A Beginner’s Guide to Pinterest Marketing

MAR. 9, 2020

Szabo Viktor / Unsplash

Are you wondering if Pinterest is a good choice for marketing your business? According to Pinterest, 35.5 million U.S. users engage with style content, 45 million with home content, and 52 million with beauty content. Moreover, 72% of food and drink audiences and 78% of travel audiences have made a purchase based on niche pins. 

To get started with Pinterest marketing, you’ll need a business account. With a business account, you have access to deep analytics that help you learn about your audience and make strategic advertising decisions. Also, if you team up with other brands or influencers, they’ll be able to see how many monthly viewers your profile receives, which can encourage them to work with you.

4 Elements of a Pinterest Marketing Strategy

Pinterest is made up of boards, often revolving around specific themes. The more organized and optimized your boards, the easier it will be for potential followers and customers to find your content. Here’s a succinct overview of what you need to include in a Pinterest marketing strategy.

Content

You’ll add your own and other users’ content to your boards. It’s helpful to create a posting schedule. For example, you may want to pin ten of your own posts to Pinterest each day and then add ten more Pins from other users. Make sure to follow Pinterest’s creative best practices when designing your content, such as giving context to an image and adding your logo.

SEO

Pinterest is a highly searchable platform, so all of your content should be SEO-optimized. Add keywords to your profile, Pin descriptions, board titles, and descriptions. If you run ads, you can use the keyword-targeting tool to reach Pinners who are searching for your type of content.

If you need more help with creating SEO-optimized Pins, watch Life Styling Space’s YouTube video, which walks you through the many ways you can optimize your Pins for SEO. 

Followers

There are several ways to increase your following on Pinterest:

Promote your account on your brand’s other social media profiles, in newsletters, and on your website.Follow accounts that you want to connect with and that target the same audience.Run Pinterest ads to reach people who haven’t come across your Pins or profile yet.

Also, like with most social media platforms, you’ll be able to grow your followers by engaging and interacting with your fans. Re-pin or comment on their content and respond to comments left on your posts.

Analytics

Pinterest’s analytics platform offers information about your audience, Pins, and the overall health of your account. You can find information such as the following:

How much of your audience is engaged and how it’s changed over the last monthWhich device your audience is using to view your contentThe Pin format that your audience prefers (standard, story, or video)Your top boards and top Pins by objectives, such as impressions or link clicks

This information helps you enhance your strategy for both organic and paid marketing.

Pinterest Business has a helpful video explaining how its analytics platform works. If you need a quick guide, check it out. 

Pinterest Ad Formats

There are an assortment of Pinterest ads you can run to reach specific goals.

Promoted App Pins

Promote your app and let users download it directly through Pinterest. Here’s an example of a promoted Pin for the Babies“R”Us registry app:

Babies“R”Us / Pinterest Business


Promoted Carousel Ad

Promote up to five images in one Pin that users can swipe through. Here are the first and last images in a carousel ad from Behr:

Behr / Pinterest



Behr / Pinterest


Promoted Pin

Promote one Pin with a single image, like Freestyle Watches does with this ad. When you click it, you go straight to its product page.

Freestyle Watches / Pinterest


Promoted Video Pin

Tell a story through a video Pin. There are various formats and lengths available to choose from. Kohl’s ran a video ad with tips for outdoor entertainment:

Kohl’s / Pinterest Business


3 Advanced Tips for Marketing with Pinterest

From marketing your own brand to getting paid to Pin on behalf of other companies, there are a lot of ways to add Pinterest to your marketing strategy.

Add Affiliate Links to Your Pins

If you make money by selling affiliate products, you can add affiliate links to your Pins, along with CTAs that encourage users to click and buy. This is great for lifestyle or fashion bloggers who show off their outfits and create Shop the Look Pins, like Gal Meets Glam:

Gal Meets Glam / Pinterest


Team Up for a Joint Promotion

Whether you’re a creator or a brand, you can work with companies to create Pins or marketing campaigns. Often, the brand strategy will include posting Pins to your own boards on behalf of the company. Alternatively, you can reach out to the Pin Collective, a group of Pinterest creatives, to help design a campaign for a specific audience. Glad partnered with the Pin Collective to attract a millennial audience. The campaign included bright, eye-catching Pins with kitchen hacks using Glad products.

Glad / Pinterest Business


Create a Shared Board

If you have the same audience as a brand that isn’t a competitor — for example, you sell cookies and another brand sells coffee, two things that go well together — you can create a shared board. The board will appear on both profiles, to which you can both contribute. Sometimes, the smaller brand will pay the larger brand a fee for the partnership, since the smaller brand is benefiting more from the collaboration. The Jungalow and REI teamed up for this type of marketing campaign:

The Jungalow / Pinterest

When collaborating with another brand on a Pinterest board, mix in Pins circulating on the platform to keep the board engaging to everyone, not just brand fans.

Final Thoughts About Pinterest Marketing

Pinterest may be a visual platform, but Pins have to go beyond being aesthetically pleasing. They also have to provide value to the user. Your Pins should tell a story, showcase a lifestyle that Pinners want to adopt, teach something new, or encourage users to learn more. Every Pin your brand posts should be valuable and meaningful.

By Lindsay Pietroluogo

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