While many businesses overlook Pinterest as a possible platform for marketing, if you have a visually oriented business, you may be missing out. Although it’s often thought of as a social media site, it’s actually more of a search engine for shoppers.

That’s because Pinterest is the top platform used for discovering new products.

  • Two-thirds of all pins saved on Pinterest are from businesses.
  • Eighty-seven percent of pinners have purchased a product because of Pinterest; 93 percent have used Pinterest to plan a future purchase.
  • Ninety-seven percent of the top searches on Pinterest are not for a specific brand; this gives you to the opportunity to catch their interest before they’ve made up their mind.

When it comes to generating leads and converting to sales, Pinterest is unbeatable. But there are several Pinterest marketing strategies that can help you make the most of this potential audience.

Key in on keywords

Keywords help you get found, so using the right ones is critical to your success. For SEO purposes, Google considers each pin a website in itself. Therefore, adding a product description to your pin will get you ranked higher in searches.

Add your keyword to your Pinterest bio, pin titles, descriptions, and pin image file names. And be sure they’re long-tail keywords; that is, not just a generic description such as “children’s clothes,” but the more specific “toddler dresses,” or “children’s play clothes.”

And don’t limit yourself to descriptions of the product. Think of ways it can be used and add keywords for that, as well: “starting school,” “play dates,” and so on.

Venture into video

We can’t say it often enough: Pinterest is all about the images. Not only does Pinterest give priority to video pins, but in addition users are used to seeing videos on other platforms like Instagram and Facebook. So you’ll be more likely to capture their interest with motion vs. static images.

The best videos are between six and 15 seconds, they tease but don’t tell the whole tale (you want viewers to click through to your website or blog), and the cover image accurately represents what your video is about (think of movie posters).

Remember that some people will be watching your video with the sound off, so make sure you get your message across with text overlay or captions. And by the way, since 85 percent of Pinterest users access the site from their mobile phones, double-check to be sure your content is optimized for mobile devices.

Feature fresh content

Pin often, and pin new content. You can repin older pins, but Pinterest will know you’ve done that and will give a lower search priority to pins it’s already seen.

Frequency is important: Pin at least 10 to 20 times a day (and use a scheduler like Tailwind to do the hard work for you). Research shows the best times to pin are from 2-4 p.m. EST, 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. EST, and any time Saturday morning.

Combine products in single pins to show users your array of offerings. You can’t feature every product you sell in a single pin, but group together items such as earrings, scarves, or candles, for instance, especially if they’re new arrivals.

Also be sure your pins show pictures of people using your products. This technique has been found to increase engagement vs. static photos of the products themselves.

Let Pinterest help

Pinterest not only wants you to use their platform, they want you to succeed with it. Toward that end, they offer a wealth of data, insights, and measurement tools to improve your pinning strategy.

Under the heading of Analytics for Action, for example, they offer:

  • Pin stats: You can click on an individual pin to see metrics like impressions, saves, and clicks.
  • Audience insights tools: See what your Pinterest audience is into and find new ways to reach them.
  • Trend dashboards: Discover what people are looking for in Pinterest right now.
  • Consumer insights and industry research, which you can filter by topic.

With the right marketing strategy, you can see your Pinterest engagement soar, and your sales will take off as a result.

Our social media management experts have lots more ways to help increase engagement and sales through Pinterest. So be sure to contact us today!