What is Pinterest marketing, and how can it help me grow my small business? This is the question that I am going to be covering today.

I am going to explain how a Pinterest marketing strategy can benefit your small business this year and every year moving forward.

There are three things that you need to know, and they’re exactly what I would tell my friends about their own Pinterest Marketing Strategy.

1. Pinterest isn’t a sloppy seconds platform
2. Before you get started, you need to find your ICA on Pinterest
3. Optimize your profile before getting started

Key #1 – Pinterest isn’t a sloppy seconds platform

Pinterest doesn’t  want to be an afterthought in your marketing strategy. In fact, their users are not using this platform for sloppy seconds.

They use it as the first line of defense when looking for inspiration, planning life events, and even something as simple as looking for something to cook for dinner tonight.

They are going to Pinterest first. Why?  Because Pinterest is, in fact, a search engine. Did you know….

📌 Pinterest has 459 million active users

Not as much as Facebook, but nothing to shake a stick at.

📌 97% of Pinterest searches are unbranded

That means people aren’t going to Pinterest and looking for specific brands like Nike shoes.  They are going to this platform and searching for sportswear, or cute athletic outfits, and things like that.

📌 Pinners spend 80% more in retail than their non-Pinterest using counterparts

So little plug for if you have a brick and mortar store, or even an ecommerce site.  Your Pinterest audience is looking for places to shop!

📌 Pinterest users are the decision-makers in their households

Would it change your business if you were able to get in front of decision-makers in households? How much of a difference would it make in your business if you were to get right in front of the person specifically searching for items to purchase, or inspiration for their home or business?

Let’s move on to some tactics now.

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Key #2 – Before you get started, you need to find your ICA on the platform

ICA stands for your ideal client avatar. That is, the exact representation of a single person in your audience that your products and services are the best fit for.

Who is your ICA, and how to find them?

Before you get started on Pinterest (before you publish a pin or even develop a Canva template for your brand), you need to think through who your ideal client or customer is.

You need to consider how they are using Pinterest to fulfill their needs, which your business or service can solve.

There are a couple of different ways that you can do this. I teach this method quite often on Clubhouse and YouTube.

• Take a piece of paper and make a line right down the middle. On the left side, write down all the questions that you are asked regularly. They can also be the most popular questions that you get asked.
• On the right side of the line, write down all the products and services that you sell in your business.  If you are a content creator and don’t have any products or services, you can use affiliate products or sponsorships. If you are an influencer, then it is the same deal. Who is paying you for sponsorships? Write down those things as it relates to the questions that you get asked.

This process is as relevant for a make-up artist or lifestyle influencer as it is for someone selling leather handbags.

So for the tactical piece of this, take a look at this example.

You are going to use the search bar on your computer. Open another window while you’re reading this now, and I walk you through this process.

Or follow along in the video below of my computer screen to see exactly what I mean.

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The example I’m going to use is for a resume writing coach. I was inspired by someone in my Clubhouse room recently, so I am using her example.

So if I were her, on the left-hand side of my paper, I would write down the questions that get asked most often, and that is:  How to write a resume that stands out?

Then on the right side of my paper, I would write down:

• Resume and CV writing services
• Resume and CV review and editing services
• Interview coaching services, etc.

So I have my services and the burning question that people ask.

For the service piece, we are just going to plug it into the search bar on Pinterest.  We are going to type ‘how to write a resume’ and search.  Ignore what’s going to show up in the autofill suggestions for now.

Look at the search results on the screen. You will find that there are plenty of results for how to write a resume. There are many people creating pins on skills, using resume power verbs, formatting, and any other thing you can think up on resume writing is on there.

That’s the first thing I want you to pay attention to.

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Use your keyword search bar

The second thing I want you to pay attention to when finding your ICA on Pinterest is to put your cursor in the search bar again, and hit the space key after your search terms from before.

Now look in the auto-fill. What are people looking for related to the term you put in the box?  These are all kinds of other suggested words and phrases that people are looking for related to resume writing tips. Such as:

• resume writing for teens,
• no experience,
• free templates,
• for your first job,
• profile

So that’s clue number two about how your ICA is looking for you on Pinterest.  Pretend as if you’re them, sitting in their seat, and doing this exact search.

Now let’s take it to the flip side of the paper, the services side, and search for those things.

When we type “how to write a resume” in the search bar, to me, that could be considered a product or service-based keyword. So, you can use that keyword or phrase to promote your products and services.

If we were to type “resume writing services” in the search bar, you could see that it is the third option being suggested. If I click that and just look at the search results, I will see several Pinterest images from people who write resumes for others as a service. You can actually click through and hire them to write your resume.

As you are developing your profile, this is a part of the exercise you are going to need to go through.  Not only to find out what boards you will want to create on your profile, but also what keywords you want to use in those boards, titles, descriptions and even in your pins.

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Key #3 – Other vital parts of your Pinterest marketing strategy to not overlook

Now that we have talked about our mindset around a Pinterest Marketing Strategy, let’s talk about what you need to do before anything else:  start with your optimizing profile.

There are many things that you need to do before even getting to your optimized profile.  Find out the rest of the Pinterest Marketing Strategy that I’d tell my friends in Part 2 here…… 

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