Use Pinterest for Local Business

Using Pinterest for local business is a great way to grow your audience beyond your local market. Using this platform gets even better when you sell products that you can ship! This includes digital products and services that can be delivered to your customers no matter where they are.

Not all local businesses sell digital products or services though and you are here to learn how to get people into your world.

Many local businesses aren’t thinking in terms of marketing with Pinterest though because most of them have no idea what it is. I’m here to help you clear that up and learn how you can step out of your comfort zone and start bringing in fresh eyes and dollars.

How to Use Pinterest for Small Business

Many small businesses ARE local businesses. They are stuck in the marketing days of newspaper and local print ads. I just recently purchased a new home and the amount of physical mail I have gotten from local businesses is outrageous… and I threw it right in the trash can.

People don’t want to be bombarded with junk mail or cheesy advertisements. There’s a better way!

Pinterest reaches 83% of households with an age range of 25-54 and within that same group 80% of them are decision makers. They have been dubbed The Decider’s and they are who you want to reach. 1

They’re planning vacations, meals, activities for the family, searching for art to buy and so much more.

I could go deeper into these statistics but you can simply Pinterest Statistics You Should Know to learn more.

If you are a local business wondering how you can use this amazing platform for your own marketing… buckle up because we’re diving in deep.

How do local businesses use Pinterest?

To learn more about the best practices of using this platform you can read Your Pinterest Marketing Guide for 2020.

Getting Started Inside Your Settings

• Start out by creating a business account so you have access to analytics.
• Claim your website and social media channels. If you are a local business also using a third party seller platform like Etsy go ahead and claim that one too.
• Install Rich Pins (this is only relevant if you have a website)

Optimize Your Profile With Your Location

You want to show up in related searches and main feed searches by location so make sure you are using your location in your profile. Pinterest doesn’t put this on your profile anymore but it’s still very relevant.

Optimize your Bio

Use your bio to tell people who you are and what you offer. You have to be concise because you get 160 characters. You can do this a few different ways but you should keep it simple and use keywords!

Use Local Keywords – Pinterest SEO

Pinterest SEO is one of the most important factors of people finding you when they are looking for a solution to their problems.

You are going to use these keywords on your profile everywhere.

• Board Titles
• Board Descriptions
• Pin Titles
• Pin Descriptions
• Bio

Local Keywords for Pinterest Boards

When you are crafting your profile make sure you are using those keywords you have researched.

Curate your boards by topic. Each topic is something your ideal audience is looking for on Pinterest.

Most businesses I work with have 3-5 topics they hit on with their content. Within those 3-5 topics you should be able to come up with 2-3 boards to create that are all different but similar.

For example, if you are a local diner in Downtown Tucson you can create the following boards.

Best Local Restaurants in Tucson

Downtown Tucson

Must Visit Places in Tucson

These are all keywords people are searching for and I included one local keyword in my group.

Let’s do that one more time but for a local maker… someone who makes gifts that they want people to buy to remember Tucson.

Things to Do in Tucson Arizona

Downtown Tucson

Tucson Shopping

Sometimes finding local keywords will be a little more difficult because guided search won’t be present… but don’t give up! Think about the ways your ideal customer will be searching for you.

Local Keywords for Descriptions

You are going to use those keywords to then craft your descriptions. I always suggest using all 500 characters of your Pinterest description. To do that you will need to write in full sentences and try to use 3-5 long tail keywords to guide your writing.

Local Keywords on Text Overlays

You are going to use your main keyword that the pin is about on your text overlay. You will notice in a lot of local searches the pins are square and just not great.

You aren’t going to do this. You are going to use 2:3 sizing which comes out to a 1000×1500 sized image to showcase your pin. On that you are going to use that keyword for your text overlay.

Here are a few examples of great pins on Pinterest for local businesses.

All of these pins tell the pinner what they are about. There is no guessing what they will get on the other side and they have keywords that those pinners are searching for.

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel here, just use your keyword on your text overlay to tell a story.

If you need more help with this process grab our Pinterest Templates for Canva where we teach you how to create pins that people click on!

Grab Your Templates

Can You Make Money on Pinterest

If you are a small business owner still wondering how you can use Pinterset for local business to make money just hang tight!

Most people make money using Pinterest by selling a product, service or information.

If your website is monetized with ads then every reader that hits your site is going to help raise your ad revenue.

Take it a step further by signing up for affiliate programs that are directly related to your industry. This could be linking yoga workout gear from your favorite retailer.

Let’s use the yoga studio again and break down the ways that they can use Pinterest to make money.

Let’s say the yoga studio has a website with their location information and a blog.

If I were that yoga studio owner I would be creating valuable content in the form of videos and blog posts and using Pinterest to bring traffic to them.

Once I have that pinner on my site I’m going to call them to sign up for my email list in exchange for an exclusive free yoga workout.

Now, I know what you might be thinking… what if the person on my site doesn’t even live in my area?

That’s where digital products and services come in… as a local business owner you can diversify your income by catering to the online market. Your ideal customer may live in a different city but they could benefit from you.

Conversely, you could be showing up for searches that your local audience is showing up for as well and offer them a way to work with you.

I for one don’t enjoy doing yoga in a studio full of people but I do yoga 1-2x per day at home and if I could follow a local studio owner online I totally would!

Think about how you can show up for your ideal customer and diversify your income and traffic.

The same goes for selling handmade items on Pinterest among so many other industries. A lot of small businesses would be willing to ship if they knew they had an audience willing to buy.

Create Shoppable Pins

You can put your paid products on Pinterest through shoppable pins. This means that in the previous step you made your pins using keywords and now you are going to tag your product in your image.

You start by tagging your pins with the product URL in your shop.

Depending on the type of products you sell and the quantity you can use catalogs to upload your products.

Create Pins for your Content, Products, Events & Services

Next you are going to start consistently creating pins for your content, products and events using the same SEO method taught above.

Do this for everything you want people to know about. That includes free content you put on your website.

Creating a Content Strategy for Local Businesses

If you haven’t figured it out already it’s a great idea to offer some sort of free content to bring people in. While most all Pinterest users have an intent to purchase they do love free information.

Let’s go back to the yoga studio example. You could use your website to explain all the benefits of using Yoga as a daily workout practice. Knowing your craft you could come up with thousands of content ideas around your offering.

You can create written content or video content. You put this on your website and drive traffic to it with Pinterest. You have a strong call to action at the end of your content to take action.

That action could be to enroll in your free yoga workout, grab your cheatsheet, buy your yoga program or attend a workout in the studio.

The possibilities are endless here! Serve your audience with the best that you have and watch it grow even more by expanding online.

Even your local customers will appreciate not having to leave their house to learn something!

If you don’t want to or don’t have time to create free content to bring people in that’s okay too.

What to Pin as Local Business

You will pin your products and services as well as any other relevant content that your audience needs.

For example, if you are a realtor you can pin content related to painting your home, home decor, cleaning tips, staging tips and more.

You are going to pin things that your audience is searching for related to your niche.

How to Use Pinterest Ads for Local Business

Once you have your Pinterest profile set up and optimized & you’ve claimed your domain you will need to take one more step before using ads.

You will need to install your tracking pixel so you can track what actions people take on your website.

Once you have done that you can setup a campaign to target your local area.

You can do this in a couple ways.

• Run a broad campaign to your local area
• Run a campaign to your email list
• Run a campaign using hyper local keywords
• Run a campaign retargeting your website visitors.

If you want to learn more about Promoted Pins you should definitely read Pinterest Promoted Pins: The Ultimate Getting Started Guide.

This is a great way to get in front of your local audience as well as anyone searching for your local area.

Collaborate with Other Local Businesses

Don’t just set your profile up and leave it at that… follow your fellow local small businesses. If they create content or products related to your ideal customer then create boards and pin them.

Remember collaboration is better than competition.

Ask Your Customers to Follow on Pinterest

Don’t forget to ask your existing customers to follow you on Pinterest! They already give you their money so don’t forget to ask them to follow. You can put the Pinterest logo on your business card with your username or use the Pincode as a quick way to gain followers.

You can also ask your email list & followers on your other social networks to follow you on Pinterest as well.

Wrapping it Up

If you are a local business using Pinterest I’d love to hear from you! Tell us how you’re using this platform to expand your business online.

If you aren’t using Pinterest as a local business already then tell me how you plan to use this platform to grow your existing.

 

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