How to create a successful Pinterest marketing strategy.
We bet that you’ve already got a Facebook or Instagram account for your business, but… are you sure you want to continue missing out on a Pinterest marketing strategy when it accounts for over 2 billion searches every month?
Didn’t think so.
This one-of-a-kind social media platform has been growing in popularity over the past few years, resulting in an expanding army of Pinners. However, only 28% of marketers are already tapping into its potential.
That’s actually great news for you. It means that Pinterest is popular among its users but isn’t oversaturated with brands and ads. Basically, you can get a juicy head start by getting ready to make the most of it right now.
Before teaching you how to create a Pinterest digital marketing strategy that helps you grow your audience, social media traffic to your website and generate more online sales, let’s make sure that you’re familiar with this platform and with how you should use Pinterest to improve your advertising.
How does Pinterest work?
Pinterest is still a social media platform but, realistically, Pinners mainly use it as a picture-based search engine and a bookmarking tool to find inspiration, ideas, solutions and new products.
All this visual content is organised in what Pinterest calls ‘boards’, and each picture or video is a ‘Pin’.
Following the same idea behind online bookmarks, each piece of content can be pinned to anyone’s board so that they can find it again. However, by doing so, they’re also sharing it with their followers.
Like any social media platform, Pinterest obviously retains elements of interactions that go beyond repinning other people’s content, although that’s still its focus. For example, Pinners can leave likes and comments as well as contacting other users through private messages.
How Pinterest can be used for effective online marketing
Buzzwords like #Pinteresting and #PinterestWorthy might have tricked you into believing that it’s just about sharing pretty pictures. However, Pinterest is actually a highly effective marketing tool and a real goldmine for referral traffic!
While Facebook is still the undisputed champion when it comes to directing traffic to external websites, Pinterest accounts for around 5% of all referral traffic, which is more than any other social media platform.
This is mainly because every single Pin allows you to include a different direct link to your website. Much more straightforward than asking your followers to check the one in your bio, right?
Because of its image-based layout and inspirational approach, 90% of Pinners feel that Pinterest helps them decide what to buy. Even better? 72% of them are inspired to shop even when they aren’t actively looking for a specific product.
Plus, Pinterest has been growing steadily since its first appearance in 2010 (happy ten-year birthday!). Its active base has grown by 26% in a single year, reaching 335 million users.
Chances are… your target audience is hanging out on Pinterest, too!
By creating and maintaining a Pinterest account for your business, you can:
- engage with your new and existing audience
- grow it by attracting new leads
- retain it
- position yourself as an expert in your field by offering them valuable content
- direct them to relevant pages on your website, generating more sales.
Pretty impressive, right? All you need to do to unlock all these benefits is create a successful Pinterest marketing strategy. This just happens to be exactly what we’re about to cover in this article.
How to create a Pinterest advertising strategy and use it to grow your business
Opening an account and repinning random content without first creating a marketing plan could be as bad as not using this platform at all.
Don’t worry: it’s not that hard!
You simply need to spend some time familiarising yourself with Pinterest and preparing a strategy with your target audience in mind. Let’s get cracking!
1. Set up a Pinterest account that’s consistent with your brand
As we’re sure you know, consistency is key and can help you develop or reinforce your brand awareness.
Since you’re given between 3 and 30 characters to create your username, try and keep it consistent with your other social media accounts, such as your Instagram handle. That way, it’ll be much easier for users to find you.
Use your logo or the same profile picture that you’ve got on your other pages and write the bio in your brand tone. To be more searchable, try and add relevant keywords if it feels natural.
You definitely want to go for a business account. While it’s still free just like normal profiles, it gives you access to the platform’s analytics and other useful Pinterest marketing features.
For example, there’s a Pinterest widget to add to your website and a Pinterest tag to track the actions taken by users who’ve found it through this platform.
2. Do some market research
If you’re new to this social media platform, it can be hard to come up with a Pinterest marketing strategy without being familiar with it.
Pinterest is very different from ‘traditional’ social media platforms that revolve around the idea of creating a chronological feed.
That’s why we recommend investing some time in conducting some market research before you post anything.
Have a cheeky look at what your competitors are doing on Pinterest:
- What type of pictures do they share?
- What boards did they create?
Most importantly, analyse what seems to resonate the most with your target audience:
- What boards are more popular?
- What type of content gets repinned the most?
Use this to generate a few ideas to include in your strategy, but don’t forget to fill a gap in the market by adding a few relevant elements that your competitors have ignored.
3. Create the right boards for your brand
Now that you have a better understanding of what works the most on Pinterest and, especially, what your target audience enjoys engaging with, run an audit of the content that you already share.
This goes beyond the rest of your social media marketing strategy: don’t forget about your blog posts and website content!
You can then create boards that represent your brand and what you have to offer, as well as some that cover topics that are particularly relevant to your industry.
For example, it’s not rare for ethical fashion brands to have a sustainability board where they create or repin content that educates their audience on this subject, or one that shows customers how to live in an eco-friendlier way. An independent roaster could have one that collects coffee-based recipes, or tutorials on how to make coffee at home.
Basically, you want to create boards about your brand but, at the same time, think beyond it!
All the potential customers that would love your products but aren’t familiar with your brand won’t find you by typing your name. However, they can find your account if you cover industry-related topics in which they’re already interested.
Pinterest is one of the very best platforms to leverage this strategy!
4. Prepare content and keep it visual
Now, the fun part: start creating content!
While you can and should repin other users’ content to promote engagement and cover wider topics in your industry, your focus should be on creating fresh pins.
This will allow you to establish yourself as an expert in your field and be perceived as a relevant source of information and #PinterestWorthy inspiration (excuse the rhyme) by your target audience.
Pinterest is an image-based platform, so make sure you keep it visual, appealing and consistent with your brand. To enhance your brand awareness and avoid being copied without credit, you might want to consider watermarking some pieces of content, especially highly shareable pictures like infographics.
Make the most of your graphic department or, if you’re a small start-up, try user-friendly design websites like Canva.
For the best results on Pinterest, stick to a 2:3 aspect ratio, and especially to high-quality 1000 x 1500 pixel pictures.
As for your blog posts, you can pin images that include their title, linking directly to that article.
Basically, you can use your boards to tell a story, share your new products and humanise your brand, but there’s one thing you should never forget about.
Value.
Just like with any other aspect of your content strategy.
There’s a reason why it’s called Pinterest rather than Pboring! Not just because it would be more difficult to pronounce, but because you should focus on content that your target audience finds interesting and valuable.
Obviously, there isn’t a one-fits-all recipe: it all depends on what type of products or services you offer and who your target audience actually is. In general, you could consider sprinkling your boards with tutorials, infographics or relevant inspiration around topics in your industry.
After all, 78% of Pinners find it useful to see content from brands on this platform. Help keep this statistic positive!
5. Experiment with videos
Yes, we’ve already established that Pinterest is mainly populated by images, but there has been a steady growth when it comes to video content. In a single year, they’re now getting 6 times more views.
Bring some variety to your boards by creating a few relevant videos!
Don’t worry: you don’t need to record YouTube-style content that lasts 10-20 minutes.
A short and snappy 30-second video seems to be the optimal length to achieve the best results on Pinterest. However, you can obviously share longer ones if they involve things like tutorials and how-to guides.
6. Create rich pins
We also recommend applying for Rich Pins, a type of organic Pins that provide even more context through the use of additional information.
For example, a Rich Pin will stand out thanks to its bold title and the information included above and below the Pin’s image.
There are five different types of Rich Pins (movie, recipe, article, product and place). Each of them includes its own features to help you reach more people, increase your engagement, and direct traffic to your website.
Obviously, it’s highly unlikely that they can all be relevant to your business, but, for example, we bet that product Rich Pins could be a useful tool.
Linking directly to that product page on your website, they let you show its up-to-date price, description and availability, making it effortless for Pinners to have a quick overview and click onto it to buy it.
7. Write engaging descriptions
On Pinterest, the picture is obviously what captures your audience’s attention. However, a well-crafted description could make the difference when it comes to convincing them to click onto your link or let them go back to their scrolling.
Just like you would on Instagram and Facebook, spend some time creating a caption that resonates with your target audience and gives them an unmissable call to action.
Depending on what you’re trying to achieve, you might want to encourage them to repin your post (maybe you’re trying to grow your brand awareness?) or, most likely, to click onto its link.
Either way, the reason and, especially, the benefit brought to them by following through with the call to action should always be clear.
8. Use keywords and hashtags
Remember when we said that Pinterest is like a virtual search engine? Then it shouldn’t come as a surprise that, like on Google, you still need an element of SEO.
To make your Pins searchable and, most importantly, easy to be found, you must add the right keywords for your business and that specific piece of content.
The best places to do so are board titles, image alt text, your profile bio and the Pin’s description.
Similarly to Instagram, another searchable element on Pinterest are hashtags. You can add them to your Pins’ and boards’ descriptions to help them reach the users who’re actively looking for content around that subject.
Not sure where to start? In your Pinterest analytics, you can check the categories and interests that are most popular with your audience of Pinners.
But don’t forget that, just like with any other website, Pinterest pages can also come up in the SERP of traditional search engines! This can happen both in the ‘all’, ‘video’ and, even more likely, ‘images’ tab.
You can therefore combine your Pinterest and SEO strategy by targeting the keywords that you want to show up for on Google.
9. Drive traffic to your website and products
Since you’re allowed a different link for every single Pin, you should definitely make the most of this precious feature. Always think of Pins as a combination of a picture and a link!
Of course, this doesn’t mean that you can just add the same random link to your website to every single piece of content! This hyperlink must be relevant, useful and help your audience find more information regarding what they’ve just seen on that Pin.
For example, you could add a direct link to the product featured in the photo or, if you’ve pinned an infographic, to its original blog post so that they can discover even more about that topic.
A popular technique for a successful Pinterest marketing strategy is to combine it with your content marketing plan. Whenever you share a blog post, you should create a #PinterestWorthy image to go with it.
This will allow you to harness the traffic powerhouse of users who aren’t directly looking for you but for something related to your products or industry. However, instead of resolving to traditional search engines like Google, they’re using Pinterest.
Make sure that you provide an answer to the question on there, too.
10. Grow your Pinterest account
When you first open your account and once you’ve got a few boards and pieces of content to show off, it’d be a good idea to climb on top of a mountain and yell to the world that your company has a brand-new Pinterest page.
Well, metaphorically, at least.
Just like with traditional SEO, it can take some time to see actual results, so it only makes sense to try and get yourself a head start.
Announce it on the social accounts where you’ve already grown a trusted following, mention it in your newsletter, and add a clickable Pinterest button to your website.
However, to grow your Pinterest account organically, you must also focus on two mantras:
- Consistency: try and stick to 3 Pins per day
- Community: actively engage with your audience.
11. Focus on community and interact with your audience
At the end of the day, even if it’s used as a search engine, Pinterest remains a social media platform. As such, you can’t afford to overlook its social aspect.
Your Pinterest marketing strategy shouldn’t be conceived as a one-sided speech, but as a means of engaging in a two-way conversation with your target audience.
This will allow you to grow your Pinterest account and keep your followers engaged, which will ultimately lead to generating more sales.
To do so:
- follow relevant accounts in your niche
- repin content that can help you show your knowledge and passion for your industry
- interact with your followers
- reply to their comments to your Pins.
12. Analyse your Pinterest marketing strategy on a regular basis
Just like you review your other social media platforms and marketing efforts in general, you should check your Pinterest analytics periodically.
Don’t just wing it!
See what boards are more popular with your target audience, what type of content gets the most engagement and repins, and what helps you drive traffic to your website.
This will allow you to improve your Pinterest marketing strategy by making informed decisions based on actual data and always keep on top of your Pinterest game.
13. Consider running ads through promoted pins
The strength of a successful Pinterest marketing strategy revolves around organic content. However, you can widen your reach through paid ads as well, similarly to the way you do so on Facebook and Instagram.
The main difference? They’re called promoted Pins… and users seem to be enjoying them much more than other ads!
Sharing promoted Pins usually results in a 2-5% higher engagement rate, and Pinners who interact with them are 12% more likely to buy from you.
Plus, other than a tiny ‘promoted’ label, they look and behave just like organic Pins, so they don’t feel intrusive nor make your audience think that you’re bombarded them with ads. Because they can be pinned to other boards, promoted Pins could even result in a much higher reach than what you’ve paid for.
As well as traditional picture Pins, there are other (P)interesting advertising features that you could try.
For example, you can promote video-based Pins: in that case, keep them shorter than your organic videos, around 6-15 seconds.
You can also create a multi-image carousel that—featuring more than one title, description and link—can help you direct your audience to several products.
Considering that you can reach more than 169 million people, Pinterest can become a valuable channel for your paid marketing efforts!
14. Have a go at influencer marketing on Pinterest
People are much more likely to consider or buy something if it’s endorsed by someone they trust. Of course, that’s the basis of influencer marketing. However, while Instagram is still the main platform for it, don’t underestimate the power of Pinterest!
Look for creators who are popular with your target audience and ask them to collaborate. For example, they could review your product, take a video showing people how to use it, or share pictures of it in their boards.
This will help you reach new people who are already interested in your industry but don’t know about your products just yet, as well as grow your brand awareness and generate more sales!
15. Add a Pinterest button to your blog and website
Finally, remember that Pinterest traffic goes both ways. While you’ll mainly need it to direct people to your website, you should also make it as easy as possible for users to share your website content onto Pinterest.
Might as well cash in on some free advertising, right?
Hopefully, you already have other social media buttons on your website. As well as a ‘share on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter’, you should add a Pinterest button next to your blog posts and to each product that you sell.
If someone finds them inspiring and decides to pin them to one of their boards, their followers will also see them and you’ll be able to reach people who hadn’t even heard from you just yet.
Overall, a Pinterest marketing strategy is an unmissable opportunity for any business. Combining social media and SEO tricks, you can tap into a sizable portion of your target audience and direct it to your website and products.
We’re sure that your brand is already interesting. Now you just need to add a P to it!
Do you still find it a bit overwhelming? Our Ketchup Crew is here to help! Ketchup Marketing can create an effective Pinterest marketing strategy for your business.