Pinterest is more than just a social media site for checking out new food recipes, memes, or the newest fashion or latest outfit. 

When used correctly, this platform is one of the best channels to market your work to your target market.

Whether you own a small or a huge business or a startup, Pinterest gives businesses a stage to showcase who they are and what they have to offer to their prospects. 

As a visual site, it allows brands to weave visual stories around their products or services in a way that mere words cannot.

If, as a business, you are yet to introduce Pinterest marketing as part of your social media strategies because you cannot fathom why or how a site like Pinterest will help your brand grow, then you want to keep reading. Because in this post, I will be telling you all about Pinterest marketing and why your business needs it.

So, let’s get down to business right away!

What is Pinterest?

According to the site’s definition, Pinterest is a visual discovery engine for finding ideas.

It is a social media platform that allows you to “pin” your ideas or interests and share them with others. 

On the site, users/pinners upload, discover, share, and save pins, images, articles, or videos they find helpful, funny, or inspiring by adding these pins to personal boards, which are separated by themes or topics. 

This arrangement of content by boards makes it easy for other users on Pinterest to exchange content and find relevant pins.

Like any other social media site, Pinterest users can follow friends, like, and comment on other users’ posts.

They can choose to share personal interests with a select few or with the public. 

They can search on boards of interest, re-pin content to their boards, share others’ pins on Facebook, Twitter, or email, and even embed specific pins on their website or blog. 

However, unlike most social media websites, typically designed for catching up with friends and exchanging info, Pinterest works more like a search engine, primarily searching out, sharing, and saving pins of interest.

And it is this feature that makes the site ideal for attracting prospects. 

Currently, Pinterest has over 433million active users every month, with 83% stating that they have made a purchase based on helpful content they discovered while on Pinterest.

What is Pinterest Marketing?

Pinterest marketing is a set of actions integrating Pinterest into your company’s overall social media marketing plan to reach out to new audiences and increase brand and product exposure.

Understanding its vital role in marketing, Pinterest has introduced Pinterest for Business, a free platform for companies who want to use Pinterest to drive brand awareness and grow their customer base.

This platform comes with extra features not available on Pinterest for personal use, such as Pinterest analytics tools, Pinterest ads, Pinterest for the business community, etc.

According to Pinterest, Pinterest for business is best for companies that want to:

– Approach a new market and build ties with them. Pinterest user are individuals actively seeking new concepts and goods. Meeting this need results in meaningful outcomes and solid relationships with your market.

– Put its product/service in a natural yet strategic way before an audience that does not know it needs it until it sees it because people use Pinterest when they are looking for something fresh but do not have a precise idea. 

– Reach the international sector as there are over 433 million active users on Pinterest, all from different countries

– Encourage brand engagement, drive awareness and increase conversion.

According to a 2022 research, Pinterest is the 14th largest social media platform globally, beating sites like Twitter and Reddit.

This suggests that adding Pinterest to your list of social media marketing platforms is not something you should overlook or carry out carelessly. Exploited properly, the channel can help a business achieve set marketing objectives.

Here are eight reasons you want to introduce Pinterest marketing as part of your social media marketing strategy.

Why Pinterest Marketing?

1. There is a place for everyone

According to Pinterest, 97% of its organic searches are unbranded; this suggests that pinners are typically open-minded individuals searching for quality products, not popular brands. 

Hence, even if you are a small business yet to make a name for yourself, Pinterest allows you to display your work and attract prospects simply because they love what they see, not because they know your brand.

2. Convert cold prospects into customers ASAP

With Pinterest for business, the prospect-to-customer conversion process is fast and straightforward compared to other social media channels like Twitter. 

According to experts, this is because Pinterest is a social media site that gives users a clear picture of an item they want, proof that others also want that item. And with one or two clicks, it takes pinners to the site where they can purchase that item before they think about whether they need it.

3. Drive traffic to your site

By linking your pins to your website, you quickly drive traffic from your account to your brand’s website. This is particularly important if your website is where prospects can purchase your products and interact with your services.

4. Easy share

No man is an island, and no social media platform can thrive on its own. For this reason, most, if not all, of the well-known social media platforms are linked to one another, and Pinterest is no exception.

The site allows pinners to share their pins on their Facebook profile and Twitter account. 

Pots can also be shared on websites, a helpful feature for businesses and entrepreneurs on Pinterest.

As a company using Pinterest marketing, this easy share feature provides a broader stage to showcase your work. 

It also generates more traffic for your website as new leads can link to your website and check out your products.

5. Position your business strategically and increase sales

Few people like a brand that constantly pushes its ads in their faces – one of the reasons outbound marketing does not convert as much.

As an online business seeking to attract prospects, make sales, and grow, it is vital to use channels that position your brand so prospects can find it during organic searches.

And Pinterest does just that for you.

As I said earlier, the platform is a search engine where pinners discover new products/services, a site where users find products they do not know they need or products they know they need but cannot explain in words.

With the right keywords or key phrases, Pinterest marketing will help you place your products before prospects when they conduct an organic search for services related to what you offer – a marketing strategy that looks natural but is, in truth, strategic.

6. Know your audience

Finding trends is easy with Pinterest. 

You can learn about popular topics pinners love, such as marketing, fashion, recipes, and more. 

You can follow your fans to see what inspires them and what kind of posts engages them. 

You can learn what is current amongst your prospects and position your product/service marketing accordingly.

7. Large audience

Unlike Facebook and Instagram, Pinterest is not yet a powerhouse social media platform. 

However, one cannot simply wave off the 430 million monthly active pinners.

As an online business desirous of getting your product/service in front of your target market, Pinterest for Business offers you the opportunity to do just that. 

8. Educate clients and increase brand engagement

Pinterest is not just for selling and attracting leads.

You can also use it to follow up and engage with customers. 

The platform is excellent for answering FAQs about your brand and sharing how-to-dos, DIYs, and other relevant content your clients may find. 

Note that it is best to survey what type of posts your customers find helpful before making one.

Opening a Pinterest for a Business account as you implement Pinterest marketing will open you up to additional benefits like the Pinterest business community, where you can interact with other companies, exchange business advice, and discuss Pinterest best practices.

With Pinterest ads, you can place your work before your specific market.

Pinterest analytics tool, with which you get in-depth details on how each of your pins is doing; how many people have viewed your pins, how many have saved and shared them, etc.

Pinterest Marketing Strategy

Now that you know the plethora of benefits Pinterest marketing offers your business, the next thing you will want to know is how you can incorporate it into your social media marketing. However, before letting you in on the “how,” you should know that your Pinterest marketing strategy is vital at this point.

Your Pinterest marketing strategy will outline the objectives you want to achieve with the platform, your target audience, and other factors vital to attaining your marketing goals. 

Hence, laying it out is necessary as it will guide you in selecting the appropriate tactics and actions to move your business in the right direction as you employ Pinterest marketing. 

In light of this, here are factors to consider when laying out your Pinterest marketing strategy.

Set smart goals

What do you want to achieve by Pinterest marketing? 

Attract more prospects? 

Drive brand awareness? 

Increase customer engagement? 

Goal setting is necessary for your Pinterest marketing strategy because it allows you to assess your market, your company’s current position, and where it wants to get to. 

It gives you a clear target, helps you stay focused, and monitors your business’s continual growth and advancement.

However, setting goals you want to achieve with Pinterest marketing is not enough. 

Your goals need to be SMART; Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. 

Hence, goals like – using Pinterest to increase ROI in two months, or using Pinterest to increase customer engagement with the brand, are not smart goals.

On the other hand, a goal like – employing Pinterest to increase customer engagement by 10% in 30 days can be considered a smart goal.

With that being said, here are some realistic goals you can set when using a visual platform like Pinterest:

– Drive brand awareness
– Boost customers engagement with your brand
– Increase conversion
– Identify your target market

Know your prospects

A mental picture of your ideal customer will help you know who they are, their lifestyle, their needs, and how you can present your work so that they will fully appreciate its value.

One way to identify who your ideal Pinterest users are and what pins and boards interest them is by using Pinterest analytics.

A tool available on a Pinterest for Business account, Pinterest analytics allows you to review various demographic information and behavioral data. 

It gives you info on who your audience is, your total number of audience, how many engage with your post, etc. 

With this information, it becomes easy to make necessary adjustments and create better contents that will appeal to your target market.

Open a Pinterest for a business account

As a business seeking to use Pinterest marketing as a part of its social media marketing strategies, you need a Pinterest for a Business account to access handy marketing tools such as analytics, the Pinterest business community, Pinterest tags, etc.

You can change your personal Pinterest account to a business one if you already have one at no extra cost and without losing any of your previous works.

Ensure your brand’s Pinterest for Business profile aligns with its profile on other social media sites in name, logo, etc., for easy recognition.

Plan your content

Pinterest is ideal for different types of content, including blog posts, images, videos, infographics, etc. 

Hence your marketing strategy should contain a breakdown of the content types your business will be using on Pinterest and how they will be used.

Whatever content type you use, always link your pins to the relevant site, whether a contact form if you want prospects to fill in their details, your website if you want them to know more about your brand, or a purchase site if you want them to purchase an item. 

Determine your posting schedule

Another thing you want to determine as you layout your Pinterest marketing strategy is your posting calendar.

How often do you want to post?

While there is no set number of pins you should post every day, experts advise businesses to post a minimum of 5 – 10 pins daily if you want to see a growth in followers.

Whatever number of pins you choose to post daily, you should approach Pinterest as you do other social media platforms. 

Hence, If you pin too little, your followers may become disinterested. Whereas if you over-pin, it could become overwhelming.

Run Ads

Promoting your pins, which is Pinterest advertising, is the only feature on Pinterest for Business that is not free but worth it in the long run, mainly if you have conducted market research and identified your target market before running the ad.

Promoted pins typically have a little “Promoted” tag at the bottom. These pins appear in users’ feeds or their Pinterest search queries. 

Pinterest ad system comes with a lot of cost-friendly options such as being able to choose your ad goals, reasons you are running the ad, set your ad budget, select the ad’s start and end date, etc.

How to use Pinterest for Marketing

1. Employ all kinds of content forms

As I mentioned earlier, Pinterest is great for written and visual content. 

Hence, there is the chance to display your content in creative ways, infographics, memes, gifs, videos, images, articles, etc., that will attract prospects. 

Ensure that whatever content you are putting up is helpful to your market, links back to the relevant website, and is pinned under boards with themes or topics that make it easy for prospects to find the pins they are looking for.

With Pinterest, there is no limit to the number of boards you can create or posts you can pin.

Hence, to prevent confusion among prospects and fans, it is best to categorize your pins under boards with themes, topics, interests, or inspiration relevant to your market.

2. Use group boards

Group boards are boards typically owned by one pinner who gives other pinners the right to pin on the board. 

In other words, it is a board where multiple pinners can pin content relevant to the board’s theme. 

For businesses desirous of applying Pinterest marketing, group boards have many advantages. 

For instance, creating a group board with industry experts or influencers whose followers are those in your target market will help you reach out to more prospects, even as your board is enriched with posts your followers will find helpful. 

Creating a group board with loyal customers of your brand, where clients are encouraged to post their experience with your business’s products/services, will increase brand engagement and attract more prospects. 

3. Pin intriguing content consistently

Attracting prospects will take more than just pinning pictures or making videos once in a while.

Your pins must be high-quality, captivating, unique, and consistent if you want prospects to interact with your posts continually.

An intriguing pin has the following check-marked:

It includes vertical images – according to Hootsuite 2022 data, about 82% of pinners use Pinterest on their phones.

It uses high-quality imagery – one reason pinners love Pinterest is that the pins are usually of very high-res.

It includes an SEO-friendly headline and a good post description.

It links back to the relevant site. 

4. Be SEO-friendly

Pinterest is where people search for and discover new things.

Notice the word SEARCH.

So, if a prospect cannot see your pins during their organic search, there is no chance of a conversion.

Enter in SEO.

SEO allows you to discover and include in your pins descriptions and board titles, keywords, and key phrases your target market will use when searching for pins related to your product/service.

Including these words will help your posts pop up during prospects’ organic search, thus driving brand awareness, increasing followers, and your brand’s conversion rate.

So if, for instance, you sell coffee mugs, your keywords/phrases may revolve around coffee, drinking coffee, how to make coffee, coffee shops, etc.

5. Use cross-postings 

Cross-posting is simply directing content from other social media sites like TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram to your Pinterest and vice-versa. 

Cross-posting is suitable for many reasons. 

For one, it helps you save time and energy that would have been spent creating content for each of your social media sites. 

It also helps keep all your social media accounts active and gives your business a wide stage to display its product/services, attracting more prospects.

6. Interact with the post of other pinners

There is something about a brand that interacts well with its customers. 

For such a brand, gaining and retaining clients will be easy as most people are drawn and stay loyal to a business that listens to them and their needs.

One effective way to kick off a good rapport with your target market on Pinterest is by following them and engaging with their accounts.

You can do this by re-pinning and liking posts shared by your market, followers, and fans, responding to comments on your pins, answering questions, starting a challenge around your products/service, posting engaging content, etc.

This kind of interaction with your audience has the potential to cultivate a sense of brand loyalty in them that will keep them returning to your profile for inspiration, purchases, and new ideas.

7. Use the Pinterest analytics tool 

With all of this effort you will be putting into your Pinterest marketing, you should want to know whether or not it is yielding results to avoid wasting time and resources, which is where the Pinterest analytics tool comes in.

As I have said earlier, this analytics tool will give you an in-depth breakdown of how each of your pins is doing; the number of engagements, how many pinners saved your content, video performance rate, etc. 

With this knowledge, it becomes easy to return to your marketing board and make the necessary adjustments to your Pinterest marketing strategies.

8. Promote your account

Pinterest is not popular as social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. 

So, many of your clients on other social media channels may not be aware that your business has a Pinterest account or is active.

Hence, it is vital to publicize your Pinterest profile at any chance.

Cross-posting pins from your Pinterest account to other social media channels and including a Pinterest logo on your brand’s Contact Us page are ways to do this.

Conclusion

Compared to other social media sites with a lot of competition regarding gaining prospects’ attention, Pinterest remains a largely untapped marketing powerhouse. However, it might not stay this way for long, considering the yearly rise of Pinterest users (from 2018 to date, there are over 200 million more active pinners).

However, while it remains this way, brands, e-commerce stores, bloggers, influencers, and online businesses, can employ this platform to attract prospects, grow their customer base, and ultimately scale up fast.

READ ALSO: TikTok Marketing For Small Business Guide: Leverage TikTok & Get Customers Fast

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