Host 0:04
Welcome to The Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here’s your host, Jillian Leslie.
Jillian Leslie 0:11
Hey guys, welcome back to The Blogger Genius. First, if you want to reach out to me, you can reach out to me at Jillian@MiloTree.com. I love hearing from you.
If you have a comment, a question, a guest suggestion, a topic suggestion, feel free to email me. I read everything and I will respond.
For today’s episode, I have my friend, Monica Froese, back on the show. Monica is one of our most popular guests. We did a previous episode recently where we talked about creating products.
Well, this time, we take a deep dive into how Monica sets up her landing pages, how she sets up her tripwires – wait ’til you hear what that’s all about – how she tests everything.
If you are making products, thinking about making products, selling stuff, using landing pages, not using landing pages, this is the episode for you. So without further ado, here is Monica Froese.
Monica, thank you so much for coming back on the show.
Monica Froese 1:20
I’m so excited to be here again.
Jillian Leslie 1:22
So we set this up after we recorded our last one. Your last podcast episode just went live. I will of course link to it in the show notes for this episode.
I was like, “Hey, could we put on the books another recording?” And you’re like, “Yeah, let’s do it.” Because I felt like when we finished the last one, there were still so many questions I wanted to ask you.
Monica Froese 1:43
Yeah, there was a lot of ways that we could go after the last one. I also listened back to it. I think it was a really great episode.
Jillian Leslie 1:50
Absolutely. Again, for people who are starting to think about supplementing their businesses through paid ads, I think it was a great way to introduce the concept.
We talk a lot about how the internet’s always changing. It does feel now like starting to pay smartly to promote content or things you’re selling, that kind of thing, is the direction that we are all moving in.
Monica Froese 2:19
Well, it certainly seems like it’s a smart direction if you ask me. One of the reasons I’ve always been a fan of paid advertising is – even though there are some strong opinions I feel out there that some people don’t like it versus other people love it; I’ve always fallen on the I-love-it side – and really it kind of boils down to the fact that I love to have control.
I feel like with paid advertising, you have so much more control over the parameters that you set up, how people find you, and the journey you take people on when you’re paying for the leads.
If you know what you’re doing, which I advise that you do know what you’re doing before you actually spend money, I find it highly effective. It really helps me narrow down my focus to what works instead of just throwing a bunch of spaghetti at the wall.
Jillian Leslie 3:10
Yes. Yes. I think it is about being intentional but you have to have the intention upfront. And then, you have to kind of test things along the way to go, “Does this work? Or this work?” “Okay. A is working, let’s move. Let’s keep doing. Let’s build off A then.” Rather than, you’re right, seeing what sticks.
Monica Froese 3:33
Right. And it’s hard to know. When you think about Pinterest in general, when you put a pin out there, and you keyword it the way you think it should be keyworded and you hope that Pinterest picks it up and show in search results, you still don’t have a lot of control over where the pin is being shown and even if Pinterest is going to index it properly to be shown where you think it’s going to be shown.
To me, it can take months before a pin takes off. Right?
Jillian Leslie 4:00
If it takes off. Yup.
Monica Froese 4:02
Right. With ads, I can put up a pin and dictate the keywords where I want it to be seen in search results. It tells me fairly quick if that pin is falling flat, if my content is not resonating with those keywords.
I can problem solve, in my opinion, a lot easier when I put some money behind it versus just putting it out there organically. And of course there are things that I’m fine just putting out organically and seeing what becomes of it.
And then there are other things that are strategic in my business that I want to either test quicker, or I know it works organically. So like let’s put more money behind it. There’s a lot of different ways to look at it.
Jillian Leslie 4:42
Yes. And one thing I think you do really well is design landing pages.
Monica Froese 4:48
Thank you.
Jillian Leslie 4:49
I really do.
Monica Froese 4:50
I did this recently. It’s so funny to me because I’m not a web designer or anything like that. I use lead pages for all my landing pages.
Jillian Leslie 4:57
Really?
Monica Froese 4:58
I do. Yeah.
Jillian Leslie 4:59
Okay. So let’s talk about what you would say the top elements are to a successful landing page.
Monica Froese 5:09
When you say landing page, do you want me to talk about an opt-in page or a sales page?
Jillian Leslie 5:15
Let’s go through both.
Monica Froese 5:16
Okay. Well, let’s start with an opt-in page. When I do an opt-in page, and we’re talking specifically for Pinterest ads, I like to get right to the point.
Jillian Leslie 5:26
Okay, wait. And this is an opt-in so you’re going to give them something for free and they’re going to give you their email address.
Monica Froese 5:33
Correct.
Jillian Leslie 5:33
Okay.
Monica Froese 5:34
And I want right above the fold for it to be very obvious what you’re getting for free and where I’m asking you to put in your name and email to get it for free.
Jillian Leslie 5:45
What is your most successful opt-in? What are you giving away?
Monica Froese 5:51
I think in the last episode we talked about how I have two sides of my business. The business to business side and the business to consumer side.
So, because Pinterest is a business to consumer platform, for the most part, I will talk about that piece. I have a Goal Planner for moms. I believe it’s like 14 pages. It’s a PDF. That is my most downloaded opt-in from Pinterest.
Jillian Leslie 6:17
Did you design this PDF?
Monica Froese 6:20
No, because I don’t feel like I have great design skills. I do think I’m semi-dangerous with lead pages now but I have a graphic designer basically because InDesign drives me crazy. I don’t feel like operating outside my zone of genius is the best place for me to be.
Jillian Leslie 6:38
Got it. So you created it. You passed it on off to your designer and said, “Make this look pretty.”
Monica Froese 6:45
Exactly. Yes. I give her a very all tech space Google Doc. She knows me so well now. She’s been designing my stuff for three years, I would say. I can give her very bare-bones, nothing pretty or anything like that, and she makes it pretty for me.
Jillian Leslie 7:03
Got it. Okay. So you’ve got this lead magnet. This downloadable… calendar. What is it? A calendar? A Planner.
Monica Froese 7:15
No, it’s not a planner. It’s my process on how I goal plan for the year.
Jillian Leslie 7:19
Got it. Okay, got it.
Monica Froese 7:20
And it does incorporate how I do it for the family, for myself, and for the business because one of the things that I have found… Because I do have a lot of crossovers. The people who find me on the consumer side who are interested in my working mom stuff are also interested in how I quit corporate and I started working from home and how I built this expertise.
I really look at my business as… It has changed a little bit because as the business has grown… but for the most part, it’s a very holistic life experience for me.
My kids’ schedule has to fit into when I work. My personal goals like going to the gym have to fit into when I have a nanny and stuff like that. And so, it’s a very holistic view.
Jillian Leslie 8:00
Got it. Okay. So back to this lead page. There are the opt-in page. Talk about then the elements, which you said are it’s got to be really clear what you’re getting, and it’s got to be really clear where you put your name and your email address.
Monica Froese 8:15
Yes. So, I have experimented with a few different ways – a longer opt-in page to a very very simplistic opt-in page. So I have experimented where you would land on the opt-in page and you would see a pretty layout of the printable that you were getting or the PDF, right.
So, my graphic designer creates a very nice, like 3D type image for me. And then, right next to it, I give like very high-level overview of what you’re getting. A catchy title, and then enter your name and email.
On LeadPages, there are two ways you can do it. You can embed the form. So literally, when you’re looking at the page, the boxes for your name and email are right there. Or you can do the click the button where it pops up.
Jillian Leslie 8:55
The double opt-in.
Monica Froese 9:04
Yes. For promoted pins, I prefer for the consumer audience to actually have the embedded form there so they can see right away where I need their name and their email to go.
Jillian Leslie 9:19
Got it.
Recently, within the last six to eight months, I started experimenting with slightly longer form opt-in pages where above the fold is exactly how I just described it but what I’ve started doing is doing like an as seen portion. So all the different publications I’ve been on. And then, another image of what they’re getting to really entice them in. And then another embedded form.
Monica Froese 9:47
I think sometimes people want a little bit more than just being hit with the name and email above the fold so I’m trying to cater to both sides. The slightly longer form opt-in has gotten slightly better conversion. So that’s what I’m sticking with right now.
Jillian Leslie 10:05
Interesting. And by the way, this is just for somebody to give up their email address.
Monica Froese 10:09
Yes.
Jillian Leslie 10:10
And yet they need that social proof or a little bit more nudging.
Monica Froese 10:16
And speaking of social proof, I now use Proof, which is a little, I guess we could call it a plugin. It’s paid software. I’m actually looking at my opt-in page right now as I’m talking. It is this little box, I guess you could call it, that pops up and shows like how many people have opted-in.
You can set parameters. So I could say 50 people opted in the last 24 hours. Assuming that 50 people had because it is tracking real-time data. And then it shows you the names of all the people that have opted-in. I put that on all my opt-in pages, all my tripwire pages, and all my sales page.
Jillian Leslie 10:54
That’s so smart. Yes! We like to follow the herd. So if the herd is making this decision, they must know something and so I can trust it.
Monica Froese 11:07
Yeah. It’s legit. It goes off of your data feed. Kindly look it up. You can manipulate it. You can but I don’t know how to. It’s Selena’s wheel. It’s an easy way to give social proof.
Honestly, an opt in page for a free PDF, I feel like quoting people for testimonials is kind of strange. I don’t know. I don’t actively, I guess go seek out testimonials from my free opt-ins, which is an easy way for me to give social proof.
Jillian Leslie 11:47
That’s terrific. Okay. So now let’s switch directions. Let’s now talk about the second type of lead page that you do. Like your longer landing page where you’re selling something.
Monica Froese 12:03
Okay. Yes. So, I would say that, what I do, I have two different types of sales pages. One I would promote directly to and one I would not. So a longer, long, long form sales page would be like, for my course, a more expensive product. And that would be like a typical course sales page. Very long, lots of testimonials, lots of data to back up what I’m going to be teaching.
But the sales pages I create that I promote directly to on Pinterest, they’re much shorter because they usually are going to be below $100 product. And so, they’re not super long.
So I’m looking at one now that does super well. Usually there’s a hook. So when I’m looking at it, I always like to give a visual above the fold of what they’re getting. Right? So there’s a visual, there’s a hook.
Jillian Leslie 12:55
What do you mean by a hook?
Monica Froese 12:57
Like, for example, My Family Budget Spreadsheet that I’m looking at right now. The hook is, are you ready to take control of your family finances in as little as 30 minutes a month? And then I give a series of three questions.
At the end, I say, “If you answered no to any of these questions, the easy Family Budget Spreadsheet can help you. This is all above the fold with a picture of the spreadsheet.
And then I like to give, if applicable, a quick overview video of what they’re getting. Especially for digital products, a lot of times people like to see what exactly is this that I’m about to pay for? So I have a quick… I would say it’s about a minute and a half explainer video of what exactly they’re buying.
Then I talk briefly about how it benefits them. So like eliminate, overwhelm, get your budgeting chaos under control. Never miss a bill again. Gain hours back in your time. How is this going to benefit them?
I also update these pages for seasonal spin. So for example, I’m looking at it right now, I actually forgot I did this but this is great because Pinterest is very seasonal and people will come and land on this based on different search terms throughout the year.
One of them would be tax-related. So I have added in, “Do you have a plan for your tax refund?” Because a tax refund is a keyword that I was getting a search volume under. Then I say that the family budget spreadsheet will help you allocate your tax refund where it matters most in your budget. So it’s just another way to capture people who landed on that seasonal spin.
Jillian Leslie 14:34
Got it? Now, wait. Did you make the explainer video? Did you hire that out? How did you do that?
Monica Froese 14:39
Oh, I made this explainer video so early on in my business. I did it all myself. Pretty much when I had no idea what I was doing. It wasn’t that bad so I’ve kept it for three years.
Jillian Leslie 14:50
That’s amazing.
Monica Froese 14:51
My most trafficked video on YouTube, actually, so I know people watch it.
Jillian Leslie 14:54
That’s amazing. Okay. So again, it’s not like you’re throwing a ton of money at this.
Monica Froese 14:59
No. No. As matter of fact, the thing about the family budget spreadsheet that I laugh about is it’s legitimately the budget spreadsheet to this day that I use to track our own family finances. It took me 30 minutes to set this up in 2016.
We’re talking three years ago. Thirty minutes of my time. And now the only time I spend on it would be optimizing the sales page here and there. I did a new freebie for the end of it. I made it a little bit more on brand and a little bit prettier now that I’ve had more experience in the space. Answering customer service emails is the only time I have to spend on this. So, it’s a very profitable endeavor.
Jillian Leslie 15:44
Yes. Yes. Okay. And so, this sales page though is not super long.
Monica Froese 15:50
No. No. We got the above the fold hook.
Jillian Leslie 15:53
Right. With the questions.
Monica Froese 15:55
Yep. The explainer video – how this benefits you, a little bit of a seasonal spin that I put on it, and then what you’ll receive. They’re gonna be a Google Sheet, video, six tabs, a little blurb about myself, and why they would want to buy something from me. And then, a Buy Now button.
Jillian Leslie 16:15
Wow.
Monica Froese 16:17
Yeah. And then I end with my freebie, which is part of my triple dip funnel that I talked about, where since I’m driving so much cold traffic to this from Pinterest, if they’re not quite ready to buy this cold, and they might not be because they don’t know anything about me and they’re like, “I want to get to know her a little bit better before I invest anything.” I give them a freebie, which then leads to tripwire page.
Jillian Leslie 16:37
Okay. So the freebie, explain. Just break that down. So the freebie is, “Okay. Hey, you don’t want to buy this now? Great. Well, sign up here. Give me your email address.” Is it get my free blah, blah, blah, download?
Monica Froese 16:51
Yeah. So I ended with, “Not sure yet? At least don’t leave empty-handed. Try out my free budget planner principles.” And then, it’s actually not an embedded form. I’m using that two-step lead box.
So like, wait a minute, the same exact product? A lot of people are used to getting a down sell offer. “You’re not ready to buy this? So let me offer you this.” And that works too. Don’t get me wrong.
So you have to click, “Yes, I need a budget planner.” And it takes you to a lead box where you give me your name and email, and that triggers an email to be sent to you with the download for the budget planner, but then it redirects you to a tripwire for this product, which is that’s where people get very intrigued.
Personally, the way I view a down sell is… I mean, this is a $17 spreadsheet. I don’t really have anything that I want to create to down sell you to because I really think you should get the spreadsheet. So instead, I’m offering you the spreadsheet on the tripwire for $9. I think it’s 15 or 20 minutes that you can get it at that price.
Jillian Leslie 17:54
Wow. What kind of conversions are you seeing doing this?
Monica Froese 17:58
That tripwire page. I was just looking at this. It has a 68% conversion into a sale.
Jillian Leslie 18:03
Oh my goodness. That is amazing.
Monica Froese 18:06
I know. It is crazy. I will tell you. I have other funnels that I use my budget spreadsheet as the tripwire. For example, right now that goal planner opt in that I was telling you about, the tripwire for that is actually the family budget spreadsheet. It is related but not super closely related.
Jillian Leslie 18:33
Wait. Okay. So somebody then opts in for the freebie. And then, you send an email that says, “Hey, in the next 20 minutes, if you want to buy this product, you can at this price.”
Monica Froese 18:45
So for the goal planner, what happens is you opt-in for the goal planner and you’re redirected to a thank you page where on the top it tells you, “Hey, thanks for downloading my free goal planner. Look for your email for further instructions on how to access it.”
And then it has a 50% bar that says, “Hey, but you’re not quite done yet.” It triggers your mind to be like, “Oh, there’s something else I need to do.” Then I usually have to look at exactly what the hook is for that.
When I have a tripwire from an opt-in, I always want the hook to be something related to that, right. So I don’t know what it is. I’ve set my head somehow looking at it but something that relates to why finances are important for your goal planning. And then I offer them the budget spreadsheet.
And then what happens is when you get the… What I used to do, and I would advise against this, what I used to do is actually link to the freebie on the thank you page and I would have it open up into a new window.
And my logic then was, “Well, I want people to stay on the tripwire page because I want them to finish reading what I’m offering.” But what I found was it was hurting my open rates which I care more about at the end of the day because nurturing to me is so important. I was hurting my email open rates.
Jillian Leslie 20:02
Why?
Monica Froese 20:04
Because they were getting the freebie right from the Thank You page.
Jillian Leslie 20:06
Got it. Okay. Yep, yep, yep, yep.
Monica Froese 20:08
They were never going back to their email to actually be in the freebie. So now what I do is that if they want to go get the freebie right away, they go and open their email, which is good, because I want to keep my open rates open showing all the email service providers want to read.
And what I do is, if they don’t follow through on the tripwire, then I have, depending on the way… I have tried this multiple waves, but usually it’s the second email, reoffers the tripwire to them. But people who have bought are excluded. So I don’t bother the people who actually took me up on it the first time.
Jillian Leslie 20:48
Got it.
Monica Froese 20:50
And then that works well.
Jillian Leslie 20:52
Let’s say somebody then takes you up on this. Now, are you putting them in a sequence? A series of emails where you’re selling them more stuff? Or you’re sending them weekly emails? What is your thought with these people?
Monica Froese 21:09
So it depends because I have so many different funnels. There’s a lot of different ways I handle this. Depending on if we’re talking about the consumer side or the business side, if I have like a launch of something coming up, it really depends.
But if we take the goal planner, for example, what I usually do is you get the goal planner, so you got the first email where I give you the link. Here’s your goal planner. It’s a very simple email. The whole objective is to get you to open and click over to the freebie.
Then the second email is going to reoffer you the tripwire. I go back and forth with the buy offer, the same tripwire price, or I offer a different discount or full price. It really depends. I test everything. I just run my test to see where my conversion rates fall.
The third email is usually a value add email, either I’m offering you another freebie or I’m directing you to some sort of free content that’s going to help you with whatever it was that you opted into.
In the fourth email, I usually try to add some affiliate offer in there depending on what it is. Like for example, I’m a big affiliate for Elite Blog Academy. And a lot of my moms come in and they’re interested in starting a blog or working at home. That’s a really great program. So, I will offer you a freebie for their program which locks in my cookies so I can gather as well.
And then the fifth email is either another value add or it will actually kick you into my welcome sequence if you’ve never been through it before.
Jillian Leslie 22:42
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What I love is that you built these organically testing along the way seeing kind of these natural paths that your customers come in through and like building it out from there from what you’ve learned.
Monica Froese 25:07
Yes. I’ve tested everything. Probably numerous ways. I test everything. Every factor that I can think of to test, I test. I am a strong, strong proponent of doing the same.
Especially if you’re gonna put money behind it with ads, it’s really important for you to be open to testing different landing page formats and testing different price points, testing different emails and the sequences that the emails go in. Really you test everything.
Jillian Leslie 25:38
Okay. Now, let’s talk about then, you sell products that started, let’s say $17 and go up to $500. So let’s talk about the landing page for the most expensive product that you sell a course that you sell, and how that landing page is different from the other ones.
Monica Froese 25:59
Oh, I feel like this has evolved so much over time. But the landing page for the $500 course, which is my promoted pins course, is when it’s live because it’s not live all the time like right now. As we’re recording, it’s closed because I just finished a big launch.
It is a very long-form page. The main reason for that is because I’m asking people to make a much bigger investment. And so, they need to know more about what I am offering and more about the results that I’ve gotten people. So I have at least six testimonial videos I’ve done.
I literally work out of my bedroom, right. I run very lean. And I don’t send camera crews out to do these elaborate videos. I hop on zoom with my students and we record what successes they’ve had with the course.
I keep it to about eight minutes and I throw it up on YouTube and put it on my sales page. I do a nice cover for it. I keep it low cost but meaningful to people who are on the sales page.
Jillian Leslie 27:08
Okay. You’ve got a bunch of video testimonials where people can really listen to what others like them have achieved through your course.
Monica Froese 27:19
Yes. I have recently started working with a… I’m in an accelerator program, where they specialize on online course creators. One of the things that I recently got feedback on was to add more pain points in.
I tend to be very literal when I talk about things. And so, this last launch I added in information about the pain points. Like where you might be on your journey and why this will help you solve that problem.
I was actually much better with that – on smaller price products for some reason. I struggled with that with my higher end products. So, I’ve added in more pain points I talk a lot about, you know, what differentiates what I’m doing on the market.
I don’t talk about competition on my sales page, but more like why my product is different and how it will help you. I have a bio on there. A lot of details about what you’re getting, lots of bonuses that I offer.
I’m trying to think what else? Oh, and the other thing is to put the opportunity for them to buy all along the way. Don’t just wait ’til they click the buy button.
Jillian Leslie 28:34
So how many buy buttons would you say you have on that page?
Monica Froese 28:39
I feel like I probably could even add more than one I have. For a long time, I only had two. And now I would say… I know I have the price listed in three different places but when you press Sign me up, it will jump you to the buy button. And I’d say I have at least six or seven of those now. Maybe eight.
Jillian Leslie 29:03
Got it. So you make it easy.
Monica Froese 29:05
Yes. And I recently heard… I wish I tried this last time but this could be great advice for someone else who’s opening a sales page. HotJar.com, which is a heat maps of your sales page.
You can see where people are focused more, and like where they fall off, where they’re having trouble. I have not done this but it sounds genius to me so I plan on installing this.
Jillian Leslie 29:28
Using HotJar? We used it on MiloTree and it’s really fascinating because it will show you where people are clicking. And like, “There was something on our page where we didn’t make a button but people thought there was a hot link.”
And so, you could see all these people had been clicking on a part of our site that we didn’t even know anybody would think to click on. And so I need to step back and go, “Oh, wait. They think that’s a button. We should put a button there.”
Monica Froese 30:00
I wish I had done this on the last launch. One of the girls in the accelerator program I’m in told me that her launch, she was struggling with the new product she was launching and she did HotJar.
And she made a ton of changes to her sales pages. It was a physical product and ended up selling out. She went from hardly any sales when she first launched to almost selling out within a week because of using HotJar and seeing where people were struggling on a page.
Jillian Leslie 30:28
Yeah, it’s very insightful because what you discover is that people see your sales page or your product differently than you do.
Monica Froese 30:36
Yes.
Jillian Leslie 30:37
And then we come at it with so many preconceived notions that you’re like, “Really? That’s how they think about that?” We think something is so clear. And it’s like, “Wow! They’re really confused.”
Monica Froese 30:49
I used to do them back in the day, when I first started blogging. I think it was called peak user test. And I did it on my my regular website. I’ve actually used to get so upset because it was a blog roll back then. So that was what my main page was.
So it was like my blog posts were the most prominent thing when you land it. And there would be an excerpt and then these three dots. But for some reason in my theme, those three dots weren’t hyperlinks, but the title was.
And then there was also a read more like right there but people kept clicking on the three dots. I was getting so upset. I’m like, “Why can’t you just click on?”
Jillian Leslie 31:28
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, it’s humbling. You realize that like you think you know, and then you go, “Oh, wait. I don’t know.” Or I’m sure you see this when you’re testing ads.
You’re like, “Oh, this one’s so going to win. People are going to love this.” And then all of a sudden, that’s not true. And they like something else.
Monica Froese 31:46
Absolutely. A little trick for Pinterest ads because I get asked this all the time and it’s a really good question, which is, “Should I promote a pin that’s already doing well, or a new pin?” Or, “Can I promote a pin that’s doing well with a new pin?” I actually have very strong opinions on this.
Jillian Leslie 32:06
Do tell. Share.
Monica Froese 32:10
Pinterest is very algorithm-driven. They need signals from your pins to understand what they’re about. So when you have a pin that’s been on their platform, let’s just say for 30 days, they’ve already started indexing your pin description keywords, the text overlay.
They’ve looked at the boards that people have saved it to and the titles of that boards to get more clues about what that pins about. And you’ve given them time to when you scroll down on a pin, when you have a pin open on your device and you scroll down you get related pins.
And when you look at related pins, it gives you a very good idea of if Pinterest actually knows what the heck your pin is about because my pin is about goal planning and I scroll down and it’s all about weight loss. There’s a disconnect going on.
Jillian Leslie 32:55
Yes, yes.
Monica Froese 32:57
So what happens is, if you promote a pin that been on the platform for 30 days, Pinterest has all of these signals about that pin and what it’s about. And if you promote it against a pin that’s brand new that they have no signals about, almost always I would say, I’ve run hundreds of campaigns if not over a thousand at this point, it will default to favoring the promoted pin. Algorithm default to favoring the pin that they know more about even if it’s not the better pin because you didn’t give the other pins enough time.
So I always say don’t promote apendix but on the platform against the brand new one, because they will pick a favorite too fast without it being a true test.
Jillian Leslie 33:42
I think that’s great advice. Yes. And I would always say go toward what is already working. If there’s a way to build on that, to do that. Use that momentum. Use the fact that Pinterest understands this and that people are already responding to it.
Monica Froese 33:58
Yeah, I agree with that. I would say for the vast majority of times I promote in my students as well, we usually use something that’s already performing on the platform. But there are instances when maybe you have like a new challenge you’re going to be launching so you circulate pins and in that case, create two new pins and test them against each other and see how it plays out in the promotion.
Jillian Leslie 34:22
I think that’s great advice. Okay. One thing that I think you’re really good at, there many things I think you’re really good at, but we were talking about this a little bit before we press record, which is I was giving the hypothetical of I am a food blogger, and I am a content creator. I thought I would get into this and make a lot of money via ads. And that might not be happening or even my ad income is decreasing.
How do I think about creating products? You’ve been so good at starting with less expensive products and moving up to more expensive products. Like really moving up. They call it the value chain.
Let’s say I’ve never thought about creating a product. How should I go about that in my niche? If it’s not like let’s say, I’m helping people plan, or do decluttering or something that kind of you go, “Oh, yeah. I’d want to buy something to help me with that.” How would you go about creating a product in my niche, and then thinking about how to move up the value chain.
Monica Froese 35:32
First, with ads on a site. I’ve always said and I’ve said this for years even before I was down the product path as far as I am now. I always felt like there’s not a lot of control over the ads on your site. I like control with my revenue streams, or at least as much control as I can get.
And then the other thing is with ads, you’re also sending people away from your site. And so I’ve always sat there and thought, “Well, why don’t I just promote my own stuff?” Like why don’t I keep people in house? When I think about ads, those are always questions on my mind.
With Pinterest, honestly, I feel like Pinterest makes it so easy to brainstorm product ideas. The first caveat is never copy people. It’s not good to copy. Inspiration is one thing. Never copy.
Well, one of the exercises my students love, and I actually just brought my students this exercise is doing keyword research. And looking at it from the perspective of… First of all, let’s say you put in a keyword.
If you’re a food blogger, for example, and there’s a keyword that is very important to a vast majority of your your recipes, and you put it in and start looking at the other pins there and what problems they’re solving and the angle that they’re taking.
And oftentimes what happens is, you’ll find that there are other products being offered. And you can either do something better, because like you already have all the content that can be repackaged to offer what someone else is already asking people to pay for, or even get so many great ideas about how I could fill this gap. I could do that.
I think sometimes people are afraid of asking people for money for something that they think that other people are offering for free. And I’ll tell you right now, almost all of my lower end products, if you search on Pinterest, you can get other people’s products for free.
Sometimes they use them as an opt in, and I’m asking you to pay money. But there’s different way to look at it. First of all, your value and expertise. You’re the only one that has it. And when you package that up into something that people can pay for, a lot of times that means that they have more skin in the game to actually use it to get benefit out of it.
Jillian Leslie 38:00
Yes. And chances are if you’re asking somebody to pay, there’s probably a quality control with that, which is I could be getting this freebie, but maybe somebody just kind of hacked it together. Whereas, if you’re asking me to pay for this, chances are I’m going to get something of higher value.
Monica Froese 38:21
I absolutely believe that’s the case. And one of the reasons I think that I have managed to stay on top of search results for a lot of my products against things that are free, is because Pinterest does know… They measure clicks to your site, right?
They know how much your pins are getting interacted with. I believe I stay up on top of a lot of these search results because people are taking action and telling Pinterest that they want to pay for it.
The other thing I’ve started doing which I got this, from when I read the S1 report, which is when Pinterest went public, they have to file this S1 report with the Securities Exchange Commission. I just reread it. Their product pins have a 40%… It’s around 40%. I don’t know the exact percentage. It’s a decent percentage, though. More click through.
And it’s so easy to make a product pin. You just add a little bit of code on… Like if you have a sales page, for example, on lead pages, you just add a little bit of code in the header section. And what it does is it pulls in the pricing and donation to Pinterest. And those get a lot more click through.
So if you think about this, if you’re like a food blogger, and you have all these recipes on one topic, why not put them together into like a recipe download, and then you can take advantage of product pins. It doesn’t have to be super expensive.
And it validates it too because you already know people want it for free. People pay for aggregated information. They just do. I do. As a user myself, for example, my husband recently lost 70 pounds on keto.
Jillian Leslie 40:14
Oh my gosh. Yes?
Monica Froese 40:15
Yes. Yes.
Jillian Leslie 40:16
Good for him.
Monica Froese 40:18
Yes. A little jealous. He just dropped it. Just like all melted off of him. But because of that I, had to change the way we eat because he basically cut out carbs. He still does eat pretty keto-friendly.
When I go and look for keto recipes because I’m not a huge cook myself. So I need stuff to be easy. I am not an elaborate cook. I really actually kind of don’t like cooking at all.
So when I go to Pinterest, and I’m looking for keto stuff, I actually gravitate towards the paid stuff, because I feel like it’s going to be much easier to follow. It’s going to be a quicker win for me and I don’t have time to waste.
Jillian Leslie 40:57
I think that is so smart. I think that again, using Pinterest to do your research. Did you see what problems are people having, how are other people solving them, how could I go solve them?
Monica Froese 41:08
Yeah, and a lot of times there’s a gap and you’re solving it with something already and you can just repackage it differently.
Jillian Leslie 41:15
I think that is so great. And by the way, just for the audience. In order to get product pins, those are rich pins, Google rich pins, you need a business account with Pinterest in order to get them but they’re special pins that show up with more information.
Monica Froese 41:29
Yeah. Other form of rich pins.
Jillian Leslie 41:32
Oh, you are just such a wealth of information. I literally take notes when I talk to you because I’m like, “Oh, I need to look into this. Oh, I need…” You know? That kind of thing.
So lead pages is your place? That’s your jam?
Monica Froese 41:46
Yeah, my website is hosted on WordPress. I’m not a coder by any means. I am not a website guru. So back in the day, I needed something that was fairly easy.
And at this point, I am so invested in lead pages with building my opt-ins and my sales pages. I can never leave them. They’re pretty. Like I did a pretty good job at that.
Jillian Leslie 42:18
You do. You do. I love your landing page. If somebody were to say to me who’s landing pages, do I like, do I respond to, it would be you. So when I had the opportunity to interview you again, that was like the first thing I wrote on my thing was asked her about landing pages.
Monica Froese 42:34
Yeah. Honestly too. The thing about landing pages at the end of the day is it takes up all the clutter, right? I don’t have sidebars. There’s no upper nav. I’m not asking you to do four different actions when you land on my page.
When I put money behind something, I want it to just be super clear what I want you to do, which is I want you to pay for something, or I want your email address. There’s no confusion there about what I’m asking you to do.
Jillian Leslie 43:03
Yes. Again, I think that that is so smart and serve it up easy for your audience. Make it easy. Make the yes easy.
Monica Froese 43:14
Make the Yes super easy. Yes. Yeah, exactly. And think about you know, the other popular thing that I have my students do that they aim about is I make them go through other people’s funnels.
They start with a keyword. I ask them to go through organic pin, so ones that are not promoted and promoted pins under those keywords and see if you’re confused by what is being offered, if you know what action you’re supposed to take because a lot of times you’ll land on a pin that you just think is amazing.
And you’re like, “Well, I can’t do this because someone else is already doing this right?” And then you click on it and you have no idea what they’re even asking you to do. It’s convoluted and it’s messy.
And then you’re like, “Oh, I could do this better.” It gives people confidence to go out there and be more okay with asking for the sale. There’s nothing wrong with asking for the sale and getting money for your expertise.
Jillian Leslie 44:12
Absolutely. Okay, Monica. Where can people then learn about your course and you and all of that stuff? When is it opening again? Like give people the lowdown.
Monica Froese 44:23
Alright. So I offer year-round a free course called pin practical ads, which you can find at RedefiningMom.com/ads.
Jillian Leslie 44:33
We’ll link to all of this in the show notes.
Monica Froese 44:35
Yes. That’s the easiest place to start if you’re looking on how to get started with promoted pins because that free course is going to lead into the bigger course at this point.
So I’m changing things up in the background. So if you’re interested in the bigger course, chances are by the time you go through the free course you’ll have that opportunity to join us in the bigger course.
Jillian Leslie 44:57
Awesome! If people want to reach out, do you have an email address or is there a contact page or anything like that?
Monica Froese 45:02
Yeah, I’m RedefiningMom.com. I have all that fun stuff. There’s a contact page and all my social handles. I’m much more active now. You can find me anywhere beyond Instagram at RedefiningMom. I’m sort of getting into like the whole Instagram story thing.
Jillian Leslie 45:18
Cool.
Monica Froese 45:20
Yeah, it’s like a cool new place to hang out. I’m joining the cool kids.
Jillian Leslie 45:23
Cool. Awesome. Okay. Monica, thank you so much for being on the show. I know we are going to do like a Part V? IV? Something like that.
Monica Froese 45:34
V, yeah.
Jillian Leslie 45:34
Awesome! Well, thank you.
Monica Froese 45:36
Awesome. Thanks for having me.
Jillian Leslie 45:39
I love that episode. I always learn so much from Monica. I hope you do too.
Also, I don’t know if you know this, but if you sign up for MiloTree, not only do you get your first 30 days free, but you also get put on my email list where every week I send tips and tricks to help you grow your business.
I hope you will meet me here again next week.
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