杰出的商业妈妈如何使用 Pinterest 为他们的业务提供动力

Felix ：今天，来自 BrilliantBusinessMoms.com 的 Beth Anne schwamberger 加入了我的行列。 Brilliant Business Moms 为 moepreneurs 创建资源，例如计划者、指南、日历以及最近的课程。 那是在 2014 年，总部位于加利福尼亚州圣地亚哥。 欢迎，贝丝安妮。

贝丝：非常感谢你邀请我，菲利克斯。 我很高兴来到这里。

菲利克斯：太棒了！ 告诉我们更多关于您的商店的信息。 您销售的最受欢迎的产品有哪些？

贝丝：当然，我们的 Shopify 商店，迄今为止最受欢迎的产品一直是我们出色的商业策划师。 我和姐姐创建了一个真正面向在线业务女性的规划器。 在过去的策划者季节，2015-16 年 12 月/1 月，它卖得非常好。 那么我想我也应该说我们最新最受欢迎的产品现在是我创建的关于如何使用 Pinterest 进行销售的课程。

Felix ：太棒了，我绝对想深入研究 Pinterest。 我认为那里有很多企业家正在努力获取有关 Pinterest 的更多信息，所以我很高兴马上就能做到这一点。

让我们谈谈你的出身，你是如何开始的以及一切。 我什至不知道有计划赛季这样的事情，但人们正在为明年和年底做准备是很有意义的。 你是怎么参与进来的，我猜，我不会称之为行业？ 你是如何参与这件事的，这个计划我们的社区？

贝丝：当然，所以这真的是在我姐姐和我建立了一个妈妈社区之后开始的……他们正在收听我们的播客，我们每周都会采访 momepreneur。 我们对观众进行了一项调查，并问他们：“你在挣扎什么？ 作为一名创业者，你最大的挑战是什么？” 本质上。 我们一遍又一遍地看到的一个重要主题是时间，是，“我如何安排我的时间，在我的生活中创造足够的时间来发展我的事业，同时又不忽视我的家人？”

从那以后，我和姐姐对所有这些不同的时间管理策略进行了研究和测试，我们写了一本名为《时间管理妈妈》的书，这本书也在我们的 Shopify 商店和亚马逊上。 也由此产生了创建我们自己的规划师的想法，因为我们使用的时间管理方法和我们使用的目标设定策略，我们找不到一个能够将所有这些结合起来的规划师，所以我们只是说， “让我们试一试。 让我们创建一个我们认为非常适合我们的观众的规划器。”

我们实际上在 2015 年 5 月推出了第一轮规划器。老实说，正如你之前谈到的规划器季节，这绝对是一件事，因为我们尝试了一种 6 个月的规划器，它将在 2015 年 7 月到 2015 年 12 月，那些销售不是很好，因为它不是策划季节。 没有人真正在想，“是的，是时候设定我的目标了。 是时候去解决一个新事物了，”所以这些销售并不好。

我们坚持了下来。 我们认识确实购买了规划器的女士们。 他们真的很喜欢它，所以推出了我们的 2016 版本。 然后，在 2015 年 11 月，我们说，“让我们开始使用 Shopify。 让我们拥有自己的商店，而不是仅仅被 Etsy 束缚，真正专注于销售这些规划师，”事情真的从那里起飞。

菲利克斯：很酷，是的，绝对想深入研究你提到的所有这些小片段。 让我们从播客开始。 我猜，你是通过播客建立观众群，开始了你的这段旅程。 您是否打算最终通过播客获利。 或者不是播客，而是观众本身。 当你和你姐姐坐下来说“让我们开始播客吧”时，最初的目标是什么？

贝丝：当然，所以我认为我们确实天真地认为我们可以建立一个巨大的播客听众，也许只是通过我们的播客赞助商赚取收入。 那没有发生。 我认为我们最近的统计数据或者可能是每月 17,000 次下载，类似于我们每月发布一段时间的四个播客。 所以我们有一个不错的核心忠实观众，但还不足以仅仅通过播客赚取全职收入。

开始播客的另一个动机是我们有自己的小 Etsy 商店，在那个商店里，我们出售这些小蝴蝶饲养箱和户外工艺品之类的东西。 然后我们还尝试创建一个妈妈博客，并很快意识到这太难了。 为那个妈妈博客建立流量非常困难，要弄清楚如何将其货币化，所以我们聚在一起说，“你知道，如果我们能挑选其他成功的妈妈企业家的大脑，看看他们在做什么。 他们如何管理自己的日子？ 他们使用什么策略？” 我们说：“好吧，让我们这样做吧！ 如果我们遇到了这个问题，并且我们想要挑选妈妈企业家的大脑，我敢打赌那里还有很多其他女性愿意倾听并做同样的事情。”

播客就是这样诞生的。

菲利克斯：是的，我喜欢这样。 显然，我是播客的忠实粉丝。 我认为这真的取决于你喜欢哪种交流方式，因为有些人喜欢写作。 他们可以把所有这些时间都花在写作上，以及他们如何……坐下来写作对他们来说几乎是一种治疗。
对我来说写作很棒。 我认为写作......我也是写作的忠实粉丝，但更自然的是坐下来与某人交谈。 如果这是你能感受到的那种风格，我认为播客是一种很好的媒介，这会引发我的下一个问题，即你认为从大多数品牌开始播客是否有意义？ 播客对什么样的品牌、公司或企业有意义？

贝丝：哦，这是一个很好的问题！ 我认为播客非常适合拥有可以围绕它建立的真正紧密社区的任何品牌。 例如，我在想……我已经看到这种情况发生在……有一个 Instagram 帐户。 我认为它被称为@skatemotivation 之类的。 他们建立了这个真正的铁杆社区，我猜你可以说是围绕着滑手，他们以滑手为特色。 它真的很整洁。 实际上，我确实认为这个人最终会围绕这个开始播客。

我认为任何时候人们只要有一个共同的使命，共同的目标，也许是一个共同的爱好，那么，是的，我认为你绝对可以围绕它建立一个播客。 我肯定会说，正如您所知，Felix，开始播客是一项繁重的工作。 肯定有一些预先考虑的费用。 有些事情您必须弄清楚，例如自己编辑声音或聘请声音编辑器，获得一些精美的设备，但是是的。 我的意思是播客确实是建立社区、与客户建立更密切关系的有效方式。 这对我来说真的很棒。

Felix ：这是一件好事，我什至没有考虑过，开始播客比开始写博客面临更多的技术挑战，因为博客已经存在了很长时间，以至于播客是一条陈旧的道路一种新的空间。 不一定是新媒体，它实际上是广播，但自己入门肯定是其中涉及的一些挑战。 我认为的好处是……我认为你谈到了很多，那就是你有一个你正在创建的社区。

你可以把它想象成一个流行的电视节目，比如行尸走肉之类的。 这就像一件事，社区中的每个人都被它吸引。 他们都变成了这样，所以他们都有一些共同点，现在他们可以在那个社区谈论。 如果你有一个适合你的计划者社区，或者你举的例子有一个滑冰社区，他们现在都有我这个中心……一个电视节目、广播节目，他们都在看或听，这真的把他们联系得更紧密了。 我认为你提出的一个很好的标准是你需要有某种共同的爱好或共同的生活方式。 也许甚至不是生活方式。 生活方式可能过于宽泛，但您可以为此告诉大家一个共同的爱好。

我想说的第二件事是播客非常适合接触有影响力的人。 你不能总是让人们花时间和你交谈一个小时，或者你甚至可能无法让他们和你交谈一分钟。 如果你有播客，你有观众，这会变得容易得多。 我认为如果你是一个品牌，并且你想通过访问和影响者来推销你的品牌，我认为播客是一个很好的媒介，因为它可以让你接触到这些人，你可以与之交谈一个小时或多长时间你想要你的播客。 这可能会为联合品牌或联合营销打开大门，谁知道呢。 它只是从那里访​​问和构建您的网络。 我认为，这是另一种播客带来的看不见的好处，至少在我开始之前我没有看到正面。

太酷了...

贝丝：是的，是的。 完全同意那里。

Felix ：很好，所以我想谈谈，也许不是专门针对播客，但你建立了一个观众。 我想也许那里的一些听众也建立了听众。 也许他们有一个受欢迎的博客或一个受欢迎的 YouTube 频道，或者一个 Instagram 帐户，但他们还没有商店。 他们还没有东西可以卖。 你说你最初认为你可以通过广告从这些受众中获利，你已经学到了……我当然也学到了这一点，你需要很大的规模，比如庞大的受众，然后才能真正靠收入谋生只是创建您免费赠送的内容。

如果那里有人免费提供内容，而他们只是将其提供给观众，那么销售产品的过渡是什么样的？ 也许我想问的第一个问题是您发送的调查。 你能多谈谈吗？ 你如何发现你的观众想要你可以创造出你可以卖给他们的东西？

贝丝：当然，所以调查，我们很久以前就做过了。 我试图回想我们提出的问题，但真正的重点是弄清楚我们的观众遇到的常见问题和困难是什么，然后提到我们觉得我们有什么技能提供解决方案。 显然有些问题......就像他们遇到的另一个常见问题是流量，他们的商店或博客获得了足够的流量。 那时，我们觉得，“我们仍在为此苦苦挣扎，所以我认为我们现在不会想出解决这个特定问题的方法。”

当时间管理的事情一遍又一遍地出现时，我和姐姐都是全职妈妈。 我们正在处理我们的孩子和各种事情与我们的业务，所以我们想，“哦，我想我们对这件事的了解比我们最初想象的要多。 我们可以深入挖掘，真正为问题提供这个总体解决方案。

是的，这就是我想说的开始，只是解决一个问题。 解决您的观众遇到的问题，是的，从那里开始变得更容易，是的，进入市场。

菲利克斯：不，这绝对是真的。 我认为除此之外，假设您……让我们从流量开始，因为当有人说“我的商店需要更多流量”时，这是一个非常广泛的问题。 当我说广泛时，我的意思是有很多可能的解决方案，而且可能因人而异。

当您的调查回复说他们没有足够的时间时，他们不知道如何确定优先级，这些是您得到的反馈，您脑海中的即时产品是计划者还是您还有其他类型的选择...我想，您如何从问题出发，然后发现实际关注哪种产品，因为同一问题可能有多种解决方案？

贝丝：对，没错，我什至有人向我们建议，“你为什么要做规划师？ 你为什么不创建时间管理应用程序？ 老实说，这来自于与我们的观众联系，这是我们在我们的私人 Facebook 小组中进行的一项非常快速的小调查。 在任何私人 Facebook 群组中，您都可以做……这就像进行投票或创建一个小投票，因此我们进行了一系列类似的小投票，以确定是否有更多人想要一个应用程序来帮助他们管理他们的任务、目标和时间还是有更多的人想要一些有形的东西，可以用笔来写，..

很明显，我们的观众想要笔和纸。 他们对屏幕和技术感到不知所措，在某些方面，这只是让他们分心，所以他们想要纸笔。

你是对的，我的意思是，我想我们可以创造很多不同的东西。 我不知道。 它只是一种自然流动。 这本书肯定是第一位的，所以写时间管理妈妈。 然后，从那里，我们有点意识到，虽然这不是完整的解决方案，但我们仍在努力将自己所有的时间管理技巧付诸实践，那时我们意识到，哦，好吧，我想我们需要的不仅仅是只是一个小笔记本来跟踪我们所有的目标和事情，”那个计划者真的很棒。

Felix ：太棒了，所以我有点想在这里列出时间线。 你在 2014 年开始播客，在那之后不久写了《时间管理妈妈》一书，然后在 2015 年 5 月创建了一个计划器。在这整个时间里，你有一家 Etsy 商店还是这本书是 Etsy 商店的第一款产品？

贝丝：我们确实有我们的第一家 Etsy 商店，叫做业余博物学家，完全不相关……

菲利克斯：我明白了。

贝丝：......对于我们的播客观众，是的，还有 Brilliant Business Moms。 这只是我们几年前开始的这个小爱好。 那家店还在营业。 我姐姐还在那个商店卖东西，但是，是的，所以我们只是在这方面做得很好，我们已经建立了这个新社区。

Felix ：太棒了，所以当你有这些观众时，你还记得它有多大吗？ 我知道它分布在播客、群组、电子邮件列表以及访问您博客的流量之间。 它的规模有多大或多少给了我们一个大概，这样听众就可以感觉到什么时候对他们有意义，如果他们有听众，还没有产品。 什么时候停止专注于增加受众，而更多地关注如何实际货币化或为这些受众创造产品？

贝丝：当然，所以我认为当我们在 2015 年 5 月的第一轮启动计划器时，我们的电子邮件列表中只有不到 3000 人，所以我们并不庞大。 我认为那时我们的播客下载量可能是每月 12,000 次。 每月的博客页面浏览量低于 15,000 次，因此网站流量根本不算大。 我的意思是非常小。

让我们看看，我们有我们的私人 Facebook 群组，所以我们在私人 Facebook 群组中有数百名女性，从我们的角度来看，感觉就像我们有数百人被我们视为我们的核心受众一样。 这些女性每周都在调整。 他们定期通过 Facebook 群组或电子邮件或类似方式与我们联系。

真的只是我觉得如果你有数百名忠诚的观众，他们真的很喜欢你所做的事情并与你联系，我认为绝对会开始考虑如何解决他们的问题。 然后，当您想出一个可以解决他们问题的出色产品时，有趣的是，当您推销该产品时，您的受众将继续增长更多。

菲利克斯：我喜欢这样。 是的，因为当你第一次说 15,000 次浏览量和 12,000 次下载时，我认为这是其中之一……我敢打赌，很多听众都会说，“哇，我希望我能拥有它，我希望我也能到达那里。 ” 我认为你在那里卖空了自己。 我认为这是一个很大的进步，尤其是您的业务只有一年左右的时间。

我认为你所说的这个想法是……有点暗指早些时候关于平衡建立观众和创造产品的想法。 你有没有尝试同时做这两件事，或者在某个时候你说，“好吧，停止驾驶交通或停止关注交通并更多地专注于创造这些产品？ 你经历了哪些不同的阶段，或者你只是试图同时做这两个阶段？

贝丝：当然，这是一个很好的问题。 我想说的是，我们在营销我们的规划师和书籍的同时继续专注于建立我们的受众。 这是 2015 年夏天的全部内容，但当我们推出 2016 年规划师时……这是 2015 年 11 月。我们已经准备好 2016 年规划师，准备好开始运作并努力推销。 那时我们才真正不再专注于建立受众，而是专注于如何获得销售。

我们尝试了各种各样的事情，比如赠品的博客功能、支付一些 Instagram 影响者、建立一个英寸的 Instagram 帐户。 然后 Pinterest 显然开始发挥作用，是的，那时我们真的没有关注流量。 我们只是专注于如何将想要购买此规划器的合适客户带到门口。

费利克斯：有道理。 你之前提到过，如果你有一个核心团队，有几百个忠诚的，如果你不卖任何东西，可能还不是客户，而是忠诚的听众、粉丝或邮件列表中的人，那就是它开始的时候向他们出售产品是有意义的。 如果您有一个核心群体，并且您的 [听不清 0:19:59] 观众中存在这种感觉……那么您所谈论的所有这些不同的渠道。 Instagram、Pinterest、Facebook 群组、您的邮件列表、您的博客和您的播客。 在所有这些媒介中，如果你想真正培养与那个核心群体的关系，你认为哪一种是最好的关注点？

贝丝：哦，这是个好问题。 我认为电子邮件列表，你必须建立你的电子邮件列表。 我认为这对任何企业来说都是如此核心，而且我确实认为很多店主忽略他们的电子邮件列表的时间比他们应该的要长一点。 该电子邮件列表的本质是算法证明。 Facebook 改变、Instagram 改变、Pinterest 是否改变都没关系……Pinterest 算法也会改变。 电子邮件列表是您的，因此您可以随时联系这些客户。 无论您真正想专注于哪种形式的社交媒体来建立您的受众，请确保您将它们添加到您的电子邮件列表中。

我会说这是第一，而这个数字真的很棘手。 我现在显然提倡 Pinterest，因为它对我来说很棒，而且我真的可以自动设置它，但我们的私人 Facebook 小组在社区建设和建立关系方面非常棒。 这可能取决于特定的业务以及他们的总体目标是什么。

Felix ：我喜欢电子邮件是算法证明的说法，我完全同意。 我敢打赌，过去 20 / 25 年电子邮件算法的唯一变化可能是 Gmail 的优先收件箱，他们开始将人们分开。 我猜你对整个算法证明的理解是，如果你可以访问某人的电子邮件列表并向他们发送一些东西，他们就会得到它。 在显然 Gmail 的最新功能之前，它不会被过滤或以不同的方式优先考虑，但有一些关于如何处理的最佳实践。 正如您所说，对于电子邮件收件箱的更改不会改变。 同样，您可以访问某人的电子邮件并向他们发送一些东西，他们会收到它，所以我喜欢这句话。

很酷，所以让我们开始讨论您的情况何时发生变化。 你说的是停播，希望你也可以谈论这个，或者我会让你说出来。 比方说在2015年5月计划或推出后，做得不太好，你们当时的销售情况如何？

贝丝：哦，伙计，我是说，让我们看看。 我知道我们在 2015 年 5 月的发布中售出了不到一百个规划器，所以那是一个多月左右的时间。 老实说，我想我们可能只卖了 60 年 65 年，所以我猜感觉不太好。

菲利克斯：你为什么在那个时候放弃了？ 大多数人......他们说如果你想测试一个产品或测试你的产品是否有市场，你可以做一些简单的事情，比如把他们带到一个登陆页面并收集他们的电子邮件地址，我猜这有点像实际的代理对您的产品的需求。 或者，如果你真的真的很想知道有人是否想要你的产品，那么在非常激进的结尾，看看他们是否会购买。 如果你的销售额只有 60 左右，那是不是很泄气？ 那是什么感觉？ 显然你已经继续了，因为剧透警报，你现在还在这样做。 那时你怎么知道不放弃？

贝丝·安妮：我认为购买这款规划器的女性真的很喜欢它。 我认为那部分令人鼓舞。 当他们通过邮件到达那里时，他们正在与我们分享照片并在 Instagram 上发布关于它的信息，我们非常兴奋，并认为它非常有帮助。 我们觉得，“好吧，这些销售，我们可以在此基础上再接再厉。 当他们开始告诉他们的朋友以及我们更多地建立我们的观众时，我们可以继续发展这一点。

二，这我得给我姐姐的功劳。 她一直在说：“贝丝安妮，这不是计划高峰期。 现在不是人们真正考虑购买规划器的正确时机，因此我们需要再试一次。 这就是我们的 Beta 测试。” 我很高兴能听她的话。 这令人沮丧，但是，是的，我们没有放弃，下一个策划者赛季进展得更好。

Felix ：对于像你这样的季节性产品......假设它在五月推出，然后是夏天，在那段时间以及下一个季节性提升和年底，你在那种中间时期做了什么?

贝丝安妮：在那个中期，我们首先对规划器进行了改造，改变了一些设计。 我们对购买了规划器的每个人进行了调查，以获取他们的反馈，看看最喜欢规划器的什么。 他们希望我们添加哪些页面？ 缺少什么？ 我们确实在那段时间改进了规划器，添加了一些新的规划页面，一些新的布局。 添加了一些人们可以添加到侧面的贴纸标签。 那是一个。 我们正在使我们的产品变得更好。

然后，第二，我们真正专注于建立我们的电子邮件列表。 我做了一个病毒式策划者赠品。 直到 1 月份才发生，但我一直在计划整个秋天，这样我们就有了成千上万的新电子邮件订阅者。

菲利克斯：哇。

贝丝：我们开始计划了。 我们真的只是想出了我们想要在哪些博客上添加功能的营销计划。 我开始制作一些以规划师为特色的 YouTube 视频，并且我还对其他人的规划师进行了规划师评论，只是为了让人们进门，让我的 YouTube 频道被视为一个可以观看规划师评论的地方。

我们都是 Pinterest 帐户 Kama，所以我们专注于时间管理 Pinterest 板，然后是规划师 Pinterest 板和所有这些东西。 它专注于建立 Instagram 追随者，所以我们的追随者翻了一番，让我们看看，从 750 到 1,500 追随者，然后再翻倍，所以现在我们的追随者超过 3,000。 是的，只是真正的营销计划和建立电子邮件列表和关注。

菲利克斯：太棒了，所以这就是打破这一切。 我当然也想去 Pinterest，因为我认为这对你来说是一个重大的游戏规则改变者。 从这个病毒式赠品开始，你赠送了什么，你是如何从中制造出这种病毒式的？ 您是如何获得成千上万的电子邮件订阅者的？

贝丝：当然。

Felix ：我认为这对任何企业来说都是一个巨大的胜利，如果你能获得成千上万的电子邮件订阅者。 这真的可以改变你的业务。

贝丝：是的，所以我做了什么，我称之为伟大的大型规划师赠品，因为在 2015 年秋天，我决定，“让我去看看所有这些不同的规划师，”因为，一，这是一次很棒的市场调查对我或伟大的产品研究来说，找出其他受欢迎的计划者是什么。 他们有什么特点？ 是什么让他们伟大？ 是什么让人们允许他们，他们缺少什么？ 我怎样才能填补这些其他玩家基本上正在解决的市场漏洞？

我订购了一堆最受欢迎的规划师。 然后我在我的 YouTube 频道上对他们进行了策划者的评论。 显然，我非常公平和友善，而且我这样做的方式。 这不像我认为所有这些计划者只是为了我可以拆除它们而不是......我基本上说我知道我的计划者并不适合每个人所以在我的频道上我将对每个人的计划者进行非常诚实的评论所以如果有人偶然发现我的频道，他们可以做出适合他们的决定。

我这样做了，所以现在我认为是八个计划者。 我有一个很棒的计划者，比如溢价计划者。 我的意思是像 Emily Ley 的 Simplified Planner。 惠特尼英语日设计师。 这些计划者的成本超过 50 美元，因此这是许多女性想要获得的奖品。 我做了伟大的大规划师赠品，我把所有八位规划师都送给了一位获胜者。

显然，我的 Brilliant Business Planner 或者是价格中的规划师之一，但我真的很惊讶这么多女性对这个奖项感到兴奋，因为有......就像你说的那样，这整个计划都是为了我们的社区。 有些女士对规划师很着迷，她们不只是每年买一个，而且每年五岁，她们……

菲利克斯：哇。

贝丝：……全部使用。 是的，这太疯狂了。 他们以不同的方式使用它们，有时他们几乎就像日记或剪贴簿一样使用它们。 这是整个疯狂的世界规划女士们，所以人们对这个赠品感到非常兴奋。

我所做的，我使用的是 King Sumo Giveaways 应用程序。 我能做的是随时说……它让每个输入自己的推荐链接的人都可以将朋友推荐给赠品。 每当我的朋友通过他们的链接进入时，该人将获得 10 个额外的赠品条目。 它鼓励人们分享赠品，因为如果他们真的想赢得奖品，那么他们分享的越多，他们获胜的机会就越大。 我看到的是，第一批进入赠品的 1,000 人都在与他们的朋友分享，所以我认为最终有 9,000 人进入赠品。 大约 7,000 人对我来说是全新的......

菲利克斯：很好。

贝丝：……如此全新的订阅者。 我也会说我确实做了一些 Facebook 广告。 我创建了一个视频，如果您访问我的 Brilliant Business Moms Facebook 页面，您可以在我旁边的视频部分看到它。 我制作了一段我跑上舞台的愚蠢视频，好像在说“我要把所有这些策划者都赶走”。

我想我可能总共只花了几百美元在我的 Facebook 广告上，但它确实确实有助于孵化放弃并获得更多条目。 然后显然那些人为我做了艰苦的工作并传播了这个词。

Felix : 你不一定非得有……有人在外面听我可能想建立一个电子邮件列表，但他们可能没有我猜一个基地的基础。 这是启动此活动的最重要部分，因为您希望您当前的观众随后将其广播给他们所有的朋友，以提高他们赢得此赠品的机会。 我不确定你是否提到了这一点，但每次你推荐某人时，它都会提高你赢得自己的机会。

您需要已经有观众才能开始这项工作，但您是说您也可以只投放 Facebook 广告以将他们推向赠品，然后这也可能......你知道多少......这可能很难说确切地说，但是您知道您现有的受众与您能够从 Facebook 广告中获得的受众之间的细分有多少影响了条目数量吗？

贝丝：是的，哦，这是一个很好的问题。 好吧，我实际上在我的博客上对这个赠品做了一个完整的分解。 让我回到那个。 如果我能访问那个博客文章页面，我可以告诉你。 我会这么说，当我推出这个赠品时，我们的名单上有大约 3,000 人。 然后很明显，赠品在短短一两周内就为我们带来了近 1,0000 名订阅者。

菲利克斯：太神奇了。

贝丝：是的，这太疯狂了，然后，伙计……这就是为什么建立你的名单是如此伟大，因为现在它看起来就像滚雪球一样。 一月份做了这个赠品。 我们的订阅者从 3,000 增加到近 10,000，现在，让我们看看，到 4 月底，我的名单上有超过 18,000 的订阅者。 我显然也做了其他事情来获得这些，但是，是的，这份清单非常有价值。

菲利克斯：是的，这太棒了。 您是否发现我猜潜在客户的质量与可能遇到您的博客文章、您的播客的人一样好？ 你会知道吗？

贝丝：这是一个很好的问题。 我会说这是我会给你的警告。 我不认为订阅者的质量那么好。 这是让您自己曝光、建立您的名单、为您的业务和品牌树立信心的好方法。 在接下来的几个月里，我确实注意到所有进入我的计划者的人，这些人往往是退订率高于我的核心受众的人。

我犯的一个错误是我真的应该在 11 月做这个赠品，这样我就有了一个很长的赛季规划师来向他们推销我的规划师，而不是在我们赛季结束时出现在我的名单上等等我很少谈论计划、目标设定、时间管理，而更多地谈论商业技巧。 我认为这让一些人失望了，所以有些人离开了。 我会说，在我获得的那 7,000 个订阅者中，我会说可能有 1000 个已经取消订阅。 这仍然给我留下了 6,000 名订阅者，这些都是女性，我可以开始朝着明年的计划攀登我们的赛季。

实际上，计划者的下一次迭代将是一个适合每个女性的版本。 我意识到人们最喜欢我们的计划者的是每周的布局，目标设定页面。 我有很多女人走近我说，“嘿，你的策划师很漂亮，但我没有生意。 你有什么东西只给我吗？” 再一次，所以只要倾听那些听众的声音，就可以帮助我弄清楚如何改进我的产品。

菲利克斯：绝对有道理。 很酷，所以好吧，让我们进入这个话题，我想每个人都想了解更多关于 Pinterest 的内容。 我猜你是什么时候开始专注于 Pinterest 的，它是专门为 Brilliant Business Moms 设计的，还是你将它用于你的 Etsy 业务？ 你用 Pinterest 做什么？

贝丝：当然，所以我真的在 2015 年 11 月深入研究了 Pinterest。自从 2014 年播客开始播客以来，我几乎在那里有一个出色的商业妈妈的帐户，但实际上并没有很好地使用它。 只是到处找东西。 没有非常明确的规划策略。 我确实有一个单独的 Pinterest 帐户，用于业余博物学家 Etsy 商店。 过去，我确实在 Etsy 商店中使用过 Pinterest，并且确实看到了一些结果，但我有点没有时间深入研究并看到我想看到的那种销售。 直到 2015 年 11 月，我才在我全新的 Shopify 商店中挖掘并意识到，天哪，我认为我可以让这个 Pinterest 的东西发挥作用。

Felix ：太棒了，看看你的 Brilliant Business Moms Pinterest 帐户中的统计数据，你有 125 个板、19,000 个图钉、12500 个追随者，并且你正在关注大约 4000 人。 只是想知道你在哪里。 你的策略是什么？ 我认为当有人考虑开始使用 Pinterest 时，他们的目标应该是什么？ 应该是增加他们的追随者，还是我猜，当你开始一个新的 Pinterest 页面时，最初的策略是什么？

Beth : Sure so my overall goal was that I wanted to make sales. I felt like I'm not going to use any form of social media and less it's bringing in sales for my stores.

Felix : Love it.

Beth : Yeah so that should be your big picture goal but of course yes you do … You get more traffic and you get more sales as you build your following but I actually have a two pronged approach to Pinterest. I use it organically and I also use promoted pins.

When I first got on Pinterest and dug in in November, I started with promoted pins because I felt like you know what I don't have time to organically build my following. I want to make sales now. I took some of my planner photos. I turned them into some beautiful collages, so the types of pins that would do really well on Pinterest and then I created another that kind of … It had a headline at the top and said announcing the Brilliant Business Planner.Your life and business simplified,” and then had a great lifestyle shot of the planner.

I promoted those pins and those pins went directly to my planner listing in my Shopify store and kind of figured out the game with promoted pins and I'll definitely be happy to share kind of some of those tips. Really just started getting this continuous stream of traffic and sales from those pins.

Felix : Yeah let's talk about that. What is the strategy? What are some tips for running a successful promoted pinning campaign?

Beth : Sure, so what I found is, one, you need to use a lot of keywords. The way it works is you'll go in and then Pinterest'll say, “Okay, what keywords do you want to target with this pin?” Obviously I can say something like planner, 2016 planner, all those general words. What happens is, when someone searches on Pinterest for those terms, Pinterest might choose to show your promoted pin in those search results and so get you exposure.

Then you're only paying for the clicks so I'm only paying when someone clicks on my pin and comes over to my shop. My tips there is Pinterest does not do a really great of suggesting a ton of keyword ideas to you so I suggest that people go over to the Google Keyword Planner to come up with tons, tons more keywords. I really think you need to have 50 to 100 keyword phrases that you're targeting with any promoted pin, which might sound like a lot to a beginner but you're really going to need to give Pinterest a lot to work with because you're competing against some really big brands who have a lot of money to spend and so you've got to give them tons of keywords.

Felix : Is it the more the better or should you be selective at all? I think back in the very early days of, let's say, SEO for example, the whole keyword stuffing thing was really popular where we would just put everything and anything on your site because there was no kind of penalty for it. Is there any kind of penalty? Maybe not directly from Pinterest but is there a downside to having too many keywords?

Beth : Oh that's a great question. Okay so there's a little confusion there. What I mean is I don't want you to put a hundred keyword phrases in each of your pin description. What I mean is that you want to target a hundred different keyword phrases that people are searching for on Pinterest. It's a little hard to explain unless you're inside the promoted pins app but as soon as you go in and you say, “Hey, Pinterest, I want to promote this pin,” They're going to say, “Okay great. What keywords do you want to target? When should we show your pin to other people?,” essentially.

You're exactly right though. You do need to be specific. For example, I did not target a keyword phrase like free printable planner because that would be silly. I want people to buy my planners so I'm not looking for a freebie seekers. I actually didn't target any printable planner phrases because generally someone looking for a principal planner Kama they have a smaller budget and they're looking for something more affordable.

Another thing I did is I would target let's see some big related planner brands. Emily Ley for example Whitney English, I can target those words that people might search for on Pinterest because they're looking for those planners but then all of a sudden my beautiful plan our pops up and so it's a way that they're kind of discovering my product. That is works really well. Yeah, so that's what I mean by hundred keyboard phrases. Definitely don't stuff your pin description with all those phrases. Just use one or two keyword phrases in your pin description but over inside the promoted pins application you do want to pick tons of phrases, in your niche, very targeted for sure but come up with 50 to 100 phrases there.

Then the other thing I did want to recommend is when I first started using promoted pins, I was paying way too much for clicks. Now I start out bidding just 10a cents click because I figured out based on my website visitors and conversion rate that's a number that works for me that then leads to profitable sales. Pinterest will try to tell you, Hey, other marketers are spending $1.00 per click so your bid is way too low.” Just my recommendation to new shop owners is don't listen to Pinterest. Keep your bit slow and see what happens with that first.

Felix : Cool, so in the pin description itself, any tips there? What should you be writing about? How do you write in a way that gets people to actually click and check out your products?

Beth : Sure, so i defintely like to write in a conversational tone, put some keywords in there but make it obviously natural. I might say sometimes like, “Finally, a planner that organizes my life and biz all in one place.” I also kind of write in the first person because, when women pin on Pinterest ... Let's say I find something I really like. What I'm going to put in the pin description is, “Oh, my goodness. I love this living room. These colors are so beautiful!!,” and so that's how I want to write my pin descriptions too so it looks like a friend would just be pinning it and sharing it with a friend.

I would say something like, “I love the goal setting pages in this planner and the florals are so beautiful.” Then I might end it though with a very targeted keyword phrase like, “Great planner for 2016.”

Felix : Yeah, I like that approach of making it seem like it's actually part of the content. It kind of is but, if you maybe do it right, the kind of ad correctly. You don't want to make it stand out and people recognize that it's an ad because of the way you're speaking to the reader or viewer in the pin description or maybe even the photos. You want to make it seem natural and I think that's what you're getting at. You want to make it seem as if you were just posting this as a regular pin. 这就是你的意思吗？

Beth : Exactly, exactly. Just make it as natural as you can. Kind of get inside the head of how you would talk about a pin if you were just pinning for yourself personally. Yeah, do it that way. Definitely don't write things like, “Buy now!,” and “Click here!,” and “Get my planner!.” Yeah, don't do that. Make it feel natural and conversational.

菲利克斯：酷。 Have you also ... Is this the same ... I know nothing about Pinterest so I'm just kind of going off the top here but do you have experience with the buyable pins too? Is that related to the promoted pins? 两者有什么区别？

Beth : Sure, great question. I do have buyable pins in my Shopify store and I do recommend that anyone who has Shopify get yourself buyable pins. It's really easy, or at least it was for me. You literally just go inside your Shopify store and you'll see where it says Channels. Mine has online store and then Pinterest, Facebook, Buy Button, Twitter. You can literally just activate those channels.

You click over to Pinterest. They had some requirements to approve me for buyable pins and I think really all that it was was, “Do you have your policies written on your sites?” I'm going there now just to see. I had to obviously have a Pinterest business account and connect that to my Shopify. The one thing is they will not let you do a digital good as a buyable pin but you can do a digital good as a promoted pin.

Let me talk quickly about the difference between those two. A buyable pin is where if someone runs across that pin on Pinterest ... I think right now it's just on iOS that the buyable pins work. On someone's iPad or their iPhone, they're scanning Pinterest. Let's say they search for a 2016 planner. If they run across my planner, it'll have a little button where they can buy now. They can just buy that product right on Pinterest without ever having to go to my website.

Now, the one thing I will say, I do not get very many sales through my buyable pins. It's a very small percentage. I get way more sales through promoted pins. Promoted pins is obviously ... That's Pinterest's ad platform. Promoted pins is available right now to US businesses but I do believe they're expanding to Canada very soon. That's what I talked about where you pick your target keyword phrases and you pick your bid per click. Then so I get people to my shop by paying to show my product to them or show my pins to them essentially.

Here's the other difference. Pinterest will not let you promote a buyable pin. I can only use my buyable pins organically on Pinterest. I can spread them out to my different boards. I can put a buyable pin on a group board if I want but I cannot then turn it into a promoted pin and also have it be buyable right on Pinterest. Kind of a bummer. It'd be ... Honestly, I wonder if they don't let you do it because it just would be so easy. I mean, I feel like I can make sales incredibly easily if I could combine the two but they won't let you.

Felix : Yeah, I was going to ask that question next, because that definitely cuts down on the steps involved because if you're promoting a pin ... It sounds like the reason why promoted pins are working better or giving you more sales is because it's available in more places. I think you said buyable pins only works now if someone's browsing the Pinterest iOS device.

Yeah, if you could promote a buyable pin, I could definitely see how it could drive up your sales because people don't have to leave the site, don't have to leave Pinterest and go through any checkout process. 这就说得通了。

Cool, so let's talk about your organic pinning strategy. How do you, I guess, decide what you should be posting, the frequency, and just give us an idea of what's your strategy.

Beth : Sure so my organic Pinterest strategy boils down to this. I want to draw in my ideal customer by creating the most gorgeous well curated boards that kind of that's what they're looking for, that solves their problems, that kind of displays that ideal lifestyle they aspire to. In my case, because my brand is I'm starving moms and businesses essentially so I have boards like Pinterest marketing for Instagram marketing or blogging tips. Then I also have obviously the time management piece so I've got a time management board and then I have one board that's planners, time management, and organization for moms. That board I really love because I can curate beautiful office spaces along with great time management blog posts along with great planner pins.

That's the kind of board where my ideal customer, if they stumble across any of those pins, they stumble across the board, they're going to say, “Wow, this is gorgeous. This is filled with great high-quality content so I'm going to go ahead and follow this board and I may even go ahead and follow this entire account because this lady is doing a great job of curating awesome content.” That is the one thing I would say a lot of shop owners get this wrong. They feel like they just want to use Pinterest to put their own products out there. If you do that your account is going to be really boring and really … I mean it's just like it's going to be one dimensional if you're just putting your own products and so you really need to use Pinterest for what it's intended for we just suggest to rate the best from around the web.

菲利克斯：我喜欢这样。 I was going to say to before you said that last piece was that you were talking about all these kind of ... all this content that you're putting out there. I don't think ... You maybe only mentioned it once about your own products, but the rest of the things you're posting about have nothing to do exactly with your product but it has to do with things that your target customers that would by your product, the things that they're interested in.

It might not even be about planning. It could be about that lifestyle, like you're saying, they might want to live. That's something you would have to, I guess, tap into to really understand your customer and what else they like outside of just your own products. You could imagine if you were running a blog for your store. You don't want to just post about your products because no one wants to read a blog about products. They want to read a blog about things that solve their problems or interesting entertaining things about a lifestyle that they want. I think that you really nailed it with your kind of ... the way that you approach it with Pinterest.

Cool, so do you ... You have ... Let's see. Let me look at this real quick. You have a bunch of different boards. How do you recommend people kind of organize their entire set of 125 boards for you, which is a ton I think. How do you decide how to split things up and how do you decide when to add new boards?

Beth : Sure, great question. Start with the best of your own stuff board. For a Shopify owner, your best blog post, your best products. You can definitely create one board and make that your first one to kind of be like, “Hey!” That's kind of your little billboard, your little advertisement for what you have to offer. I think that's totally fine.

Then, after that, I definitely recommend if your Pinterest account is brand new, just trying to get it built up. Start with 10 boards. Start with 10 boards that are going to draw in that ideal customer. I'll take one of my Pinterest students as an example. Kim, her shop is Lucy Jane Totes. She makes adorable ... these great tote bags and then little pouches and so what Kim has done is ... One of her target customers is brides who want to buy bridesmaids gifts, because she has these custom monogram little pouches in all these different colors and patterns. It makes such a great bridesmaids gift.

Kim has boards where it's like pink wedding inspiration. Of course, she's got gorgeous wedding pins from all over Pinterest and then she sprinkles in her beautiful customized totes and just the ones that are also pink. She does the same thing for an orange wedding or black and white wedding, things of that nature. Then she could also do ... Her other kind of target customer would be a mom who needs a big tote to organize everything. She could have a organization tips for moms type of board and draw in her ideal customer that way.

Yeah, I just recommend start with 10 boards. Just figure out what's topics your customer would be searching for on Pinterest. Certainly start with the types of boards where you can sprinkle your own products throughout those boards.

费利克斯：有道理。 In the world of Instagram one popular thing that people do is basically I guess work with each other and work with influencers to trade kind of promotions where you work with a popular influencer and maybe if you're not big yet maybe you pay them to post your products. Maybe if you are big enough you can work with other brands to each share each other's kind of content. Does that happened in the world of Pinterest too? Do Pinterest users do that as well?

Beth : It's a little bit different on Pinterest. I would say the equivalent is Pinterest group boards. That's another thing that I'm … I'm part of tons of group boards. That's why you see I'm part of 125 boards. Some of those are obviously my own boards but some of them were just group boards that I'm a member of. Another group board community, it's filled with a lot of women bloggers but I think that product based businesses are getting more and more Savvy with this and creating their own group boards.

The way a group board works is for example if I go to create a group for today … Let's say I create Creative Baby Gifts and that's my group board and I just want to have great baby gift pins on my board. All of my Pinterest followers, the ones that follow my entire account comma automatically become followers of that brand new board I created. Then what I can do is I can invite contributors to that board. I can invite whoever else I want from Pinterest to come and pin onto my board. What day do I put it onto my board if they get their pins in front of all of my followers.

That's how group boards work. There are some huge bloggers who have group boards with hundreds of thousands of followers. If you can find those really killer big popular group boards that are in your niche, then definitely do that. Definitely get in touch with those group board owners and ask them if you can join and be a part of them.

Felix : Awesome, so how often do you pin? Can you be pinning too much? What's the frequency that you recommend for someone that's maybe starting out?

Beth : Sure, I think with even just 10 pins a day, if you can use a pin scheduler, that's a great place to start. I currently pin about 125 pins a day.

菲利克斯：哇。

Beth : Again, that's ... Yeah, I know. It sounds a little crazy. I might cut it down a little bit. I don't think you have to pin that many to do well but, because I'm part of so many group boards, I can take my best blog posts and essentially circulate them out to all my group boards on a regular basis. Then I also have all of my core boards that I own. I do what's called looping and I use Board Booster to help me loop my pins. Every single day, two of my older pins from the bottom of my board get repined to the top of my board. What it does is kind of just refresh that board and make it look active and potentially get those pins back out into the Pinterest feed.

That's why I'm pinning so many a day but, if you're brand new to Pinterest, you can start with 10 pins a day. Just try to keep your acct active. Pinterest does reward you if your pinning every day on the site. That can feel overwhelming as a busy shop owner so I do enjoy using a pin scheduler. It keeps that going on autopilot for me.

Felix : Yeah, I like this idea of I think you called it looping, which I think we shouldn't be afraid to re-share content, especially the ones that are working well. People that are actually enjoying. Not everybody's going to see it the first time, especially people that are joining your audience later. They're going to miss out on all the great things that you were sharing before. As long as it's content and not like super promotional, don't be afraid to put it out there again. Even if they've seen it before, they might've forgotten about it or might want to see it again. Definitely there going to be people out there that never saw it at all the first time, and now you're kind of giving them value again without having to create new content each and every time.

You mentioned 125 pins a day. That doesn't sound scalable unless you're using some tools and apps, right? Can you talk a little bit about the app that you use for managing Pinterest?

Beth : Sure, so I currently use Board Booster. That's my favorite pin scheduler. I've tried Viral Tag and Tailwind in the past and those are okay but Board Booster just really has more features on it. Board Booster, the nice thing too about it, is you can start out at just ... I'm looking up the plans right now actually. You can start out, I think, at just $5 a month, if you're only pinning a few things a day. Then I think I'm on the $50 a month plan, simply because I'm pinning so often.

Felix : Yeah, cool. With the success that you had on Pinterest and how much you're working on there. Can you give us an idea of how successful the business has become because almost not even a year ago, you sold 60 products of your planner? What is it looking like today for you?

Beth : Sure Pinterest definitely allowed the business to go from just making $1,000 or $2,000 a month to scale it up to $5 to $10,000 a month in sales. I combine Shopify shop and then two Etsy shops got us to five to ten grand a month in sales. Then, as I figured out how easy it was, honestly, to use promoted pins and kind of make those sales on autopilot, I developed a course on Pinterest marketing because my audience wanted that. They were seeing me talk all about Pinterest inside the private Facebook group and how I was using it and how great it was and so they wanted to learn more.

I created a course for them and that has been amazing. Now I'm surpassing 10 grand a month in sales and just had my first month of over $15,000 in sales, so crazy.

Felix : That's amazing kind of turnaround in just a year. I'm really excited to see where you go. I know a year from now, wherein you have scale that's up even more. That's super exciting to hear about that. Cool, so thanks for coming on Beth Anne.

BrilliantBusinessMoms.com is the website. It's where you can check out the planners, the course that you are selling, the book as well is on there. Anywhere else you recommend that listeners go and checkout if they want to learn more about you or how you do things?

Beth : Sure, so my Shopify store, if you go to BrilliantBusinessMoms.com/shop, then it'll take you to my Shopify storefront so you can kind of see what I have there. Then, obviously on Pinterest, I'm on Pinterest.com/brilliantmoms is my URL there. You can kind of check out what I'm doing on Pinterest to get more sales.

Felix : I know that ... Obviously everyone listening to this listens to podcasts. I know you mentioned that you have one out now and you're looking to revamp it and do more of these podcast episodes. Can you give us an idea of where the listeners can go and find out more about your podcast?

Beth : Oh, sure, so if you go to BrilliantBusinessMoms.com, you'll see some info about the podcast at the top and then, of course, we're in iTunes. If you just search Brilliant Business Moms in iTunes, you can check out all of our old podcasts episodes. We were doing interviews up through February and then we'll have some new episodes coming out pretty soon.

菲利克斯：太棒了。 Thanks so much, Beth Anne.

Beth : Thank you!

Felix ：感谢收听 Shopify Masters，这是面向雄心勃勃的企业家的电子商务营销播客。 要立即开店，请访问 Shopify.com 进行 14 天免费试用。