Repurposing your content on Pinterest to find more clients with Dominique Dunlop
Today I'm talking with Dominique Dunlop about Pinterest, but also content repurposing and how you can get so much out of the content you're putting forward. If you think about it from a content repurposing standpoint.
Dominique helped me to set up Pinterest to make it really helpful and useful for my podcast, and we actually go through my podcast workflow for how I repurpose all of these episodes during the episode.
Dominique is a former teacher turned digital marketing-obsessed, Canadian mom of two. Her expertise is in helping you create the visibility, connection, and authority you need to grow your business online without sacrificing your mental health or being tied to your phone twenty four seven.
Through her done-for-you content repurposing services and lead generation Pinterest VIP days, Dominique is here to help you get off the content creation hamster wheel so you have more time to focus on the parts of your business that light you up and allow you to feel confident that your content is always working for her, so you don't have to.
[00:01:36] Hi Dominique. Thanks for joining me.
[00:01:41] Dominique Dunlop: I'm so excited to be here with you.
[00:01:43] Samantha Mabe: I am excited to dive a little bit further into Pinterest. So we've done some episodes on this in the past, but things are always changing and you really look at this as a bigger part of content marketing, so I'm excited to look at it from that perspective today.
[00:02:00] Dominique Dunlop: For sure.
Dominique's journey to entrepreneurship
[00:02:01] Samantha Mabe: so let's get started by having you just tell people where you're located and what your business journey to profitability has looked like.
[00:02:13] Dominique Dunlop: Sure. Um, I am near Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada, and I was previously a teacher until, I had my second child. I left my teaching career at that point and kind of floundered around in the online space a little bit, trying to figure out how I was going to replace my teaching income. I went a few different directions. I tried blogging. I tried creating a preschool, um, preschool at home program, and ultimately ended up deciding that I liked the marketing side more than the education side, and I wanted to completely move away from that.
[00:02:54] Ended up falling into Pinterest marketing, and that's where I am today. Pinterest marketing has also led to adding content repurposing into my repertoire as well.
Can high-ticket service providers find clients on Pinterest?
[00:03:08] Samantha Mabe: Yeah, and we're gonna talk about some of that today, like why does content repurposing come in? But I wanna start with how can coaches, service providers, people who are doing kind of one on one or group programs use Pinterest for their business if they don't have those like courses where they're trying to get tons of people in for low ticket offers?
[00:03:33] Dominique Dunlop: Sure. So Pinterest itself, a lot of people don't realize, is a super powerful search engine. It gets lumped in with other social media platforms, but it's actually labeling it incorrectly. Pinterest. is a search engine. So if you are providing value, if you are providing any sort of solution to whatever your audience's needs are, um, there is somebody on Pinterest looking for what you offer right now.
[00:04:04] They're not looking for you. For example, they're not looking for Lemon and the Sea, but they are looking for a Squarespace web designer and they are looking for support creating their websites.
[00:04:15] That's kind of where people get tripped up is, well, nobody knows who I am, but they don't need to. They need to know what can you offer? What can you do for them?
[00:04:27] So as far as coaches that. Really digging into what are the needs of your ideal clients? What might they be going to Google to search? If they're searching it on Google, they're searching it on Pinterest too. Um, and how can you create content around those needs to really guide them down that, you know, the sales funnel of, um, how can you help them essentially?
Using Pinterest to grow your email list and convert clients
[00:04:53] Samantha Mabe: Yeah. So how have you seen some of the people you've worked be profitable on Pinterest? How have they really seen that impact the bottom line of their business?
[00:05:05] Dominique Dunlop: Um, for a lot of my clients really focus on building their email . Through Pinterest and driving traffic that way, which if you have that email list, you know that that can be such a gold mine for converting your clients. So driving traffic to build that email list can be super powerful, but you can drive Pinterest traffic to your sales pages. You can drive Pinterest traffic to your blog post. You can drive Pinterest traffic to really anything that has a url.
[00:05:37] So it gets to a point where you can be kind of creative. How are you gonna build that profit? How are you going to drive the traffic? What do you already have in place that you want more eyes on?
[00:05:49] Samantha Mabe: Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense. When we think of like the building, the email list because we're all told that we need to do that. That's like this important thing everybody has to do, and a lot of times you're going to see more sales from an email list than somebody landing cold on your website.
[00:06:09] Dominique Dunlop: Yeah.
[00:06:09] Samantha Mabe: So I can really see how that could be profitable is to promote that email list, promote whatever content you have that can drive them there and then sell once they're already invested.
[00:06:23] Dominique Dunlop: For sure.
Using Pinterest as part of your sales funnel
[00:06:24] Dominique Dunlop: Look at Pinterest as where you're going to be discovered. That's the top of the funnel. You're going to be discovered there. People are going to come into your virtual world. They're not highly likely to convert right at that moment because they might not know exactly what they. But once they get to know you and you work them down through, you nurture them through the email list, they connect with you on other social media platforms, that's when you're going to start to see a lot of return on investment for your Pinterest marketing.
[00:06:53] Samantha Mabe: Yeah. And thinking about it like a search engine. To me that says, Okay, well I'm thinking about this like my SEO strategy for Google. I am not thinking about this as the place where I'm going to DM people or like engage with people. Instead, it's more about that long term of getting them the content and then they will stick around if it's useful.
[00:07:20] Dominique Dunlop: Absolutely. And as far as not having to DM and all that stuff, if you are like an extreme introvert like me, you'll love Pinterest because you don't have to do all that stuff. You don't have to do all the engagement. You don't have to be there, you don't have to show up every day. Um, Pinterest has a lot more of a set and forget it aspect that social media does, right?
[00:07:43] Samantha Mabe: So, For people who are looking at high ticket services, do you find that those clients are also on Pinterest?
[00:07:52] Dominique Dunlop: Yeah, there's clients looking for literally everything. So it really doesn't matter whether you have a tiny offer, you know, a $9, $19 digital product that you want to be focusing on, or if you have a service that's thousands of dollars. It's all going to function the same, bringing them into your virtual world and nurturing the audience and the right people will find you, um, as long as you've optimized and you're using the platform correctly, which we can get into that a little bit later on too.
[00:08:24] Samantha Mabe: Do you know of any audiences might not be on Pinterest. So I'm thinking of like on LinkedIn, you're looking at more people, business people for example, or on Instagram, you're looking at creatives. Maybe if you're a photographer, you're finding the moms that are hanging out on Instagram. Do all of those people kind of converge on Pinterest?
[00:08:46] Dominique Dunlop: Yeah, , they really do. And honestly, one of the biggest questions I get when people approach me is exactly that. Is my audience even there? Is this worth my time and I have yet to find a client that we could not find their audience on Pinterest.
[00:09:04] It might not be a massive audience, but that's beneficial to you. That means that it's very targeted, it's very niche, and it's also really beneficial if you don't have a ton of competition there. Pinterest is a hugely untapped market, so, um, yeah, the audience is there waiting for you. It's just really how can you meet their needs on the platform.
How to use Pinterest to build a profitable business in 2023
[00:09:29] Samantha Mabe: I wanna dive into that: how do we get content onto Pinterest that's going to reach our audience? And specifically, how do we do that without feeling like we are having to create new stuff for every single platform and every day that we have to show up?
[00:09:50] Dominique Dunlop: Yeah. Um, one of the beautiful things about Pinterest is that you don't create, for Pinterest, you repurpose content that you already to Pinterest.
[00:10:01] So for example, if you have, let's say, a podcast and what you're going to do with that podcast episode, all you need to do is create the visuals, so the actual pin images that are going on to Pinterest . And then you're going to write a keyword, optimized pin, description and title, but you're not creating anything new because what happens with that pin image now you publish it and it's going to link directly to your podcast episode.
[00:10:27] So it's, again, coming back to Pinterest is a visual search engine. It's exactly how if you click on a link on Google, it's driving traffic to that specific url. Pinterest is doing the same thing. You're not creating something new. It's a way of marketing and promoting something you've already created.
[00:10:47] Samantha Mabe: Yeah. And for those who don't know, so you help me set up Pinterest for my podcast and I have a Canva template that has like all of these pin graphics. So for every episode I go in, I add the title, I might change it up a little bit, change up the the graphics, and then I can just schedule them all.
[00:11:07] And it's so much faster than writing captions for Instagram that have to be new every time I want something to go out and I'm driving more traffic to the podcast, which is where people are learning about my service.
[00:11:22] And those captions and images that you create for Instagram, you're lucky if they're still in the feed the next day, like half the time they disappear before you get your morning coffee poured. And it's done all that hard work.
[00:11:34] But Pininterest, um, your pins live forever. So what I publish today, can still be driving traffic in three years from now, four years from now, bringing traffic back to this exact podcast episode when you pin it. So you're putting in that effort and it might feel similar to the effort that you're putting on Instagram, but it's so much more long term than what you're getting on the Instagram platform.
[00:12:01] You helped me, and we've talked a little bit about this, but I know Pinterest is always changing, Algorithms are changing. You helped me set up some really optimized boards and kind of plan out what my pin schedule was going to look like.
[00:12:17] I would love it if you could walk people through, what does Pinterest want now? Are we in the age of you have to pin like 30 times a day like Jenna Kucher told us years ago, or has that changed? How has video changed? I know there's a lot in there, but what is it looking like on the platform?
[00:12:40] Dominique Dunlop: Yeah. Um, so there is like, like every other platform, it does morph and change over time. And we are starting to see a lot bigger push for video on the platform. It kind of, it is what it is. If you want to market right now, you're going to have to dive into video at some point.
[00:12:59] Now, what does it look like? No, we're not pushing out 30 pins a day, and we're not pinning the same thing to 50 boards, and we're not jumping on a million group boards. All of those things are kind of way of the past in Pinterest.
[00:13:13] So now with Pinterest, you really want to focus on quality over quantity. So I tell my clients, you know, when you're figuring out you're pinning frequency, you need to decide what is sustainable and reasonable for you based on the content that you have available and the time that you have available, whether that's your time or the time of a VA. What do you have available to you and what can you consistently maintain with high quality.
[00:13:43] What you don't wanna be doing on Pinterest is jumping in, going full more. and then you fall off and then you jump in again, and then you fall off. We need to find that consistent rhythm and routine for you.
[00:13:55] Um, but that consistency for most of my clients, I think for you, we started at one fresh pin a day. Yep. So that's 30 pins a month. And for most people that's quite sustainable because for one podcast episode, you might be making anywhere from five to 10 pins. For that one podcast episode, um, or blog post or whatever it is you're promoting.
[00:14:22] And then we've also seen the introduction of idea pins in the past few years. They were formally called Story Pins when they were first launched. So you might hear both terms. They are completely interchangeable. Story pins, idea pins, same thing different name. The easiest way to explain those is they're very similar to Instagram stories in the sense that they can be video, they can be, um, photo, they, you can add stickers, you can add music, you can add all kinds of little things to them.
[00:14:53] But some key differences between Instagram stories and Pinterest idea pins is the idea pins, again, they're going to last forever. Your Instagram story is gone in 24 hours. So that's already a huge bonus. You're putting in the effort.
[00:15:09] They are discoverable in search. So Pinterest is that search engine. We can discover idea pins and Pinterest is really pushing them out and prioritizing them right now. So if you're focusing on creating idea pins, Pinterest is going to reward that with higher levels of traffic.
[00:15:26] Um, the other thing with idea pins is there, you can almost think of them like a book format you can stack up to, I believe it's 20 pages to your idea pin. So you can have a multi page format, you can have some, uh, like going back and forth between video and photo you could have, but say from today, we could have a small clip of the podcast episode as a teaser, and then you might have another slide with your photo that says, you know, for more head to the podcast and listen to episode 19, whatever might look like.
[00:16:05] So we're seeing those gaining a lot of traction on Pinterest, and the big thing that people kind of are hesitant with the idea of pins is they don't have a link to drive traffic to your website. So a lot of my clients really dig their heels like, Well, why? Why would I do that then? Well, because it's bringing traffic to your Pinterest profile and that traffic is going to eventually going to be converting to higher traffic to your website.
[00:16:33] It's just more eyes on your content and the other thing, Get on them now because Pinterest is rolling out link, um, link capabilities in their idea pins. Some accounts will already have it, some won't. But hopefully in the near future we're seeing it on all accounts. So I'm hoping that we'll be able to go back to our old idea pins and link out once that feature pulls out for everyone.
Create content for Pinterest like you do for search engines
[00:17:00] Samantha Mabe: That was one of my things when I'm in there scheduling idea pins. It's like, but it doesn't, it doesn't go anywhere like it. But when you think about it as a search engine, what it's telling people is Pinterest is saying, Okay, people like this, we're gonna show more of it. Which means all of your stuff is gonna be seen by more people.
[00:17:20] Dominique Dunlop: Yeah, my client accounts where we're really using idea pins and using them consistently, we're seeing growth in engagement across the account, and we are seeing higher numbers in outbound clicks to their websites because once people are there, They realize, Hey, this person has some stuff I really like, and they do start going back through your older content and your static pins. So don't ignore them just because they don't link out.
How to create content for Pinterest if you don't have a blog or podcast
[00:17:47] Samantha Mabe: All right, So what if somebody doesn't have a blog or a podcast and they feel like they don't have a ton of content, that they can always be creating new pins and idea pins for?
[00:18:01] Dominique Dunlop: Really dig deep and do a content audit. What do you have? If you've been on Instagram for a while, you've probably got some pretty powerful Instagram captions. You've probably got some pretty powerful carousel posts. Maybe you've been producing reels. Maybe you're on TikTok and you've got some content there. What do you have? So I always tell my clients, Start with that. Really do a deep dive in your content audit.
[00:18:27] From there, then we need to get strategic. What can I do with that content? Can I use it in the format that it currently is, or should I start repurposing some of it into different formats?
[00:18:40] For example, if you've got TikToks and they are, you know, good, educational, generally like face to camera talking type talks, not so much the dancing Reels type format, um, we can take those. Let's push them onto Pinterest as an idea pin. The one caveat there, we wanna make sure we're removing any water watermarks from other platforms, because you're going to get pushed down in search if that's on there.
[00:19:07] Ideally, like for myself, I try and actually record my video just in my phone so that I don't even have it watermarked, and then I can push it out wherever I want. But get rid of those watermarks. Upload it to Pinterest with a keyword optimized title and pin description, and start using those as your idea pins.
[00:19:24] Same thing can be said for your Instagram carousels. You can take those and now create an idea of pin out of them. Um, you can technically create pins and link to posts on your Instagram page. You're not going to get as good of reach. You're not going to get as much traffic as if we were driving to your website, but it's a start and it's better than nothing. If you have the ability to get that content onto your website in some way before you start promoting on a Pinterest, that's always going to be the preference, but don't let that stop you from getting started.
[00:20:03] Yeah.
[00:20:04] Samantha Mabe: I love the advice and I really hadn't thought about it, of putting that content onto your website. Even if you think of it as like a micro blog that you're putting your Instagram or your putting those videos, because it not only helps you, it gives Pinterest a place to send you.
[00:20:23] It helps. with all of your regular search engine stuff. You're always putting out new content. You're using those same keywords like this will help bring more of the right people to your business no matter how you do it, and it doesn't take as much effort if you're literally just like, I'm gonna write this caption here and then I'm gonna put the same thing on Pinterest because it's already optimized. And it makes it much easier to like get into that process and flow to see the results in your business.
[00:20:56] Dominique Dunlop: For sure. Like take that Instagram caption, turn it into, like you say, a micro blog, and maybe in a few months you have more capacity and you want to go back and really flesh out that blog a little bit more, or maybe you don't. Maybe you leave it there and you create a whole new blog that's more fleshed out and now you have two URLs to drive traffic to.
Start with repurposing in mind as you create content
[00:21:18] Samantha Mabe: Awesome. So what other tips do you have for people who are doing content, in whatever form that might look like, in repurposing? How can they really take advantage of that, either on Pinterest or outside of that to get the most out of the work that they are doing.
[00:21:38] Dominique Dunlop: Yeah. Um, ideally you're going to start with repurposing in mind. Repurposing should be thought out prior to even creating the content because that's going to allow you to plan it out in a way that's going to make your life just easier after the fact.
[00:21:57] Um, so I like to know ahead of. What am I going to do with this content once I have my core piece? Where am I going to put it? What else do I need to create to go with it? So is there any images that I need to do? Is there, um, captions, is there descriptions, what else am I going to need in this content package?
[00:22:16] And then, Really milk that content for all it's worth. Create good content, good quality content that's really beneficial and useful to your audience that they really want to get their hands on and just milk it for all it's worth.
[00:22:33] Take that podcast episode, turn it into captions for Instagram, create a carousel out of the main points. Um, take that podcast episode and repurpose it as a blog post. Take that blog post, make sure you're pinning it to Pinterest. Pin the podcast episode to Pinterest too.
[00:22:51] I like to take key aspects from that podcast or blog post and create multiple TikTok videos from that, then take that same content and share that same concepts to your Instagram stories. And your email list, don't forget them on there too. You have that content. So write out email with some of the concepts from there and direct them to your podcast or your blog post to learn more about it.
[00:23:21] It's really a big ecosystem and a big kind of ball that's rolling all together, interconnected, and you really don't need to be working so hard. If you have some really, really good core content, you can easily create everything you need to market your business for like a very long time.
[00:23:42] I just am just putting the fun finishing touches on new freebie that is how to create a month's worth of content from one podcast episode. You really don't need more content. Your content just needs to work harder for you.
[00:23:56] Samantha Mabe: Yeah, and that's part of what you helped me set up. So I switched from doing audio only to video for my podcast so that I can, I put the video on YouTube. I have the podcast in the podcast player. We can have clips of everything for Instagram and TikTok and Pinterest, and then we have quotes and we have audiograms and a blog post and an email.
[00:24:20] Like there's so much that I get out of that because I've planned it from the beginning, like I know that I need these types of graphics. I know that I need like a nice quote from the episode and I can think about it that way to make sure these are getting as much reach as possible. Why put it work if no one's gonna hear it?
[00:24:42] Dominique Dunlop: Right? Don't put all that effort in and let it sit and do nothing. Put the effort in and then sit back and you do nothing, not your content.
[00:24:54] Samantha Mabe: And it's such a relief to know that we don't have to be on Pinterest all the time, like pinning and doing all of that stuff that you used to have to do. This is so much more sustainable for business owners who really have to focus on their client work and building their business, and this is just one of their marketing avenue.
[00:25:15] Dominique Dunlop: For sure, and you can, like I said, you can kind of set and forget your Pinterest marketing to an extent. We have to keep an eye on analytics. We have to keep an eye on what's happening. Um, but you don't have to be in there all the time engaging. Once you have everything set up and completely ready to rock, you can easily hand over your Pinterest marketing to a VA. It can be done in about four to six hours of VA time completely hands off for you because it doesn't need that personal touch that we need to have on Instagram.
[00:25:52] Samantha Mabe: All right. Well, this was so helpful. I'm excited for people to really think about this in a different way. Think about their content in a different way so that they can get the most out of.
The importance of investing in expert help for your business
[00:26:05] Samantha Mabe: As we wrap up, I always like to ask people what the most impactful decision they've made in their business has been.
[00:26:15] Dominique Dunlop: To start investing in myself and stop relying on University of Google. Um, To start, you know, instead of just trying to figure it all out, paying the people who know how to do it so I can just get it crossed off my list and move on.
[00:26:33] Perfect example being that Samantha did my website for me and did a brilliant job, and it was just finally off my list and no more Googling of how to do all of it.
Connect with Dominique
[00:26:46] Samantha Mabe: Awesome. So where can people connect with you and get more information about that freebie when it's ready? What's the best place to find you?
[00:26:55] Dominique Dunlop: My website is www.dominiquedunlop.com, so you can come visit me there and also check out, Samantha's may say work on the website. And I'd love to connect with you on Instagram. It's just Dominique Dunlop underscore.
[00:27:12] Samantha Mabe: All right. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I'm excited to share this.
[00:27:16] Dominique Dunlop: Perfect. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:27:19] Samantha Mabe: As you heard in this episode, it is so important to be repurposing your content on Pinterest and other platforms so that people can find you where they are looking for you. This is really going to impact the profitability of your business, but the best way to do that is to create a process that allows you to step by step, know what you have to do to take advantage of the content that you're creating.
[00:27:49] And don't forget, all of that content has to live somewhere. In the episode, we talk a lot about using Pinterest to drive traffic back to your website. But that means you have to have a website that is then going to convert those people into your dream clients. So if you are thinking about creating a really robust content marketing plan and using Pinterest or another platform as the cornerstone of that plan, make sure that your website is up to date and designed to convert for your business so that when people land on your site, they know you, they trust you, and they are ready to take action.
