Create a stand-out Pinterest marketing strategy in just 4 steps

Pinterest is one of the leading social media platforms for B2C sales. Therefore if you’re a B2C business you must have a strong Pinterest marketing strategy, so you can stand out amongst competitors and drive the results you want.

Pinterest is a unique social platform because it acts as a visual search engine. Users use the platform to learn and discover brands, which means it is a powerful platform for advertisers to include in their paid social strategy.

We understand how overwhelming the term ‘strategy’ can be and the time it takes to develop a successful one, that’s why we have broken down a simple 4-step process to help you create the best Pinterest marketing strategy in 2024!

Step 1 – Identify, outline and understand your target audience

When starting to create any successful social media strategy, you need to make sure you have a deep understanding of your target audience, and this is no different when starting your Pinterest marketing strategy.

You should first consider if your audience is active on Pinterest.

The platform has 522 million monthly active users and has experienced a steady growth rate year on year.Of those active users, nearly 80% are female and the most popular age group is those between 25-34 years old. Despite the skew towards millennial females, it has also been found that GenZ and men are some of the fastest-growing user segments for Pinterest. Taking the time to research and check that your audience is using Pinterest is essential before you waste time and resources planning a marketing strategy for a platform your audience does not use.

Next, you need to examine what your audience is using Pinterest for.

As Pinterest is a platform that centres around search, Pinterest users are often open to discovery and hold a ready-to-buy attitude, which is helpful for advertisers wanting to generate sales. However, when advertising on Pinterest, you need to understand that Pinterest is a full-funnel platform where users can experience different stages of the buyer journey: awareness, consideration and purchase. You must identify and understand which stage your target audience is at to ensure your campaigns generate the ROI you’re expecting.

The last stage in this step is to dive into your customer’s needs and wants.

Once you understand what problem your target audience is facing, you can use this to inform your keyword strategy. Speaking of keywords, let’s move on to step 2!

Step 2 – Create a relevant keyword strategy

The Pinterest algorithm uses keywords to identify and understand your content and the topic of your posts. It then ranks your posts based on this, so when a user searches for a specific keyword, Pinterest will generate related posts.

If you are familiar with keyword research in relation to SEO for websites, this is no different. Remember, Pinterest is just a visual search engine, so optimising your content using keyword research is needed to boost your rankings in user search queries. The more visible your Pinterest content, the more likely a user is to engage and purchase from you.

So, how do you find the right keywords?

By completing the steps above and jotting down your ideas, you have probably already generated some great keywords that your audience could be searching for. To complement this, you can search industry-related keywords on Pinterest, as if you were a user and see what keywords are being used by competitors.

Pinterest will auto-generate keywords as you type in the search bar. Use these too.

The platform also offers a Pinterest trends tool, where you can see what topics/keywords/posts are trending currently and what your target audience might be searching for. In addition to this, Pinterest produces a trend report each year, so you can use this to help your keyword planning.

Another option is to use keyword research tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs. Be aware that these tools are based on Google search, not Pinterest but they still offer useful keywords.

Top Tip: There are many different types of keywords and using a mixture of these is beneficial.

Now you know how to find keywords, where do you put them?

You need to optimise your Pinterest profile with relevant keywords. This includes your username, display name and bio. Be aware of overusing keywords (keyword stuffing)keyword stuffing instead use keywords naturally throughout your profile. Doing this will help your profile appear at the top of the rankings when a user searches for a related keyword.

Pinterest boards should also be optimised with keywords. They should appear in your board name, board description and cover.

What else should you optimise on Pinterest?

You must ensure your Pinterest pins include text overlays, pin titles and pin descriptions that feature keywords.

Pinterest allows you to add ‘tags’ to your pins; think of these as a replacement for hashtags. They help categorise your content and increase reach. Using keywords in these tags will help make sure you appear in relevant searches.

Top tip: The content in your pins should be linked and related to one another. The more related you pins, the higher your chance of being viewed as an expert by the Pinterest algorithm and the more the platform will boost your online visibility.

Step 3 – Design a strong pinning strategy

Ultimately, you need to ensure that you maximise your ROI. You don’t want to spend too long creating pin content / posting only to see disappointing results.

You should consider:

How often do you add pins: The ideal post frequency on Pinterest is at least one pin per week. The platform also rewards consistent content, so make sure you establish a posting schedule that you can maintain. As you get more comfortable with posting on Pinterest, you can steadily increase your post frequency.

What types of pins to post: Pinterest offers image pins, video pins, rich pins (they automatically pull info from your site) and product pins (feature products users can buy). Mixing up the type of pins you post can be effective when testing out what works best for your audience. You can track pin performance and refine your pin strategy based on this.

What content you can repurpose on Pinterest: The platform doesn’t mind if you target the same keywords in multiple pins (unlike Google, which penalises sites that post multiple blog posts that rank for the same keyword). Therefore, you can repurpose content, saving your time, and create fresh pins to rank for keywords.

Step 4 – Review your analytics and learn from the data

After a couple of months of implementing your Pinterest marketing strategy, you will have an abundance of data that will show you how well you are doing. You can then use this data to refine your strategy and improve performance.

You should pay particular attention to pin clicks, impressions and saves. These metrics will give you a good idea of how your content is being perceived and if your reach is high enough.

Top Tip: Also use Google Analytics to complement Pinterest Analytics as it can help you understand which pins have driven the highest referral traffic via Pinterest.

Ready to start your Pinterest journey?

By combining all the steps above, you will have a strong Pinterest marketing strategy that will drive results. Feel like you need support? Our team of Pinterest experts are ready to support you and help you create a paid social strategy that delivers results within your budget! Get in touch and start your paid social journey today!