What is Pinterest? Pinterest is a social network that allows users to post- (popularly called as ‘pinning’) images or browse what other users have pinned. Coming to the forefront in 2010 with around 40k users it climbed to new heights and as of April 2020, Pinterest has an audience reach of 79.43 million users in the U.S. As for these stats, Pinterest gained popularity among the marketers as the term ‘Pinterest marketing‘.
Interestingly people spend 14.2 minutes per session when logged in. That is a whopping 200 billion pins saved for their audience to get benefit from.
Pinterest gives a user an option to share images, text or link. These Pins can then be posted on a Board. The best part is Pinterest is free to use!
Lately, Pinterest has put increasing emphasis on visual search and e-commerce such as shopping catalogues and has 367 million monthly active users worldwide.
Why Pinterest?
Is Pinterest Good for Business? According to research, 73 per cent of Pinterest users end up buying something they’ve found on the site. From there, they end up on websites of their favourite stores. If you’re not marketing on Pinterest, you are potentially losing out on a lot of sales because Two-thirds of all pins created are from business websites.
Also, food for thought about why you should be selling on Pinterest is that 85% of people visit the website when starting a new project. Therefore this is a great niche to target. And that’s to add to the fact that it is the 4th most popular social website after YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.
Additionally, another reason to start your campaign on Pinterest is the trust the audience puts into Pinterest’s services, a hefty 64% reliance.
To find your target audience, get your products in front of them and wait for those dollar signs to start rolling in, right?
How to Start Your Campaign on Pinterest
1. Your Business account
If you want to do marketing on Pinterest its pretty simples and easy all you got to do is:
- Visit their website Pinterest.
- Next, choose from having a personal account or a business one which in your case would be business.
- Register for your Business account.
So why choose a business account for marketing with Pinterest?
Benefits of Business Account:
- Insights into Business Analytics
- Advanced advertisements
For entrepreneurs and everyone else who has a personal account on it, you could easily change it by logging into your personal profile and converting it into a business account.
2. Syncing Pinterest with your Business Website
Ensuring that your site is legitimate is a key to guarantee your pinners that your business is a safe one. It takes a few minutes to create the red checkmark icon on your website indicating your link is verified.
It greatly optimizes your profile and drives immense traffic to your blog or website
Benefits of claiming website on Pinterest
- It is easy to tracks pins from your website
- Recognition of your brand from the pin as it gets added to all pins from your website.
- Your audience will be able to click on your website URL from your profile.
To Claim it you need to add a meta tag or upload an HTML file to your website or learn how to do it from Pinterest’s’ Claim your website.
For more information on how to utilize the pin tags do check out tips on Boosting your website
3. Outline of Website
Each one of the images uploaded represents your brand image and therefore your profile should be easily distinguishable by your customers or followers.
Wanting to display a professional and authentic business requires you to put thoughtful consideration into the outlay of your website which is incumbent on your Pinterest marketing strategy.
Here are a few quick steps on what to focus on and how:
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Profile Photo
Make sure that the photo is of high resolution and matches your other social media profiles for effective recognition.
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Name
Decide if you wish to have your name only or your business name or both in that section.
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Description
For your business description, you need to highlight and convey what is it you exactly do so as for your target audience to share an affinity with you.
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Location
– This is especially important if you have a physical store location that services specific areas. Try to keep your contact information clear and current.
- Relevant Boards
Focus on enhancing your image by concentrating and carefully curating your content within your boards. Making relevant categories that cater to your area of expertise is always a win.
4. Cataloguing
Creating catalogues is a striking feature of your Pinterest Business account and is another good option for increasing your business presence on this social media platform.
This feature allows brands to upload multiple images of merchandise, organize their product line by category and turn the images into dynamic Product Pins.
The only thing needed is a data source containing all information about your product line which you can easily upload on Pinterest. When Pinterest approves the data source each product added on your website shall simultaneously have a Product pin created which you can use for your shop ads.
Different Categories on Pinterest:
| Animals and Pets | Film, Music, and Books | Film, Music, and Books |
| Architecture | Food and Drink | Food and Drink |
| Art | Gardening | Gardening |
| Cars and Motorcycles | Geek | Geek |
| Celebrities | Gifts | Gifts |
| Design | Hair and Beauty | Hair and Beauty |
| DIY and Crafts | Health and Fitness | Health and Fitness |
| Education | History | History |
| Women’s Fashion | Holiday and Events | Holiday and Events |
These categories help you to organize your business around them and make it easier for the audience to find content relating to it.
Effective Advertising on Pinterest
Aesthetically designed Pins
Your pins need to be visually stimulating to captivate your audience for that ultimate click. For that, you need to use a variety of Pin Creation to add diversity to your Account.
You could do this by using high-resolution photographs, Breathtaking Views, best-suited Pin Images.
Ways to make use of Pin Visuals to enhance your audience experience and leave them in awe.
- High-Resolution Professional Photography
If you are a brand selling your product the professional way is the best way, therefore, hiring a photographer for a professional look of your products is a great way to grab your audience attention. Check out Nextiva blog on building brand’s trust.
Your product placement should be front and centre. Use specific images which clearly support your brand and not abstract ones that might be confusing.
- Using Real-Life Imagery
The product or service that needs to stir emotions is best photographed using a natural soft setting. This depicts the product in real life and can help users relate to it more so.
- Text Overlay with Product Photo
Give Context to your product by displaying information about your merchandise along with its picture by using an image with details about your product.
Sometimes many features of a product are not related by the image and therefore the text might help in ending up making buying decisions.
- Color, contrast, and shape.
The Pinterest feed is mostly white, so pictures that have bright or strong colour and a lot of contrast will stand out.
Do step up your game with bright, light, and clear colours. The best are the Warm-toned images of red, orange, and brown as they get twice the repins.
You may already have business colours that you wish to include in your Pinterest images.
- Refrain from using Faces
Want to know a surprise trick? Stay clear from using faces as a study on more than 500,000 pins found that, on average, pins without faces received 23% more saves than those with faces.
When Picking images for Pinterest, try to think vertical. Most of the Pinterest format of pins are vertical and taller rather than wide. The ideal Pin size is 600 to 800 pixels wide, and 1.5 to 2.1 times as tall as it is wide.
Don’t forget to watermark all your images!
- FONTS
- While choosing fonts be very careful that they are mobile-friendly and not too illegible.
- Make sure to highlight your keywords.
- Try to keep your background clean with soft pastel colours.
- Use few words.
- Choose one to three simple fonts.
- Consider the font personality if you don’t already have brand fonts.
- Test the resolution of your images in small size.
- Resize and Mix Your Design
Once you’ve finalized your pin design, click the second icon (the double-sided arrow) in the left menu to see a variety of resizing and remixing options for your chosen layout.
Pinterest SEO
As discussed previously Using Promoted Pins to sell on Pinterest you need to know that Promoted Pins uses keyword-based advertising technique to make it more planned and targeted.
Concentrate specifically on your industry keywords and then use them cleverly in your Pin titles and bio in addition to highlighting it in your board titles. This shall definitely ensure that your Pinterest SEO has a far reach and shall work effectively by ending it in a smooth sale.
Learning how to optimize your campaign with the precise keywords helps in making content more relevant to search queries of your target pinners which subsequently raises chances of users clicking on your paid promoted pin.
According to Pinterest guidelines, you can use 150 keywords per promoted pin, which gives you enough leverage to gain more visitors from a variety of competitive keywords therefore do implement a comprehensive keyword strategy.
- Accessible for Mobile Users
More than 80% of all orders on Pinterest come from mobile devices. If your store isn’t built to handle mobile, you’re going to miss out on almost all of your potential Pinterest traffic.
Personalized shopping recommendations:
Alongside style, home decor, beauty and DIY boards, you’ll see in-stock ideas related to what you’ve been saving, to match your style. Just click “more ideas” then the shopping tag to start shopping ideas picked for you. Tap + to add the Pin to your board, or click the Pin to go straight to check out on the retailer’s site.
Types OF Different Pins to Promote Your Business
1. Rich Pins
Rich Pins are another great way that provides more perspective about an impression because they show additional information straight on a Pin.
Below mentioned are six types of rich pins you could use for your business.
- Place pins – users include address, phone number and map
- Movie pins – users provide reviews, ratings and cast.
- Product pins – users include purchase locations, product pricing and an availability check.
- Article pins – includes the article headline along with information about the author, story, and link
- Recipe pins – users offer details about serving size, time to prepare, calories and ingredients.
- App pins – users provide information about an application, it’s pricing and description
This is a great way for prospective users to enhance their experience of your Pins.
They communicate and convey about your pins to the pinners and tell them what it is all about.
So how do you get Rich Pins for your website
- Add metadata to your site
- Validate and apply for Rich Pins
- Create a compelling title and description for every post.
2. Promoted Product Pins
Promoted product Pins can be supportive for creating more sales as they take the user directly to your website as shown below.
Users are easily able to see which company is responsible for promoting pins and therefore they know which site they’ll be taken to.
There are three types of Promoted Pins helping your business according to your campaign objectives.
- Awareness- These promoted pins allow Pinterest users to advertise in the top placements on Pinterest to their desired target audience
- Engagement– advertisers pay per engagement with the promoted pin.
- Traffic-designed to reach users that are viewing similar/relevant material.
You could learn in detail about these Promoted pins by checking out an in-depth Overview of promoted pins.
With the help of promoted pins, you’ll be able to target through various demographics such as social media interest, age and gender for your Pinterest marketing campaign You could also create entire campaigns or quick ads for a one-off promotion.
You can even Track your promoted pins by utilizing the Results .for promoted pins.
3. Shop with Multiple Pins
Each product shown in the image is displayed with a white dot ready for purchase. You just need to click on it and see more.
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In this way, you could promote several products on Pinterest by a single Pin.
You could easily learn the steps on how to create shop the look pins by visiting How to do it and create many tags. So Happy Tagging!
4. Buyable Pins
Pins have a buy button that allows Pinterest users to purchase your products without leaving Pinterest.
This buy button takes them directly to a checkout page within Pinterest.
4. Video Pins
Video Pins are more captivating and enable users to experience the product more fully.
Best way to make a video is to play with the white space, movement, colour and depth. Try to gauge the best combination and work on it.
Best way to promote your business by using video pins is to keep them precise, don’t give away everything and you’re good to go.
- Make it actionable- Aim to capture the audience attention in the first few seconds.
- Tailor the length – Try to keep the video length not too long and not too short.
- When the sound doesn’t play – Make sure your message is conveyed easily even when the sound doesn’t play with the help of text and captions.
- Cover image- Hooking your audience is crucial and your cover image needs to tell the story about your video and let the audience know what they are going to watch.
- Optimize – Understand SEO by using descriptions and hashtags to help your video stand out.
Marketing Techniques for Your Business
1. Influencer Marketing
Found any celebrity or a famous blogger using your creation? The audience looks up to celebrities and follows their trends. What better way than to use it to your advantage.
You could set up a campaign promoting your Influencers using your products to tempt your customers to buy. Sharing this content on Pinterest could generate a lot of sales and boost your engagement for Pinterest marketing
Also Read: How to Leverage Social Media Influencers to Discover New Audiences
Social Media is the key to unlock business secrets so try to stay updated on the latest business trends on Pinterest.
2. Content marketing
User-generated content is content created by your customers around your brand and products, often in the form of customer photos, ratings, reviews, and testimonials.
According to Wayfair customers who reach a product via Pinterest are 10% more likely to purchase that product.
Want to know the best way to get those clicks that turn into conversions, let’s look at the top five ways you can incorporate content marketing:
- Use Popular PinterestPins for Inspiration.
- Getting PinterestAnalytics to help you know what your target audience is liking and repining.
- Bookmark Popular stories on Pinterest.
- Use Pinterest Infographic to Create Blog Content
- Pin Your Own
- Add save buttons to your site to encourage shoppers to save images from your site to their Pinterest boards.
- Showcase your pins on your website, especially those saved by customers.
- Try requesting top pinners to pin some of your pins on their boards. Great way to get noticed.
- Encourage people in your community to save something they love about your industry – their favourite piece of clothing, their favourite pet, their favourite food, etc.
These tips create amazing pieces of content for your business which users save, promote and eventually end up in purchases benefiting your financial bottom-line.
3. Find Your Audience
Know your Social media demographic; that’s the way to know who to target and helps you to have a clear picture about who your audience comprises of.
Are there more millennials or Gen Z?
Set up your criteria about what factors contribute towards selling your product:
- Age
- Gender
- Social Lifestyle
- Country of Origin
- Income
- Race
- Ethnicity
- Marital Status
- Education
Branding your Business according to your target audience helps in creating personalized product effective for selling.
How to get more followers on Pinterest?
Want to grow your followers and know the top categories? Well, A Pinterest study from the University of Minnesota gathered more than 3 million pins and collected data on more than 45,000 users to come to these conclusions.
They studied 38 different factors that may attract an audience on Pinterest.
3 top factors to grow followers:
- The number of users you follow
- The number of pins you have
- The number of boards you have
The top three categories were:
- DIY and crafts
- Hair and beauty
- Design
This would imply that a well-rounded set of pins could be just as valuable as seeking out the most popular categories.
Selling on Pinterest
A staggering 48% of users shop on Pinterest and most Pinterest users delight in visual inspiration accompanied by actionable insights and beneficial tips that help them in their everyday lives.
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Pinterest is also a gateway for niche businesses as well as an excellent platform for new businesses.
27% of marketers are actively using Pinterest for promotion (Shown Below)
Source: Statista
This is the reason why your business needs to be on Pinterest as 89% of US pinners use Pinterest to research purchasing decisions. So not only should you use Pinterest but continuously learn the new techniques of how it offers product optimization and selling.
A great way to be active on social media is to Comment on users’ pins. Adding Value is the key to gaining popularity for your pin and subsequently for your brand. You don’t need to sell your product on every comment made by you on others’ pin, just be genuine, talk about a new statistic discovered or compliment a new fashion buy.
Lastly don’t forget to frequently update your content on Pinterest. Be regularly active, keeping understanding your audience, discover hidden trends that you might be overlooking. Update broken links of Old Pins and try to update boards with new pins weekly.
So now you know all the techniques of how to market on Pinterest and sell your business on Pinterest its time to buckle up and start doing just that!