What is Pinterest Marketing?

Pinterest have evolved far beyond being a platform used for finding recipes or home decor inspiration. It’s since become one of the most powerful visual search engines and marketing platforms available to businesses today. 

With approximately 631 million active users around the world who are searching for ideas, products, and services each day, Pinterest offers businesses a unique opportunity to reach consumers who are already planning purchases and looking for inspiration online. 

In this article, we’re going to be telling you what Pinterest marketing is, why it’s important, how the platform works, the benefits of Pinterest marketing and some Pinterest marketing strategies you can use to get the most out of the platform. 

What is Pinterest marketing?

Pinterest marketing involves using Pinterest as a platform to promote their brand, the products they sell or the services they offer. A business using Pinterest can create and share visual content, otherwise known as Pins. 

This allows Pinterest users to save Pins to themed collections, which are known as Boards. When a user clicks on a Pin, they’re taken directly to the website the image came from. This makes Pinterest a great source of referral traffic. 

Unlike traditional social media marketing, Pinterest marketing has the ability to emphasise conversations and real-time updates, acting more as a visual search engine where users can search for inspiration, ideas and solutions to their problems. 

Why is Pinterest marketing important?

Pinterest users will often visit the social media platform with a clear and pre-determined reason. They’re likely planning events, doing home renovations, researching gift guides, learning new skills or simply preparing to make future purchases. As such, businesses can reach and influence potential customers before they even make a buying decision. Pinterest marketing is different in the sense that Pins will remain searchable over the course of time. Therefore, they’ll continue to generate traffic long after they’ve been published. This provides value to businesses and content alike for a long period of time. 

How does Pinterest work?

Pinterest organises content through two different forms: Pins and Boards:

Pins 

Pins are individual pieces of content that users save and share. Pins will feature things like product images, blog graphics, infographics, tutorials, videos, step-by-step guides and service promotions. Each Pin will link back to its original source, helping businesses to drive visitors to their websites in the process

Boards

Boards are collections of related Pins that are organised around specific topics. For instance, a landscaping company might use Pinterest to create Boards like: garden design ideas, patio inspiration, water features, outdoor lighting or seasonal gardening tips. Organised Boards will help users to discover content that’s relevant to their interests, therefore improving the results that come from Pinterest marketing. 

What are the benefits of Pinterest marketing?

There are reasons as to why marketers will look to Pinterest in order to boost their performance online. But what can Pinterest do for the world of marketing and desired results? Let’s take a closer look at the advantages of Pinterest marketing:

Drives qualified website traffic

Pinterest users will actively click through to websites for additional information. Pinterest, on the other hand, can send highly targeted visitors who are interested in your content. This is the case whether someone is looking to read an article, purchase a product, commit to a service or request a simple quote. 

Builds brand awareness

Consistently publishing helpful, visually appealing Pins will help you to introduce your brand to new audiences. Even if users don’t visit your website immediately, repeated exposure can increase brand recognition over the source of time. 

Supports long-term growth

Unlike many social media posts that will disappear from feeds within hours, Pinterest Pins will continue to appear in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for months, if not years, to come. It’s this extended lifespan that provides ongoing opportunities for engagement and traffic. 

Reaches users early in the buying journey

Many people use Pinterest as a way to research ideas and get inspiration before making purchasing decisions. For instance, they may search for things like “kitchen remodelling ideas”, “wedding decorations”, “home office designs”, “fitness routines”, or “Christmas gift ideas”. If your business can provide useful content that aligns with the search term they’re inputting, then you have the power to greatly influence future buying decisions. 

Improves content distribution

Pinterest allows businesses to give new life to existing content. This way, you’ll be able to turn blog posts into infographic Pins, product pages into shopping Pins, videos into video Pins, checklists into vidual guides and case studies into educational graphics. Repurposing content expands its reach without creating everything from scratch, essentially. 

Pinterest marketing strategies

You might be wondering how you can use Pinterest as a marketing tool. Well, here are a few strategies you can put in place whilst also using Pinterest to your marketing advantage, from creating quality images to the careful organisation of Pinterest Boards:

Creating high-quality visual content

Pinterest is a visual social media platform, much like Instagram. So, with that in mind, it’s important that the images displayed on there are as attractive as possible. Usually, successful Pins will feature bright, quality images, clear typography, strong branding, easy-to-read text overlays and vertical image formats, to name a few. Visual appeal will encourage users to click and save your content, which is the aim when it comes to Pinterest marketing. 

Optimising Pin titles & descriptions

Pinterest uses keywords as a way to understand and categorise content. With this in mind, it’s important that you include relevant search terms that will naturally slot into things like Pin titles, descriptions, Board names and profile information. This will, in turn, help your Pins to appear in the search results. 

Publishing consistently

Regular posting keeps your profile active and provides more opportunities for discovery. A consistent publishing schedule will often perform far better than posting many Pins at once, and then remaining inactive.

Creating multiple pins for one piece of content

Instead of creating a single Pin for a blog article, you should look to design different versions that feature different headlines, alternative images, various colours and different layouts. This will allow you to test which designs generate the most engagement.

Organising boards carefully

Create boards that are primarily focused on specific topics as opposed to broad terms and categories. For instance, rather than ‘home improvements’, use ‘small kitchen storage ideas’, ‘modern bathroom designs’, or ‘back garden landscaping tips’. Specific boards will make it easier for users to find your content, no matter which way you look at it. 

Encouraging saving & sharing

Create content that users want to save for future reference. Popular examples of this include things like checklists, how-to guides, tutorials, buying guides, seasonal ideas and design inspiration. Content with lasting value is more likely to be saved repeatedly, which is something you want when it comes to marketing. 

Kumo is pleased to provide a wide range of digital marketing services, including content creation, SEO, PPC, website design and more. You can rest assured that our team of dedicated experts can set you apart from your competitors with excellent content creation and copywriting services. If you’d like further information about how we can help you today, get in touch with a member of our friendly, specialist team – we’re always happy to hear from you.