You started a side hustle creating products on TpT after realizing they barely pay teachers enough to pay the bills, but you’re not seeing the amount of growth you were hoping for?
Does this sound like you? This is the typical journey for most of my clients. And for most, that little side hustle has now turned into a full blown hustle and it can be that for you as well.
What’s the secret…Pinterest!!
Pinterest has allowed my clients to increase their traffic significantly to products but what’s even more important, it has allowed them to build their email list so they can nurture and sell via email.
Pinterest marketing can seem overwhelming at first, but it doesn’t have to. In this post, I share everything you need to know about Pinterest for TpT sellers.
Should I Be on Pinterest?
Before you even get started, I want to ask you two quick questions…do you have a website and do you have a sales funnel?
If you answered no to both of these questions, I would highly recommend putting these two things in place before hopping onto Pinterest. Why? Driving traffic directly to TpT can work but you don’t own that site.
Driving traffic to your own website is significantly more effective. You can drive traffic to a blog post where you have products embedded plus your lead magnets to get people on your email.
From there, you can nurture your audience via email and get them to buy, buy, buy!
With all that being said, you can still be successful on Pinterest without a website and email marketing in place; however, I would strongly encourage to have this as a goal over tim.
How Do I Get Started On Pinterest?
Getting started on Pinterest doesn’t have to be as scary as you think. To get started, you need to set up a business account, claim your website, conduct keyword research, and create boards where your pins will live.
If this sounds overwhelming, you can grab my FREE guide that walks you through step-by-step how to get started on Pinterest today!
What Boards Should I Create?
Once you download the guide, you’ll learn all about creating boards. I recommend setting up 10-12 boards to start.
So what boards should you create? This is a question I get all the time. First look at your content pillars. What are you known for? What product lines do you have? If you’re known for your classroom management tools and organizational tools, you’ll want to create a few boards around that.
Next, you will want to create a brand board “Suzy May’s First Grade Teaching Resources” for all of your blog posts, plus a TpT board, “Suzy May’s TpT Teaching Resources & Activities.”
You can also create a board for all of your freebies, “Suzy May’s Free Teaching Resources.”
Each month, you’ll want to add 2-3 more boards that center around your content so each pin has a place to live.
Do I Need a Blog?
As mentioned above, having a website is key to your success on Pinterest. By having a blog, you build authority in your field. As a former first grade teacher, I had 6 first grade bloggers I would reference ALL the time. They had amazing content that I would binge on month over month.
They also would embed their products in their blog post as well as their optins. Guess who was buying their products and signing up for their email list? I was because I trusted them and I knew they had high quality products.
This is the same for teachers that visit your blog. They will learn more about you, your products, and will most likely optin into your email list once they land on your site from Pinterest.
What Should I be Pinning?
You will want to create pins for all of the content you are creating. This might include your blog, TpT products, TpT freebies, lead magnets to get people on your email list and more.
Some of my clients have YouTube channels and podcasts so I create pins for those as well. The opportunities are endless.
What Makes the Perfect Pin?
When you are creating your pins, your goal is to stop the scroll. In order to do so, you have to keep a few things in mind. Here is the secret recipe for creating scroll stopping pins:
- High quality image of your product
- 2:3 ratio
- Easy to read (minimal use of script fonts)
- Branding (logo or website)
- Text overlay using keyword research (you can learn more about keyword research HERE)
What Type of Pins Should I Create as a TpT seller?
I hear this one all the time!! I hear it so often that I even wrote an entire post about it. You can learn more over at 3 Types of Pins You Should Be Creating on Pinterest.
I know after you read that post, you’re going to follow up with the question, “Do I have to create story pins?” and my short answer is yes!!
Story pins allow you to increase engagement on Pinterest. The more engaged users are with your content, the more Pinterest is going to push out your other pins to users.
As a teacherpreneur, I recommend creating story pins that are educational such as “5 tips for classroom management” or “How to organize your classroom library.”
When Should I Pin Seasonal Content?
Users on Pinterest are planners and that especially applies to teachers. Teacher’s love to plan ahead. When I was in the classroom, I had all of my Thanksgiving activities planned and copied in October which means I was saving pins for these ideas back in September.
In order to get your content seen at the right time, you want to plan ahead. You don’t want to post your Mother’s Day writing activity on TpT the week of Mother’s Day; rather, you want to push that out months in advance.
To get the full breakdown of what to pin and when, I have created a FREE content planning guide just for teachers. You can grab your free guide here!
If you are ready to use Pinterest marketing as a teacherpreneur but you are still feeling overwhelmed, schedule a free consultation call today. Let’s see if a VIP day, coaching, or monthly management is right for you!