Creating a Pinterest holiday marketing strategy should be your top priority this week for the upcoming holiday season. You should be at least starting to implement some of the holiday marketing strategy we are going to be talking about in this post today because autumn is coming (as I write this) and now is the time!

You’re going to have your Pinterest holiday marketing strategy for this year, and any seasonal content you create. Let’s dive into the two main things you need to address:

• holiday ads, or promoted pins (conversion campaigns)
• organic pinning tactics

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Planning holiday ads, promotions, and promoted pins

I am going to give you a couple of holiday ad planning tips and some holiday marketing tactics. You can use these in your organic or private shop ads, as well as your paid marketing strategies on Pinterest and whatever other marketing platforms you use.

Start earlier than you think

September to October is the time frame that you will want to start incorporating holiday themes in your imagery and messaging at the very latest. And that’s for end-of-year holidays, like Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year’s, for example. If you’re wanting to target other holidays, the best way is to think 3-4 months in advance.

So if you haven’t already, it’s time to start creating some new imagery for your marketing campaigns that have a more holiday feel. Think winter imagery, Christmas colors, and holiday keywords that are targeted to your brand and to your audience. Don’t be like a lot of people that wait too late and then don’t see any traction with their seasonal promotions on Pinterest. 

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Review your current ads

Start refining your current ads and moving those budgets further down the funnel into conversion spend. Turn off anything that’s not working and reroute funds to more seasonal pins you’re promoting.

You will want to start refining your current ad sets and moving them from consideration campaign budget into the conversion campaigns for your brand. That way you are optimizing more for the events that  you actually want to happen in your ads strategy.

RELATED: How to Create a Pinterest Conversion Campaign (Step by Step Tutorial)

Bring in new top funnel traffic

Run a top of funnel traffic campaign targeting keywords and interests applicable to your brand, then targeting add-to-carts in our conversion campaigns. The further you get into the holiday season, the more your budget needs to be consumed into those conversion campaigns for the events that are happening like checkouts and add-to-carts.

So one strategy that we actually like to use to acquire a cheaper customer overall is to run top of funnel consideration campaigns where we are just driving traffic. Underneath that middle of funnel, we will have a conversion campaign happening where we optimize for add-to-carts.

I like to run the add-to-carts in conversion, and that may be a really great strategy for you right now as you prep for Black Friday and Christmas shopping in your ads.

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Address delivery times during peak season

As we move into November, the bulk of your budget should be in conversion. Especially in December, the holiday shipping time frames will be longer. We always see bottlenecks in some way during the end of the holidays because everyone is always thinking last minute.

Make sure you are getting with your suppliers who are shipping goods and the people who are doing the actual shipping. So whatever shipping service you are using, make sure you are in contact or at least on their sites figuring out what your own shipping timelines are going to be.

You should be making that clear in your ads and on your landing pages for anyone shopping for the festival season through your ad strategy to keep happy customers aware.

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Your Pinterest holiday tactics within your full strategy

Use the Pinterest holiday tactics that we will talk about here within your ads strategy too. It deals with imagery and what you are placing on the images. So this can be for organic pins, your shop banners, even with your email marketing and blog images.

Use new images for every phase of your targeting

Start creating full funnel targeting even in organic Pinterest strategies. What does this mean? Pinterest is a full-funnel marketing platform. People are here for every stage of awareness and shopping.

• before they know they are interested in your product
• when they are problem aware and want to find a solution
• when they know what will solve their problem and they’re looking for it
• they know that you are the solution or product to fit their need

As a result, you as a content creator or an e-commerce shop owner can create content in the form of Pinterest images that speak to each part of that journey. Let’s break down a couple of examples of best practices that you can use in your holiday marketing strategy.

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Awareness content for their planning

Create awareness content that helps people plan their holiday parties, gift-giving, travel, hosting, etc. Since pinners are planners, they are on the platform actively planning their holiday season, even at random times of the year.

• what gifts they are going to give
• what gifts they want to receive
• what party dishes they are going to serve, cook or take to someone else’s house
• decor and home themed ideas everywhere
• endless traditions, old and new to implement

Create awareness-based content in multiple areas that helps them with that phase of the customer journey before they are even ready for your product.

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Create pins with options for decision-making

Create decision-making pins to help people understand their options you have available, using a strong call to action to get them to click through. These fresh pins that incorporate those holiday elements help people understand their options related to your products, services, or your content.

After you erase their overwhelm at trying to figure things out, use a very strong call-to-action for people to click through. These call to actions can be ‘shop now’, ‘buy now’, or ‘learn more.’

We really want them to understand that they have options with possible solutions, and this is more of that consideration phase of the journey. They can click on through and figure out what that option is going to be for them and if it is going to be a good fit.

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Have images with strong branding and products

Create images with strong branding, calls to action, and pricing direct to your products. This last phase in a full-funnel image strategy, at least on Pinterest, is to create really strong imagery with strong branding. This showcases your product that you may be selling in your holiday marketing strategy this year, just like the buyer is standing right in front of the store shelves and picking their purchase.

One inclusion you can make to this bottom of funnel pin creation type is showing the pricing. This part of the journey is actually the product that we want them to know about. They have this problem, you have the options, now here’s the solution, and by the way, here’s the price. 

If you need examples of that, look at your competitors on Pinterest to see what else they are incorporating. If you are running ads, you have an option where Pinterest will help you create two pins for your ads strategy for free to compare side by side.

I like to look on Pinterest, especially the big brands, just to see what they are doing right around the holiday season and mimic that in my own strategy.

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Create holiday pins for your holiday marketing strategy

Take your content and create a holiday vibe around your pins. Your regular branding palettes can be pushed aside for now.  You can use a branding palette that is winter or Christmas-themed.

If you are not religious, you have an agnostic kind of feel to your brand, you can still incorporate elements like Christmas trees, garland, ornaments, and boxes and give it that sort of vibe.

You can use those elements in your Pinterest images as well as using phrases like “gift guides” that you don’t normally use. Don’t be afraid to branch out; you can still use your logo, website, and templates still.

RELATED: How to Create Branded Pinterest Designs to Boost Sales

Repurpose your evergreen content for the holidays

Take your evergreen content and repurpose it into a holiday feel where it fits. Target more of those holiday-specific keywords. You can do this with any number of evergreen pin styles and keywords. You pretty much can find holiday-specific things and turn your evergreen content into more of a trend-based piece of holiday content.

For example, if you have a party planning guide where you teach people how to plan a party, then you can take that and spin a little bit. Create a series of pins that tell you how to make a holiday party or how to plan a holiday party that lead to your guide.

Just because the pin is Christmasy and they land on that content, or it is not necessarily Christmasy in nature, that does not mean it is not relevant now. So if you do have value-based content that you can turn from evergreen into holiday and make it very timely, then that is a great strategy to employ during the holiday season.

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Create gift guides with your products

I already mentioned gift guides, but now is a great time for creating gift guides for the different segments of your audience or email list. If you haven’t ever created a gift guide, I would encourage you to go on Pinterest and search for gift guides related to what you sell or what content you create and see if you can mimic that in your own brand.

Many creators will actually create a lot of Amazon wish lists and use affiliate links throughout the content, especially if they do not sell their own products. You could even sprinkle complimentary products into lists with your own items you sell for variety.

Now, if you have an e-commerce store and sell your own products, I would highly encourage you to create gift guides specific to your audience or customer, incorporating your products throughout. Show them how they can use it, show them the benefits, and then showcase the product and encourage them to add it to their cart from your content.

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Don’t forget about the after Christmas crowd

The last tip I have for you in this tactics section is not to forget the after-Christmas crowd. Many people, especially in the US, are buying gifts after Christmas until the end of the year because they know that a lot of retailers run sales after Christmas and for New Year’s.

This is an excellent time if you are running ads through the holiday season and if you want to beat that shipping time constraint that you may run into. You may pick up and run some more ads after the holidays are over (the day after Christmas and beyond).

Even during the week of Christmas, many people have turned off their ads because they know shipping is not going to be possible.  Just make sure that it’s really clear on your website that this is your after-Christmas sale if you are running a product sale on your e-commerce store. 

So, don’t forget your after-Christmas crowd and your New Years’ crowd. They are looking for deals even after the holiday is over. Not everyone gets to spend time with their family on Christmas. They may go before, and they may go after.

RELATED: 10 Ways to Drive Traffic With the Pinterest Holiday Season

Final thoughts on Pinterest holiday marketing strategy

If you need help developing a marketing strategy, make sure you join Pin Profit Academy. We are helping creators every single week to launch their own Pinterest marketing strategies with ease. We do live calls and deep dive trainings to support every aspect of your small business. Come join us!

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