Ready to use one of the most powerful marketing tools online today?
Yup, I’m talking about Pinterest. The visual search engine that is one of the top traffic drivers online today.
That’s why Pinterest is so powerful – if you learn how to use it correctly, you can get targeted traffic to your website, products, and offers.
That’s right people who are actually looking for your offers.
Today we’re going to deep dive into exactly how to use Pinterest to market your online business.
What we’re going to learn are the foundational pieces to a solid Pinterest marketing strategy.
These are not ‘get quick traffic’ tactics. These are solid Pinterest marketing practices that will pay off if you invest the time.
Let’s take a look at some of the reasons you should focus on Pinterest as part of your business marketing plan.
➝ Increased website traffic.
➝ Grow your email list.
➝ Get more sales of your products.
➝ Connect with potential clients.
➝ Increased business visibility.
➝ Position yourself as an expert in your niche.
➝ Have more people engage in your community.
I hope you got excited after reading that list!
Let’s dive right into how to use Pinterest to market your online business.
**Make sure to sign up or convert your Pinterest account to a business**
Grab our FREE Pinterest marketing strategy guide here.
There are 5 Pillars of Successful Pinterest Marketing
It’s disclaimer time – your success on Pinterest will look very different than someone else’s success.
Pinterest results vary and that’s just a fact.
A Pinterest strategy that works on one account might not work on another account.
There will always be variables to your success because your business is unique but these 5 pillars of Pinterest marketing are the foundation that needs to be laid properly in order to drive success.
Related Read: How To Marketing Your eCommerce Business on Pinterest
Pinterest Marketing Pillar #1 – A Keyword Strategy
You MUST have a keyword strategy in place before marketing your business on Pinterest.
If I’m being honest, in all of my years in Pinterest marketing, researching and using keywords is where I see most business owners drop the ball.
Pinterest is a visual search engine where users go and input keywords to find out more about an idea they’re interested in.
Basically, keywords are the lifeline to your Pinterest marketing strategy.
Without them, Pinterest has a harder time understanding what your content is about and therefore what users to show it to.
You don’t want your pins to be tagged with the wrong information – it is literally a disaster in the making if that happens.
Related Read: How To Find Keywords to Target on Pinterest
To get started with Pinterest SEO, brainstorm all the words and word combinations someone would use to find your products, services, and offers.
Your goal should be to create your business’s Pinterest keyword bank.
What that means is adding important search terms to a spreadsheet so that you can refer to them whenever you need to. Do your research once and then access it when you need it.
Wondering where to use your keywords? Make sure to include them in:
➝ Your account title
➝ Your account description
➝ Your board titles and descriptions
➝ Your pin descriptions
➝ Your pin text overlays
➝ Your website content and copy
Did you see that last point? Yes, use your keyword bank to sprinkle relevant search terms throughout your content.
Pinterest is like Google – they crawl your content so if they find your keywords in everything I mentioned above, you are increasing the chances of ranking your content.
Pinterest Marketing Pillar #2 – An Optimized Pinterest Business Account
As we saw in Pinterest marketing pillar #1, keywords are what makes Pinterest go around.
So, now that you have all of the keywords that describe your business and offers, it’s time to optimize your account.
Optimize/Optimizing your account is a fancy way of saying to use keywords on your account.
What is included in an optimized Pinterest account?
➝ Use keywords in your account title and description.
➝ Board names and descriptions.
➝ Pin titles and descriptions.
➝ Pin text overlay if you use one.
Related Read: How to Create the Best Pinterest Boards for Your Business
Pinterest Marketing Pillar #3 – A Content Marketing Strategy for Every Part of the Customer Journey
No matter what type of business you own, you need to make sure to have a solid content marketing strategy for every single part of the customer journey.
Why?
Imagine driving traffic to your website and expecting the user to know exactly what you want them to do or why they should keep caring about your business.
If you don’t have a content marketing strategy in place, your efforts on Pinterest will fall flat. It won’t be because Pinterest doesn’t work, it’ll be more about not nurturing, educating, and directing your ideal person to do the thing you want them to do.
That might be to sign up for your email list, buy a product, or join a membership.
Pinterest is a search and discovery platform which means it’s the most powerful at driving awareness.
But if someone lands on your website and it’s just a picture and brief description of your product, I’m willing to bet they will click away quickly.
But if the user clicks on your website and sees more than one lifestyle image for your product along with a description and FAQS answered, I bet they will stay for much longer.
All this is to say that Pinterest users need to be warmed up – the goal is to attract, nurture, and convert.
You need to write content that will get people into your ecosystem and keep them there.
I recommend sitting down to map out your content.
PRO TIP: Use your keyword research to inform your content strategy on Pinterest. You literally have exactly what people are searching for right there at your fingertips – using your keyword research will also stop you from creating content for the sake of creating content.
Pinterest Marketing Pillar #4 – Eye-Catching Pinterest Pin Designs That Get the Click
Since Pinterest is a visual search engine it means your pin images are an important part of your overall Pinterest marketing strategy.
The images you use in your pin designs need to help tell the story of what the content on the other side is about.
You can and should use a text overlay to tease users to find out more by clicking over to your website.
Here are some pin design tips to keep in mind when creating pin images:
➝ Use the recommended 2:3 aspect ratio or 1000 x 15100 pixels – this is the sizing Pinterest prefers.
➝ Use good-quality photos in your pin designs.
➝ Use fonts that are easy to read.
➝ Use properly aligned fonts.
➝ A clear call to action that makes your ideal person want to click to find out more.
➝ Good use of white space to get the user’s eye to go where you want it to go.
That covers static images as part of your image strategy but another important part is making sure you use all of the pin types as part of your Pinterest marketing strategy.
The other pin formats are:
➝ Idea pins
➝ Video pins
➝ Carousel pins
Let’s quickly define what each pin format is:
IDEA PINS – tells the story of a complete idea. These can be how-to posts, recipes, or a list of useful resources in action. At the time of this post, idea pins do not link out to your website (but that is changing soon!) and can only be used to grow your engagement and followers. Typically, video idea pins will perform better but you can also use static images. The goal is to make sure to share all the details of the idea you’re sharing.
VIDEO PINS – video is becoming even more popular on Pinterest and might very well represent the future (I think I’ve heard video is the future for my entire 10 years running an online business, haha!) so creating video pins that tell the story of your content is smart to include in your Pinterest image strategy.
CAROUSEL PINS – have products? Carousel pins are perfect for showcasing what your product does with images that show it in action. Or if you have a product that has different colors, you can let the Pinterest user see them.
Want help crafting your Pinterest marketing strategy? Click here to get our FREE guide.
Related Read: Pinterest Marketing for Beginners
Check out our pin design portfolio – we can design pins for you.
Pinterest Marketing Pillar #5 – A Pinterest Marketing Workflow for Consistency
Just like any other platform, Pinterest wants you to use the platform consistently in order to grow.
Optimally, you will want to pin at least once per day.
There is no magic number of how many pins to pin per day.
Some of the Pinterest accounts we manage see growth pinning one pin per day while others are pinning 10 pins per day.
It will come down to how much content and time you have to work on your Pinterest strategy.
So, how can you consistently pin your fresh content and pins to Pinterest?
Use a scheduler like Tailwind – you can then spend an afternoon getting your pins scheduled for the week (or month if you’re really good!).
Pinterest has its own native scheduler. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles Tailwind has but it still allows you to schedule pins easily (and it’s free!).
Your consistency strategy goal is to pin on Pinterest daily to keep your account moving.
You can pin only your content and you can also pin third-party content while you build up your own.
There is no magical ratio of how much other content to pin compared to your own. It really depends on a few things.
To get started, just make sure to be active on the platform daily.
Wrapping Up…
This post is a great way to start learning how to use Pinterest to market your online business.
Once you have these 5 areas working together, you’ll have a solid Pinterest marketing strategy in place.
Now, I should mention that Pinterest is not a get-results overnight platform.
You can expect results to take 6-9 months and, in some cases, I actually believe it can take a year.
You can run a promoted pin ad to boost your results faster but, at the end of the day, having an organic marketing strategy is a smart move so don’t worry about how long it will take.
Think about it as an investment in your business that is not dependent on ad dollars to work.
Did you know we offer Pinterest marketing services? Don’t want to do all the work? Let us take it over! Check out our Pinterest management services.