Pinterest Marketing – How To Create A Strategy That Works

As social media marketing becomes ever more popular and effective, you should know all the platforms at your disposal. Pinterest Marketing offers marketers a very creative and visual way to promote brands and companies. Most people use Pinterest to get inspired and plan their futures – dream weddings, holidays, dinners etc. If you can get your brand in front of eager eyes, you’ll gain a lot of exposure and connect with customers in a unique way.

What Are The Benefits Of Pinterest Marketing?

On top of being a visual haven, Pinterest does have the potential to be a great digital marketing tool. In fact, it is the fourth most popular social media platform in America, ranking ahead of giants such as Twitter and LinkedIn.

Pinterest’s active user base grew 26% to 335 million and boasts with 70 million monthly active Pinners. The platform’s quarter-on-quarter change in advertising reach went up by 12% in 2019 and is expected to grow even more. This came after Pinterest added more countries to its ad targeting portfolio.

Visual Treat

Visual searches are becoming more popular and have always been entertaining. More than half of the younger generation say they like to search by image – which is possible on Pinterest. The ‘Pinterest Lens’ feature is able to identify over 2 billion fashion and home objects.

Brand Exposure

Pinterest is a place where people discover new products and ideas. Most users are at least interested in being exposed to new products. This is what makes Pinterest Marketing so effective. People want to be introduced to something new and that’s what you’re doing. When you’ve got so many users eager to see new brands, you’ve got the possibility of great brand exposure.

Pinterest Lets You Inspire People

When you use Pinterest for marketing, you can do more than just reach people – you can inspire them. You can play a much more meaningful role in the lives of your potential customers. This creates more brand loyalty in the long run.

Who Uses Pinterest The Most?

About two-thirds of Pinterest’s base users are female and in the US alone, 8 out of 10 moms are active on the platform. As many marketers know, when it comes to making decisions about purchasing services and products for the home, women make the shots most of the time.

Pinterest Marketing Terms To Know

As you would find with any social media marketing platform, there are certain terms unique to Pinterest. Knowing what these are will help you understand the platform better. This goes a long way into creating a successful and effective social media marketing campaign.

Pins

The primary type of post shared on Pinterest is called a Pin. This can include text, images and videos. Many of them link back to their original source as well.

Pinner

Twitter users are called tweeps and Pinterest users are called Pinners. It may not be a very original name, but it works.

Promoted Pins

There are different kinds of Pins to be found on Pinterest and  Promoted Pins are what matters to marketers. These are regular Pins that have been paid for to have promoted. They will appear in search results and the Home Feed. You’ll notice that these Pins have a ‘Promoted’ label attached to them. You can promote Carousel Pins, Video Pins and App Pins.

RePins

Just as you can share someone’s post on Facebook and other platforms, Pinterest lets users share the pins they like. These are RePins.

Shop The Look Pins

Pinterest allows brands and companies to add product tags to be more promotional. This makes it possible for users to ‘shop the look’ by tapping on the Pin’s white dots. This feature is still a bit new but popular.

Rich Pins

These are Pins that have more information included, such as Install Buttons and Price Information. You will find them in one of four formats – App Pins, Recipe Pins, Article Pins and Product Pins.

There are many perks to using Rich Pins – these guys live up to their names. It is estimated that if you incorporate Rich Pins into your marketing strategy, you can see a spike in your repin ratio from other users. Big brands such as Target are using these Pins because they generate traffic and grow sales.

You will find that you get real-time information that is automatically updated when you use Rich Pins. To make the most of these pins, you have to get them validated by Pinterest. Getting the help of a web developer is recommended if you’re not so up-to-date with tech-related matters such as meta tags.

Boards

Pinterest makes use of Boards that allows users to put up their Pins. 

Group Board

This allows you to group Pins with a certain theme or topic together. For example, you could have a Christmas Board dedicated to anything Christmas, or a Wedding Dress Board, which is dedicated to Pins of wedding dresses. In general, Group Boards have less than five members who add to them.

Secret Boards

These mysterious boards can only be seen by the creator and the Pinterest users who were invited to view it. You’ll know you created one when there is a lock symbol next to the Board name. This allows users to do the planning of things they don’t want to be seen, such as a surprise birthday party.

Protected Boards

These Boards are only available to advertisers and can be seen all across the platform. However, they do not show on any profile pages.

The Save Button

This is a plugin of Pinterest for websites that is used by Microsoft Edge, Chrome and Firefox. It allows you to save your products on your Pinterest Boards. It allows for better user experience.

Additional Important Pinterest Marketing Terms

Pincodes

These are basically QR codes (similar to Snapcodes) that you can scan digitally. It can be linked back to your board.

Pinterest Lens

This is a feature that is available on Apple and Android devices. It lest you take a photo of something and then search for related content on Pinterest. It is a unique feature that Pinners love.

Audience Insights

This is very important for marketers. Business accounts on Pinterest get access to analytics with this feature. You can learn more about how to use the platform and what metric information you should be keeping an eye on.

Setting Up A Pinterest Business Account

You have more than one option when it comes to creating a Pinterest Business Account. You can add it to your personal account, create a whole new account or convert your personal account.

There are several steps to follow, and we’ll discuss them here.

Step One

Head to Pinterest’s ‘Create Business Account’ page. You have to be logged out if you regularly use the platform. You will enter your email address and a new password to create a new account.

Step Two

You will choose your location, language and add your business name. Then, choose a description for your business that shows off what it does. Add a link to your official website as well.

Step Three

It is recommended that you connect your Pinterest account to any other social media platforms linked to your business. If you don’t have a social media marketing campaign focused on different platforms yet, you are missing out on a lot of marketing potential. 

Step Four

Inform Pinterest if you have plans to run ads on its platform. You can get in touch with a rep if you leave your contact information. If you want to know as much as possible about Pinterest Marketing, talking to a rep is a good idea.

Step Five

Now, you get to edit your business profile. You can choose to change the profile name, which you probably will. Pinterest automatically pulls a profile name from the email address you provide when registering.

You can add a profile photo that represents your brand or service. For best results, the dimensions should be 165px by 165px. For a more in-depth discussion of how to use images on Pinterest, check out our guide.

In the ‘About’ section, fill in the relevant information and try to add some keywords as organically as possible. When you are finished, click on ‘Done’ and your info will be saved.

Step Six

To claim your website, click on ‘Claim’, which you will find in the left-hand menu. This will let you track the analytics of your account. In addition, any Pins that link back to your account will show your profile photo as well as a Follow Button. Overall, this will enhance your brand’s visibility and lead to more followers.

Step Seven

Create your first Board. This is done by clicking on the ‘plus’ sign over ‘Create A Board’. You can add a title and then add a description. It is advised that you make use of keywords in this description. Also, choose a category for your Board to improve SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Then, add a cover photo that is relevant and fitting.

Step Eight

Create your very first Pin by going to the dashboard and clicking the ‘plus’ sign. You will find this in the right corner. Give your Pin a title and a fitting description with keywords and hashtags. Remember, add a destination link that corresponds to the Pin’s content. 

Now, select ‘Publish’ and choose the Board to which you want to add this Pin. It is highly recommended that you install the Pinterest Save Button. This will help to fill your Boards with a variety of Pins and content much easier. 

Step Nine

Head to your profile page and edit the profile cover image of your account. Pinterest will automatically fill it with something from your Pins or Boards, so you have to edit it and choose either Pin or Board to decide where these images must be chosen from.

Step Ten

You are going to use Pinterest to advertise, so you have to add the Pinterest Tag to your website. It allows you to track the conversions that you get and get a better understanding of what people do on your site once they’ve seen your Pins. It is a very valuable tool for Pinterest Marketing.

And that is basically what you do to create a business account on Pinterest. Next, we will discuss how you can attract more followers.

Pinterest Marketing – How To Attract Followers

As is the case with most social media platforms, Pinterest is a great place for marketing but has to be approached correctly. You have to make sure that when you start using Pinterest, you come prepared. This way, you can make the most of the opportunities at your disposal.

Let’s get into it, shall we?

Create A Good Content Strategy

With no clear plans, even the most original and genius ideas will amount to nothing. The same applies to content creation for Pinterest Marketing. You need good content to attract people and keep them interested. If they can’t find anything unique or interesting on your account, why would they stick around?

You need to have a strategy that piques enough interest to drive Pinners to buy from you. That is the point of marketing, after all. Your content is what will make people want to follow your account.

It is recommended that you connect with engaged users as soon as possible. You need to put everything into those first few months because that is the ‘make or break’ period on Pinterest.

Create Content That Captivates

This flows in with the above-mentioned point. On Pinterest, visuals are super important. Almost all Pinners value images much more than text. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should neglect your copy. It simply means that you need to focus equally on all fronts of your content, giving a bit more attention to visuals.

Keep in mind that more than 80% of Pinterest users are on their mobiles when they use the platform. Your content needs to be optimised for mobile use or it will be ignored. Go for a 2:3 ratio to prevent images from being truncated. Your visuals should always be of very high quality.

Make your copy descriptive – tell Pinners what they are seeing and make them want to see more. The key to good marketing is creativity and it comes into play heavily here. Get people hooked with good storytelling. Use text overlay to help enforce your message. Above all else, make your content tasteful and appealing.

Plan Your Seasonal Content Ahead

There’s nothing as stressful as not being prepared for something and you really don’t want to scratch together last-minute marketing content. You need to plan ahead, creating content for special vacations and dates before they roll around. This is especially true on a platform like Pinterest. People who use Pinterest are planners and they like to plan ahead. Like, way ahead. It is suggested that you plan your content about a month or 45 days ahead. This way, you can have great content ready for Pinners when they start searching for it.

If you need motivation, just know that Pinterest searches were very high in 2018 alone, with Halloween seeing 227 million searchers, the December holidays seeing 321 million and Valentines Day getting over 56 million searches.

Timely content sees an impressive holiday boost and Promoted Pins that correspond with holidays can see an increase in sales of up to more than 20%. Pinterest Marketing is made easier with the platform’s Seasonal Insights. You can select holidays that your brand will easily create content around and then plan around them. Be sure to make use of keywords.

Be Consistent With Your Pinterest Marketing Strategy

If you’ve read any of our guides on social media marketing, you’ll know that we always stress the importance of consistency. For the best results, you should aim to pin something at least once a day. Of course, be careful to not overdo things and pin too much in a 24 hour period. Pinning things in such a way is more effective than going crazy and pinning lots all at once. 

A pro tip to remember is creating a Secret Board on which to add Pins that you want to share at a later time. Throughout your day or week, visit the Board and pick the Pins that you want to add to your other Boards. It saves you a lot of time.

Also, do research about when your target audience is online and active. You want to share Pins when you’re likely to reach more people.

Make Shopping Easier For Pinners

The driving force behind Pinterest Marketing is the desire of users to buy, and if you make it easy for them everyone wins. One useful feature that you can make use of is the ‘Shop The Look’ Pins. These allow the retail process to be much more convenient and easier. This way, links take Pinterest users to your product page where they can purchase whatever they want with just a few clicks.

In addition, Pinterest’s Shop Tab was introduced to business profiles not so long ago. The Tab allows Pinners shop from a brand directly from their profile. This is yet another way that online shopping is made simpler. 

Remember SEO

SEO is the foundation of good social media marketing and is what helps make your campaign successful. Keywords are the best way to find content and it is how Pinners find what they want on Pinterest. That is why it is important that you use keywords in your descriptions and Pin names. 

Stay on top of keyword research so you can continually boost your Pinterest Marketing ideas and strategies’ success.

Use Ads The Right Way

You can use ads on Pinterest but you have to target the right people. Pinterest lets advertisers use keywords, location, age, interests and more to get the best results for their ads. 

With audience targeting, you can easily reach people who have visited your site, newsletter subscribers, Pinners who engaged with your Pins and similar content and ‘actalike audiences’. These are users who have the same behaviour as your target audience.

Use Boards To Connect

You may be surprised to find out, but Boards can go a long way towards connecting with Pinners. You can give them a reason to follow you by creating Boards with engaging and interesting content. Do-it-yourself tutorials are one example of great content to connect with. Perhaps you can consider curating a Board showing off customers using your merchandise or service.

Comment 

It is a good idea for brands and companies to reach out to followers by commenting on their Pins. Show them some love, but keep it professional, of course. Don’t be weird or inappropriate when you comment. Just make sure your followers know you value and appreciate them.

Follow Popular Boards

If you want to be successful at Pinterest Marketing, you should not limit yourself to only creating content. You should follow other Pinners as well. One of the best ways to see the most effective strategies is by following and engaging with popular Boards. By learning from what they pin, the kinds of Boards they create and how they engage, you can take home a lot of knowledge. 

In addition, if you comment on these Boards, your brand’s name will be seen by other Pinners, creating more awareness. Of course, you should be following Boards that are relevant to your brand and industry. Nothing you do on social media should be random or without purpose.

Reply To Comments

This may not seem like a big deal, but by replying to the comments on your Pins, you will create a sense of community with other users. If you directly answer their questions or engage with people, they will start to take a liking to you. Good customer service goes a long way.

Invite People To Pin on Your Boards

It is also a good idea to invite the Pinterest community to join in on your fun. Create an Open Board and allow others to contribute their own content. Of course, you’ll have to keep an eye on what is shared. As the creator of the Board, you will retain full power over the Board and no one else can change the description or name.

This approach makes your followers feel like they’re more involved in your brand’s content creation. If you can get someone who is seen as an expert or leader in your industry to Pin something, that will be a huge bonus.

Use The ‘Find Friends’ Option

Why not use all the friend that you have on social media? They’ll want to support you, wouldn’t they? Getting them to follow you isn’t difficult and could get the ball rolling for a larger amount of followers noticing you.

Build Relationships With Influencers

Social Media Influencer Marketing is a fast-growing strategy that uses people with many followers to promote brands and services. These influencers have a lot of sway on social media and are great marketing ‘tools’. Find the popular influencers in your industry or niche on Pinterest and collaborate with them.

You will obviously have to pay for working with influencers but they are worth every penny spent on them.

Pinterest Marketing – Creating Popular Pins

You want your Pins to reach as many eyes as possible and become more popular than anything your competition offers. If you execute them right, you can achieve exactly that.

For this, you need to know what the most popular categories are on Pinterest and how it can be used by your brand. Some research is called for here so you target the categories related to your brand or service.

Learn from what your competition is doing. Don’t be a sneaky thief and steal their ideas though. Instead, see what they did and improve on it. Make your own changes and come up with even better ideas.

Use images that will attract more views because it is interesting and eye-catching. Avoid stock photos as this will likely have been seen elsewhere and bore Pinterest users.

Optimizing Your Pins For Pinterest Marketing

After you have created your Pins, you naturally want to have them reach a wide audience for the maximum exposure. This could be a bit trickier than you’d expect and considering that Pinterest is such a visual playground, the competition is stiff. Let’s take a look at the various ways that you can optimize your pins for the best results.

Best Pin Times

The best time to pin would largely depend on the habits and behaviour of your target audience. In general, though, the best times are between 2 pm and 4 pm EST (Eastern Standard Time) and 8 pm and 1 am EST. Saturday mornings are considered a golden time to pin.

Make Pinning Easy

The best way to have people pin your content is to make it as easy as possible for them. Consider adding a hovering ‘Pin It’ button to your images. This will allow easy pinning for users. Alternatively, if you use WordPress, it offers a Pinterest Pin It Hover Button plugin.

It may seem like a simple thing, but these buttons can help direct more visitors to your site. In fact, it is almost certain that without making pinning easy, your site will suffer for it and interactions will be very low.

Pinterest Marketing – Bonus Tips

You now have a lot of information to work through but since we’re feeling generous we’ll give you a bit extra. Here is bonus advice to make your social media marketing strategies more successful.

Place Your Most Popular Boards On Top

You will notice over time that some of your Boards do better than others. This is normal but you should make the most of these well-performing Boards. Place them on the top of your page so they are the first Boards that newcomers see. They’ll get treated to your best material and have a great impression of you.

Stay Relevant!

It should go without saying, and we have mentioned it before, but you should make sure that your content is relevant. Not only should everything that you share be related to your brand, but also to the current times. There is no point in sharing content that is about summer if people are freezing because it’s wintertime. If a special day such as Mother’s day is around the corner, share content related to the occasion.

Have a Board For Blog Posts

Although Pinterest is a visual platform, you can still share blog posts. Just organise them into a dedicated Board. You could even use your Rich Pins here. This Board should be on the top of your page. Again, this is to that visitors will see this content first.

Ask Specific Questions For Analysis

When you’re tracking your performance on Pinterest Analytics, there are certain things you should be looking out for. These are very important in determining how well your marketing strategy is working and what you may have to change. 

• Questions could look something like this:
• Which devices are Pinners using the most?
• Who is your real audience and how does that compare to your pre-made personas?
• What do users like to save from your site?
• How does the ‘Pin It’ button perform?

Connect on Other Social Media Platforms

If you have already built up a following on other social media platforms, you should let them find you on Pinterest. We’ve mentioned this in Step Three of creating an account and it really is a great way to attract more followers. Most likely, your followers would like to see more of your content and if you can promise them a quality experience, they’ll remain loyal.

Use Your Newsletter To Share Pins

If you don’t have a newsletter yet, you should really consider creating one. It is a great supplement to any marketing strategy and results in better conversion rates. If you do have a newsletter, you can share your top Pins with your community through it. You could share something that says ‘Check out our popular Pins’ and invite readers to see what else is going on on your Pinterest account.

Pinterest Marketing – Final Thoughts

There you have it – just about everything you need to know about Pinterest Marketing. You know the how and why of it. Now, you just have to start brainstorming so you can use everything you learned here. Good luck!