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I am constantly shouting about what an underutilised resource Pinterest is. But people still see it as a social media platform for home décor and cocktail recipes. While it’s an amazing source of inspiration for the aesthetic aspects of your life, pinners use it to find solutions and ideas almost all areas of their life. From researching their next career move, to finding solutions into how to lead a healthier and more holistic life. Pinterest is seen as a resource for more aesthetic and product-based inspiration, but it can also work wonders for your service-based business.
So how can Pinterest help you grow your service-based business? In this blog I’ll show you why you need to incorporate it into your marketing strategy.
1. Your content lasts longer on Pinterest
Unlike social media, your pins have a very long shelf-life and can still bring results several months after they’ve been posted. This means your content works harder for you and will result in more long-term traffic to your website
2. Pinners come to Pinterest ready to buy.
Pinners are looking for a solution to a problem they have or inspiration for their next project. They are not looking for specific branded content which they can easily find anywhere, they have a few, sometimes niche, keywords that they’re searching for, e.g.
- “best home office desk”
- “wedding photographer London”
- “how to start a small business”
They have come to Pinterest with intent to buy so your content is helping them find what they want, unlike ads on social media which interrupt their scrolling.
3. Pinterest isn’t a social media platform
Pinterest is a search engine and not a social media platform. Pinners come to Pinterest because they’re looking for something specific and Pinterest wants to direct traffic to your website. Your business is more likely to get better traffic through Pinterest than through Facebook and Instagram combined.
4. Small businesses thrive on Pinterest.
Consistency is more important than follower numbers on Pinterest so that’s a headache you don’t need to worry about unlike Instagram or TikTok. Over 90% of searches on Pinterest are unbranded, Pinners aren’t looking for big brands; they’re more likely to look for more eco-conscious brands or up and coming businesses, so small businesses perform very well in terms of search and discovery.
5. You can easily build brand authority
Regular and consistent pinning will help build brand authority positioning you as an expert in your field, and this is without having to spend a fortune on advertising. By pinning consistently, your brand will become trusted and recognisable.
6. Drives product sales automatically
Pinners come to Pinterest as they are actively planning a purchase with 70% of pinners more likely to follow through with the buying process. And with 95% of Pinterest searches being unbranded, most new products and services are first discovered on Pinterest and not google.
7. Content repurposing machine
Your content has a much longer shelf life on Pinterest; pins can keep pushing website traffic for months and even years. And the possibilities are endless for repurposing your existing content e.g. One blog post alone can become 7 standard pins, and a reel can become a video pin. And that’s not including the options for seasonal variations
So, by creating one piece of content you can produce up to a months’ worth of marketing material.
8. SEO benefits for Google
Keywords are the “key” to making Pinterest work for you, so it makes sense that SEO plays a big part in your pins being seen.
With that in mind, Pins will often appear in Google search results, so you could get your pins in front of people who aren’t on Pinterest! Technically this means you have two search engines working for you to get your content seen and you basically get two search engines working for you.
9. Evergreen marketing (low daily effort)
While consistency is important on Pinterest, and best practice is to post daily, you don’t need to pin in real time.
Setting aside some time to batch create pins once a week and then scheduling in advance will take out all the faff and stress of daily posting. And since Pinterest will suggest optimal times for pins to be posted it pretty much means you can pin while you sleep and your content reaches more people.
This works particularly well for solopreneurs, anyone with a side hustle or small teams who don’t have a lot of time to spare!
10. Predicting and planning for the future
Every year, Pinterest predicts the next years trends with around 88% coming to fruition. Pinners are planners, so getting your content out in advance will reap rewards e.g.Christmas content in October, or summer holiday planning in January.
Pinning organically will start off slow, but the rewards and return are worth it!
To put it simply, Pinterest is all the best qualities of Google and Instagram combined – great visuals with SEO, so it’s one of the highest ROI platforms for small businesses.
Talk to me about your business and I’ll help you with what to pin
