Pinterest Marketing for Beginners and Content Creators
One of the best tools for your small business and content creation strategy is Pinterest marketing. It’s a really effective way to increase your online visibility and to reach new customers. Many people think of Pinterest as a social media platform, but in actual fact, it works differently to other social media platforms. It is a primarily visual discovery and search platform, meaning it has a lot more benefits than just creating vision boards.
So, instead of relying purely on your social media following, Pinterest is a great way to help you discover new audiences while they are actively searching for what you can offer. Here, we’ll discuss Pinterest marketing for beginners, explaining the basics and showing you how to create a simple strategy that fits around your existing content strategy.
What Is Pinterest Marketing?
Pinterest marketing is just that - using the platform to promote your content, products and services, website or brand. There is no special formula, and it doesn’t have to be a complicated process - in fact it’s pretty straightforward:
Create useful content → Create a Pin → Optimise it for Pinterest search → Send people to your website → Encourage them to take the next step.
That next step could result in a new retainer with a client, or them joining your email list. The more you put your content out there, the more opportunity you’ll have of being found by the right audience.
The best way to navigate Pinterest marketing is by thinking about what your audience wants to discover, rather than focusing on what you want to promote.
Why Use Pinterest Marketing for Your Business?
One of the biggest challenges for small businesses and content creators is making sure they get enough feedback from the content they spend time creating and producing. For example, spending 5 hours on a piece of content only for it to receive little to no traffic is counter-productive. Remember to think of your time as money. How much of it are you throwing away because you haven’t been able to figure out a strategy that works?
Pinterest gives you another way to distribute that content. One blog can be turned into multiple pins, each targeting a slightly different topic or search phrase. This will help extend the life of the content you create, giving people more of an opportunity to discover it.
This is why Pinterest marketing is so good for small businesses, too. You don't necessarily need to create an entirely new piece of content for every Pin. Let’s look at the steps you need to take when it comes to Pinterest marketing.
Set Up Your Profile
Before you do anything, you need to make sure that your profile is optimised properly and in such a way that it communicates who you are and what you offer. Make sure your descriptions tell your audience what exactly you can offer them and the value that you bring.
If you have a website, make sure that you connect it to your Pinterest account. This will help establish a great connection between your website and your Pinterest account.
Understand What Your Audience Is Searching For
Your main objective with Pinterest should be to understand what your audience is looking for and learning how to think like them. As with any other social media platform, you need to know your target audience. Next, you can make a list of the common questions, problems and interests related to your business.
For example, an interior designer might create content around:
Small bedroom ideas
Home office inspiration
Living room styling
Small-space storage
Budget-friendly home improvements
A marketing consultant might focus on:
Social media marketing tips
Content ideas for small businesses
Email marketing
Branding ideas
Pinterest marketing tips
These topics will become your content pillars, and the foundation of your Pinterest content marketing strategy. Look at the search suggestions in Pinterest to help you understand how people phrase searches and to discover related topics.
Use Keywords to Help People Find Your Content
Pinterest is a visual platform, but, as we mentioned earlier, search plays an important role in being able to be discovered on the platform. When you target the right keywords within Pinterest, it helps it understand what your content is about and will help connect it with what your audience is searching for.
Think about the main topic of each Pin and identify the phrases your audience might use to find information about that topic. Relevant keywords should naturally appear in areas such as:
Your profile
Board names
Board descriptions
Pin titles
Pin descriptions
Your website content
For example, if you're writing about Pinterest marketing for small businesses, related topics might include Pinterest SEO, Pinterest content ideas, social media marketing, website traffic and online marketing for small businesses.
Never keyword stuff and aim to make your content as clear and relevant as possible. Your words need to flow and make sense to your readers.
Create Pins With a Clear Message
Your Pins should be adding value to your audience and this needs to be communicated as quickly as possible. Pinterest is a highly visual platform, so your design matters, but you don't need to spend hours creating one Pin.
A simple, professional Pin might include:
A clear headline
An eye-catching but relevant image
Easy-to-read text
Your branding
A clear connection to the linked content
Repurpose Your Existing Content
One of the most effective and time-saving ways to get started with Pinterest is to repurpose the content you already have. Do you have a blog? Use your blogs to create Pins. Or maybe you host a Podcast. Use the information you cover in your episodes and repurpose them for Pinterest.
Be sure to look for content that answers a question or solves a specific problem, and you can then use the different angles within your blog or podcast to create different variations of that piece of content.
For example, suppose you have a blog post called:
"How to Build an Email List From Scratch."
You could create Pins with headlines such as:
How to Start Building an Email List
7 Ways to Grow Your Email List
Email Marketing Tips for Beginners
How to Get Your First 100 Subscribers
Email List-Building Mistakes to Avoid
Each Pin can take a slightly different approach while linking to the same piece of content. This is the perfect strategy if you run a small business and don’t have a lot of time to create brand new content every day. It also is a great way to expand your website’s visibility, as you’re showing up on various platforms.
Give Each Pin a Relevant Destination
Getting someone to click your Pin is only part of the process. The reader needs to be guided to what they clicked the Pin for in the first place. So, going back to the email marketing blog - make sure the link in the Pin takes the reader to that blog, not your home page. The more closely the Pin matches the destination, the more useful the experience is likely to be.
Create Content That Gives Value
Pinterest can be useful for businesses, but that doesn't mean every Pin should be a direct advertisement. Remember those questions your audience has? Now, create content answering those questions. This way, you’ll build trust with your audience so that they feel comfortable enough to buy from you.
Measure What Matters
Always review your analytics to see what is working and what you could improve on. You don’t need to do this every single day. Instead, carve out time each month to look at your analytics. This will help you identify what your audience responds to.
Depending on your goals, useful metrics may include:
Impressions
Saves
Pin clicks
Outbound clicks
Website traffic
Email sign-ups
Product sales
Enquiries
Bookings
Don't focus solely on follower numbers - these are vanity metrics. It’s so much more effective to have 500 followers who genuinely care about your brand and who engage with your content compared to thousands of followers who don’t care what you have to say. If your goal is to grow your business, website traffic and conversions may tell you more about the value of your Pinterest activity than follower growth alone.
For example, a Pin might receive relatively few impressions but generate several visits from people who are genuinely interested in your services. Those visitors could ultimately be more valuable to your business than a large number of passive views.
How Often Should You Use Pinterest?
Yes, it’s true that the more you post, the bigger the chance is that your content will get seen. However, the most important thing to remember is that you want to create a content strategy that is realistic enough to maintain.
You might dedicate a small amount of time each week to research your topics, create Pins, and schedule your Pins. Whatever works best for you, adding Pinterest marketing to your content creation strategy is so worth it!
So, will you be adding Pinterest to your content strategy? Maybe you’re looking to hand over your digital marketing to an expert so that you can use that time to focus on other things in your business. Get in touch today to book a discovery call!
