Pinterest is a social media site that often goes undiscovered by many businesses. Most view it as a place where people search for things like DIY projects, recipes, and wardrobe advice. However, Pinterest is home to over 463 million monthly active users, and the platform can and should be utilized to help drive sales for business.
Learning to seize the opportunity of Pinterest to serve your company’s goals can result in increased revenue and a helpful place to draw in prospects. There are plenty of features that work to optimize your brand.
The below guide will walk you through how to set up a business account and develop a process to help drive more sales and higher profitability.
Pinterest Step By Step Guide For eCommerce To Driving Sales
There are plenty of users on Pinterest who look when planning out what to purchase. Their planning can work significantly in your brand’s favor when you can promote and appeal to their needs and wants.
Pinterest works as a visual platform, so it can be beneficial when reaching out to relevant audiences who like that type of content. They also have short videos, which makes it ideal for your business to promote campaigns, demonstrate products, and much more.
Pins on Pinterest are searchable, and boards can be shared to help people discover new items and services. It is a highly engaged platform since there is a lot of activity to look around and create boards, and brands can easily engage in a visual way.
Step 1: Set Your Objectives
As is necessary and with any business strategy, your first step should always be to define your goals. Setting those objectives ensures you can create and adjust innovative strategies striving toward that bottom line, and you must align your marketing initiatives with business outcomes.
Consider some of the more common goals that companies have when it comes to their sales:
- Generation of more quality leads and prospects
- Increase Return on Investment (ROI)
- Boost sales
- Increase brand awareness
- Improve customer engagement
- Drive more traffic to your business webpage
Pinterest can help with all of these objectives.
Step 2: Make A New Business Account
Your next step is to ensure your company has a working and active account on the platform. You can do this by easily converting over your personal Pinterest account (if you have one) to a linked business account. Or, you can register for a free business account by signing up on the site.
Step 3: Define Your Target Audience
Knowing your ideal customer is the best way to ensure you reach them with your Pinterest strategy. Running a successful social media activation involves understanding what your users look for, so you need to engage in some research.
Have your marketing teams or advertising guru find out things like value proposition, appropriate messaging, and attractive content. With this understanding of your prospects, you can craft a creative pin to draw them into your business. Keep your branding aligned directly with your website and other social media so it is cohesive.
Step 4: Develop Your Pins
Pins are the “posts” within the Pinterest world, so your business needs to create content and craft numerous pins to engage and attract new customers. You can easily link your website and take prospects to things like a blog article, your website, or even a subscribe page.
When you create your pins, you must keep the following details in mind:
- Highlight your brand as the primary focus – you may want to include your company logo somewhere so it’s recognizable.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – text is necessary, but it needs to be kept short and to the point so that it’s easy to read and take in on a mobile device. Ensure you utilize keywords and phrases so that it’s easy to find when searching (and follow these Pinterest Advertising guidelines).
- Use an image in vertical form – high-quality, vertically set photos and images will help your brand stand out. Pinterest recommends a 2:3 aspect ratio for images on pins.
- Include a link – link to whatever you can that pertains to the pin’s message and helps give potential clients a place to view your website, services, products, etc. Ensure you have the setup so that it loads fast for your viewers.
Step 5: Publish Pins Consistently
Your business should create a calendar to post regularly on Pinterest. As with any social media platform, consistency is a key component to ensuring visibility and gaining new followers. You don’t want to publish pins too often, but do it at a time when it’s best to post on the site.
Consider creating a marketing strategy where you post at least once a week. You can gauge your audience interest and reevaluate posting more often once you begin gaining more attention on the platform.
[See related article: The Secret Of Timing In Social Media Marketing]
Step 6: Organization On Pinterest
Pinterest allows you to break down your “boards” into specific categories or topics. When you do this, you can gain more visibility and optimize your results. Organizing your boards can help increase the number of users you reach daily, so ensure you’re evaluating and breaking up your boards and pins as necessary.
It also helps to see an aesthetic layout when looking up a business on Pinterest. The specialty boards provide more relevance and target your audience more directly. You can also post content that may not be directly related to your business but builds loyalty among your followers.
Step 7: Create An Organic Following
Customers like to follow brands they feel they can trust, so using natural and genuine language in your Pinterest descriptions is the best action to engage users. You want to avoid using words that duplicate other content or aren’t engaging or relevant.
Keep your words geared toward providing potential interested customers with value. Answer questions like how helpful your product or service is and how your clients can benefit. Staying interesting ensures that you can grab viewers’ attention quickly and effectively.
Step 8: Pinterest Advertising
Pinterest Ads are another way to stand out on the platform and advertise with a pay-per-click system. Your advertisement can pop up to a person showing interest in your products or when looking through and searching a related category. More info about advertising on Pinterest here: https://ads.pinterest.com.
Searches are a great way to target your ads toward someone who is looking for exactly what you offer. If they are searching for it, the customer will likely buy it.
Drive Your Sales With Pinterest
With these steps, you can easily boost your e-commerce business through promoted pins for special events, service offerings, or product blowout sales on Pinterest. If you decide to utilize Pinterest advertising, you can effectively choose a relevant pin to target your ideal customer and track your campaigns to adjust and follow trends.
Pinterest is one of the more underutilized social media platforms for eCommerce businesses, but it can be significant for boosting your sales and finding new lead opportunities for growth and scaling.
Develop your eCommerce strategy for Pinterest by crafting creative pins that attract loyal customers and greatly increase your business’s marketing efforts by improving engagement and outreach, efficiently driving sales, and effectively expanding your bottom line.
[Recommended reading: 7 Effective Ways To Use Pinterest To Grow Your Ecommerce Store]
[Image credits – Main Photo by Andrea Piacquadio; Pinterest users graphic: Statista, other images, videos, infographics or screen prints are from their respective websites and/or social platforms or articles]
Donna is an MBA graduate with a specialization in marketing, hailing from the vibrant city of New York. With a keen interest in the ever-evolving field of digital marketing, Donna has dedicated her career to becoming an experienced specialist in social media and digital PR.