Guest Blog by Jana Roe Osofsky

And who am I? So glad you asked… Hello… I’m Jana O! I’m a Pinterest marketing expert and educator… and I’m a guest blogger around here! 

Jono and I have known each other for a bit now, and we often collaborate – because we have similar business values and similar audiences, too. So, when he asked me to pop over and write this guest post… all about how to sell on Pinterest – for course creators – I was like, “Heck yes!” 

So here I am! And in this post, I’ll be sharing what you need to know about selling on Pinterest – as a course creator. I’ll cover…

• Pinning your course sales page to Pinterest 
• How to use Pinterest to grow an engaged email list 
• How to get more ideal buyers to see your amazing long-form content – using Pinterest 
• How to grow your Youtube channel using Pinterest  
• The #1 thing you need to know about how Pinterest works – to get good results from Pinterest marketing your efforts.  

Ready? Let’s start with the answer to one of the most common questions I get about this… 

Yes, you can sell on Pinterest by pinning to your course’s sales page.  

When a course creator first starts thinking about using Pinterest to sell more courses, she often asks me… 

“So, ummm… Jana… do I just pin my course’s sales page?” 

And my answer is… “You can! It’s not the ONLY thing you’ll want to pin, but you absolutely can!” 

But let’s actually back up and start with a bit of foundational knowledge. 

Pinterest is actually a lot like Google. It’s a search engine. But when someone searches on Pinterest, instead of giving her a list of “words” like google does, it fills her search results with images. 

Let me say it louder, for those in the back. 🤣Pinterest is like Google, but with pictures. 

(This statement is admittedly a bit of an over-simplification, but it’s true at its core. And it’s a really important thing to keep in mind as marketers.) 

So, now you know. Now back to pinning your course’s sales page… here’s how that would work: 

Let’s say you have a course about how to use Instagram to market your hair salon. 

• You’ve added a “pin” (a picture) to Pinterest that promotes your course. 
• You’ve linked that pin to your course’s sales page. 
• You’ve used keywords in the right places on Pinterest, so when someone searches something like “hair captions instagram posts” or “social media for hair stylists,” your pin is surfaced in her search. 
• Your pin image catches her attention.
• She clicks the pin to make it bigger. 
• She follows the call to action and clicks – bringing her to your course’s sales page. 

Now, note… When she clicked on that pin, Pinterest sent her to a page on your website (your sales page, in this case). Sound familiar? It does, because…. That’s how Google works!  So, again, Pinterest is like google, but with pictures. 🤓See. I told you! 

So, yes… You can pin directly to your sales page. 

Here’s the question though…

Is that the most effective way to sell your course? Let’s look at some other things that you may want to pin… and we’ll re-visit this question in a bit. 

You can use Pinterest to grow your email list – and nurture and sell from there.

Here’s another thing you’ll want to know, as a Pinterest marketer… 

Pinterest will bring you mostly cold leads. 

Why is this? You see… On Pinterest, most people who see your pins have found them in search results, and in their smart feeds. They are NOT usually already your followers. (Very unlike on IG or on Facebook, for example.)  

So, when they see your intriguing pin and click through to your website, they are… (Drum roll please!) 🥁… cold traffic leads! (Though it’s good to note that, while they don’t usually know YOU yet, they are already interested in what you teach. We know that because they searched for something that aligned with your keywords.) 

At first, “cold traffic” may sound like a negative, but it’s actually AWESOME!  A consistent stream of new ideal clients being exposed to your genius – all day, on auto-pilot??? Yes, please!

Remember though, the other side of this coin is that they will need to be nurtured a bit. 

You’ll generally need a way to build some “know, like, and trust factor” BEFORE they’ll be ready to pull out their wallets. 

And that is where email marketing shines, in my opinion. ✨✨✨

There are certainly other ways to nurture (Facebook groups are another great way…) but overall, there are so many positives to building an engaged email list, so that’s my go-to method. 

So, how do you grow your email list with Pinterest? 

One way: You can pin your lead magnet landing pages. So, the flow goes more like this… 

You have a course about how to use Instagram to market your hair salon. 

• You’ve added a “pin” (a picture) to Pinterest that promotes your high-value, completely FREE thing that answers a burning question that your ideal audience always asks. 
• You’ve used keywords in the right places on Pinterest, so when someone searches “hair captions instagram posts” or “social media for hair stylists,” your pin is surfaced in her search. 
• She MUST have your free thing… so she clicks through to your lead magnet landing page and opts-in. 
• Your email nurture sequence or sales sequence takes over from there. 

I won’t hang out on my soapbox too much longer… because this blog post really can’t be 10,000 words… 🤣 But, the example above really shows how it’s a LOT easier to get pinners to take the next step if it’s free, and will solve a problem for them right off the bat. 

Because remember, Pinners are mostly cold leads… they might not be ready to swipe their credit cards with you. But give them something irresistible and free… and that’s another story. 

And, now here’s the part where it gets juicy, because… 

You can pin your blog posts, podcast show notes, or other content that sells your lead magnet.

These days, for some people’s audiences (you’ll know if this is true for yours!)… Even getting folks to part with their emails takes some doing. 

Truly, in today’s digital world, we are often overwhelmed as consumers by aaaaallll the information coming at us. And many of us have had less-than-stellar experiences with people’s free resources before. 

(You know you’ve downloaded a few “ultimate guides” and then been pretty let down when you opened it, ammiright? There are a lot of crappy lead magnets out there.) 

So, that’s one of the reasons that it makes sense to be creating free content (on a blog, podcast, maybe via video…) that demonstrates our expertise and begins to build some “know, like, trust” even BEFORE we even ask for the email address. 

Hence, I always encourage clients and course students to create free content that “sells” the benefits of the lead magnet itself – and to pin that content to Pinterest, too. 

And, in that same vein… 

You can pin Youtube videos that have links to your funnel entry points – and sell more courses from there. 

Youtube and course creators. We go together like peanut butter and jelly, right? 

Video is a terrific way to give value while also demonstrating your teaching style. When done well, it gives potential course students a taste of your genius and whets their appetites for more. 

If your content marketing strategy to sell more courses includes Youtube, then Pinterest is sort of a no-brainer for a few reasons… 

• If you “get” how Youtube works (as a search engine) you’ll also easily “get” Pinterest! 
• You can pin your Youtube videos directly to Pinterest
• You can repurpose them as video pins and / or idea pins, too. (There are tons of possibilities for repurposing here.)

So, yes! Pin those Youtube videos! 

My second favorite method 😉is to create a graphic image or a video image that is optimized for Pinterest – then add the link to the Youtube video when you’re pinning it. (My first favorite method is the same as above, but link to a blog post on your website – with your Youtube video embedded…) 

My Biggest Tip: You’ll sell on Pinterest more effectively – when you understand how the platform works! (So do learn it!) 

I’ve already dropped some subtle hints above (Okay, may they aren’t so subtle…😉) but it’s important to remember that Pinterest works differently than any social media platform. 

As mentioned, Pinterest is actually primarily a search engine. And it works more like Google (and even like Youtube!) than it does like Instagram, Facebook, or the like. 

To learn more about how that impacts YOUR marketing and YOUR strategy, you can head to this blog post of mine. In it, I’ll connect a lot of dots for you! And, most importantly, I’ll spell out action items for your Pinterest strategy – based on what you learn in the post. 

Thanks for reading! I hope this post helped to light your way a bit – and to answer your questions about how to sell on Pinterest – for course creators! 

You can visit me at the blog post above – or just pop over to JanaOMedia.com to say hello and check out my content – and my course! 

—

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