterest contest. Would you want to come up and maybe look at it and talk about it a little bit? Perfect. So I love this and we're giving people little sneak peek because we were talking about doing some before and afters. So you kind of want to explain the contest? Kind of walk us through what you're going to dio? Yeah. If you click on the I made aboard. Oh, perfect island. I've made a launch. Of course they don't. They don't have quite so many things have only run one contests on the contest board. Only has one thing on it. We can talk about them, but yeah, I made this last night. I made. If you click through that goes to my website. Right, um, to an often page. Yeah, uh, my option pages age and yeah, I just kind of took what you said and applied it. Uh, a. Okay, you've got to get I have to get better. I haven't known what to write in all of those small places that you need to write. Yeah, and that's what you said also is like wanting to know that overall strategy for your email. Like what? You should be providing them. So this particular business tell us a little about your business, just so I can really think of specific examples. So I do. I have training as a graphic designer, and in the last year I've been focusing my company to do branding. So I dio work with entrepreneurs, newer entrepreneurs and help them identify the brand kind of coach them through the branding process and then walked him through Ah, complete decided package. So print and Web and the smoldering So they have this really cohesive package. Love that. So that's great. So something, you know, knowing your audience and what they need, You know, maybe I a lot of people default, Mike. Oh, give him a free consultation. But like I said, some people aren't ready for that. They don't even know what they want Right now, my idea for something free is ah, workbook like a brother. Like how to start your brand, how to start from scratch and the fact that you know the particular niche I love. That's very important because some people will say I want help. Business owners, men women, Children, fish, everyone and it can be very hard and a lot of people will do that. And I'll say, Well, what are the What are the advantages of going general versus going very niche? And I think, actually can And I were talking of this with, like, courses, whether you wanted to like, Here's an all my marketing course versus Here's a Pinterest course and there are very specific advantages to narrowing the markets. There are different schools of thought, but I have found my personal experience that when you narrate a little bit and focus, I love that you're focusing on like first time or newer entrepreneurs. First says people who've been friends for 10 years or multi. You know, serial entrepreneurs. It's cool that you know their people starting out because you know what their pain points they're going to be. You probably know what the common questions are. The climate hurdles so workbook would be perfect, cause you could take some of that insight you have about your customer base, like you know, here the most common mistakes, you know, five most common mistakes. First time entrepreneurs make you know, and I know sometimes I do a lot of coffee writing, and sometimes it's easy to default into negative because it provokes curiosity and insight. But you don't have to go down that way. But you know, something like that where people are going. Oh, have mistakes. Almost people make them. I might be making one of those. Like, I want to check it out, But I do. I love it. You're doing a pop up. I do think that's really cool. And then we've got your pennant toe win it contest. Okay, So do you want to kind of explain like I love it? Looks like you got all the buttons. Good for you, girl. But I love it is so rare to see people take action quickly. It really is. And so whenever I see someone that just doesn't just gets in there and doesn't I just know you're destined for amazing things because it's so rare people to do this. Yeah, so I just I mean, put it together and maybe two hours went and Googled Pinterest buttons. Yes. Pretty easy put together. Just, uh, my website weren't WordPress, so I just started a new page and yeah, that's it's really not my goal with it. Isn't Teoh have a bunch of pins or something? It's just to get new followers on Pinterest and a new names on my list. I think that's beautiful, though, and we talked about when we're talking about contests. Yesterday we talked about most Pinterest contests have, like six things were supposed to dio, and most people will be totally turned off by that. Like I don't want to do about stupid stuff. It's confusing. It takes too long. And so I love that you're isolating one or two specific goals followers and email. And, you know, and this is, you know, maybe I don't have to go pin stuff from a site. Maybe I don't have to create a board for this, but still follow me. And then here's the contest pin and then go ahead and, you know, enter your name and email below and even email, and this is something great to point out. You don't always have to ask for name and email. There's a lot of split testing that companies dio normally Mawr. People discuss. It's easier. We'll give you just a email address, but sometimes you want to use name and email like I do a lot of auto forms with our email marketing where the name is not on Lee inserted, if not only inserted like deer Melanie. But there's also ways to insert it in the body of the email, so it feels extremely conversational, so it depends on your strategy. This is great for less building because more people will give you an email. Dress codes faster. It's easier, but some people do choose name and email cause they strategically use name in their marketing process. But that's awesome. And how hard was it to plug in this form? It's pretty simple, right? I use a Weber, so you just go and create a form with them and then copy it over. And that's what I recommend. I mean, I I use a Weber. Still, for a lot of our product businesses, it's, I think, very scalable where it's it's mostly user from Lambda Thing. Easiest thing. But I know how to use a Web. Or even though like we have an infusion soft account, I don't even I mean, I think I don't have a log in, and then after that, I have a panic attack. It's a little. It's a little intense, but I think a Weber is a step beyond from my personal experience, like mail chimp or something where they don't quite have wanted something in the middle. Yes, so for those of you that are kind of in the middle on, we were talking earlier about different platforms. A Weber is kind of a good graduation, Teoh. Okay, you know, male chimp is good if you're kind of using it just to collect a database of emails. But if you are going to eventually and here's here's the kind of the the kicker, it's really hard to integrate. Like if you start with male chimp and then you want to switch over to a Weber, it's hard to do it because people have too often they to double often again and you can lose contact. So it's good to start in something like a Weber that you congrats oh into and not think like oldest. Do the easiest stay and then I'll move everyone over. Once I want to start doing more auto responders or segmentation, which at a certain point your business, you really will want to dio So I love you use a Weber. I really recommend a Weber. Um and I love how you're setting this contest So the main things are just three steps Love three nice and clean follows on Pinterest Click here to follow me We talked about the ease of entry is really important not just saying Oh, go find me somewhere on Pinterest and follow me But like click right here specifically reap in this contest pen which I'm assuming is this particular piss? It's the longer one It's the other one optimized for Pinterest Okay, so cool. Did you guys see how this plug in works? I was showing you on my example earlier, but it was a screenshot. So I love that you did it so we can show it. So when you click it it auto generates the contest pin so that you can choose an optimized pin like she did that is tall that has a border that has text overlay. It's her images. She can decide that I think there's a logo of the butternut logo but the u R l at the bottom And this is cool because the third step is to have them share the contest pin So if you're gonna have him do it, you want to be a good pin. And I love this and you've got I love your caption. When a two hour hearty meat and potato session with Rachel and then you can clear. You can tell you spent some time in Michigan. A good mean potato session I love it s so that you can clarify your brand, feel more confident your business and get more great clients. And the link. Rachel is a great listener. Go ahead and put that link in your captions. It'll automatically hyperlinks. So if I was going to pin this I don't know why I appended to my about me board. Um, we'll go see her right now, so I'm actually gonna edit this. So it goes on my contest one of my Pinterest marketing boards and you guys can all see how to edit a pin right now. So since I pin this to the wrong board, all I'm gonna dio is scroll down. I'm actually I think I have a Pinterest marketing board marketing mastery, pin marketing ideas, Pinterest contests. So I might choose Pinterest contest. I'm going to save changes. And now This is on my Pinterest contest board. So for you is watching out there. You can win. Ah, hearty meat and potatoes session with Rachel, which I just love. But you've done a great job. Somebody give you some feedback? You're I mean, I really love what you're doing. I wanna look at the image a little bit more. Yeah, that was something I just kind of Of course, yeah. No, You see me sometimes after bringing Kristina. I love having Christine here because she's so amazing. But her visuals are incredible. But I told understand, Like, I've just put stuff out there and get it together. You can always go back and tweak it. I think the most important thing, honestly, it's just taking action. Moving forward. So you've got the black border order yet? The blackboard of the branding Little all light here. But I think that's okay, cause that's not your main Your main called action, right? We talked about how using pin it to win it. The terminology is actually really good because it helps people identify. It's a Pinterest contest. And you said that one of the common objections is that it's hard to enter these. So I have little button that It's easy. Oh, that's great. Well, that's what it said. Yeah, I'm very readable from back here and like, baby, but I do see how if it was on your screen, that is easy to see that. So let's actually just look at your Pinterest board. Yeah, I It was entirely a personal Pinterest board. Um, and I last night went in and kind of cold through and and re we worked it. I wish I had thought of it earlier. I took before screenshot. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, I would, since you have a contest board. And I know you did this last night, so you're gonna have more time to work on it. But I would definitely have at least five pins on this board and I So I think what would you put? I have no idea what so many other things I would put on this board. Of course you wanna have this. I would probably have either a picture of you like working some sort of visual representation. Maybe if there's a picture of you on a client working together, even I hate going here, but I do it sometimes like a stock image, like maybe a cool picture like a computer and a notebook or something to sign the Phil. Just something. Yeah, that's kind of like when you know, free consultation. Or sometimes I do something in the top. That's like attention. First time entrepreneurs or something that kind of people look at and they go, that's me. Yes, and so just a couple more graphics here again, this is the most important cause that's or whatever people are gonna be repainting and sharing. But since you will be getting some people to your Pinterest page, I'm just having that board a little bit more filled out, even though those aren't necessarily the pins that are going to drive the most traffic. But it's also good because for the rest of the next, it's a two week long contest, Right, which we talked about two weeks, is a really good length for a contest. You know, up to you every day you could pin a new contest pin, and it might not be this one over and over again. But maybe one of them is like we talked about like a graphic representation. It might be something that shows you working with someone. It might be this same pin, just a different color, a different layout, just changing up a little bit so that you'll slowly kind of add to it and fill it out. But like I said, these contests boards like the one on my page. Let me show you. Ours is more filled out because we actually had them pin from from the actual board. So our board had deleted it. It was on luxury monograms, but our board actually had a lot of the products that they were supposed to shoes from. What I should show you is our service one. We took a peek out yesterday because we talked about having them share more articles. You know, maybe you could work in the contest into some of your content, right? Some cool stuff, things that you know are really going to resonate with your audience. Like talking about even that free report. We'll be right. A few blawg posts that talk about first time beginning mistakes of entrepreneurs. Pin those and you don't have unnecessary Doosan image. But the bottom of the blawg post talk about Hey, we're actually running a contest right now for the next two weeks, and you can enter right here. So how about any feedback from the audience worldwide audience thinking maybe you could do like another teaser and just go a little bit more into this is what we'll go over, you'll learn to, and you could just put like an image of that inside the pin. You know, absolutely. It's really good, though. Valerie. I s Solutions for you is suggesting Rachel to add the Pinterest button to your home page Sheila in Austin, who apparently has entered the contact, was okay. When will I find out if I want? So that's great. So again, her Pinterest page, For some reason, I'm like, not able to go back to it. But it's just Rachel Rolston's so interest dot com. Easiest way to find it is Pinterest dot com forward slash Rachel Ralston Regional e l and then r a l s t o n Great. Great. Well, thank you again, Rachel, for letting us do that for you. Let's give her a round way when we come back. Guess who's gonna be back today who it is. Christine and I actually took a peek at some of her slides because they're after my own. The slide deck here, it's gonna be an amazing amazing session. So on day one, actually, Christine was here with us, talking about using images and brand Dene. And if you tune into that, you probably got a hint of her incredible brand expertise. She works with photographers, artists, graphic artists, kind of everyone I've seen like cupcakes, cupcake shops, e commerce product owners. And she helped them create a visual brand identity. And so what she's going to do and she comes back is talk about that talk about how you actually can create a brand identity. You know how you can grab people with your content. She's going to show us how to actually use the graphics pack that you get for purchasing this course. So all of these amazing resource is that I told you before I spent $1000 on to give us a bonus for one of my products she made for you that is free with purchase of the course. Should I walk you through how to create that content, how to use that graphics pack? And she's also do some amazing and really valuable brand evaluations. I think she's gonna work with Adam in particular. I know maybe Mawr and show you her conceptual process of creating a really effective visual brand.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Post Design Elements.zip

bonus material with enrollment

MDBusinessPinterestH264.mov
How To Get Lots of Pinterest Followers Fast.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

What an incredible amount of GREAT information that Melanie gives in this course! I couldn't watch it all live, but I saw enough in about 30 minutes to know I had to have it and so I bought it and it is worth EVERY PENNY! I can't wait to start utilizing all the great info to make my Pinterest boards work for me and have more fun pinning! Thank you CreativeLive and Melanie!

Stamperdog
 

So glad I saw this and got it to keep. With just a few tweaks, I turned my non-active boards into active boards and quadrupled my followers in just a few days. This spilled over into site traffic AND major lead generation for my mailing list. Thanks for the inspiration, Melanie.

Michelle Smith
 

Awesome learnt so much thank u

Student Work

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