If you sell products, Pinterest needs to be a part of your marketing toolbox! Learn how to use Pinterest to increase traffic to your online shop

Pinterest is a great tool for product sellers to help drive traffic to their website. It is often overlooked as many people think that it is just for recipes, crafts or DIY projects. However, we see with our own site and our clients’ sites, that Pinterest is one of the largest sources for website traffic, often driving more traffic than any other social media channel that they are using!

Because we feel this is something that you should know about, especially if you are a product seller, we’ve asked Amy Ford of Bloom Virtual Solutions, who is an amazing Pinterest manager,  to help write this blog post and give some insights, as well as some time management tools, on what you can do to use Pinterest to drive traffic to your site and get your products seen! Take it away Amy!

[From Amy]

Just this month alone (April 2020), Pinterest searches have increased by over 60%. With 335+ Million active users (source), pinners are coming to Pinterest for inspiration and discovering new brands everyday. They come to Pinterest to seek out new ideas and products and a whopping 83% of weekly Pinners have made a purchase based on content they saw from brands on Pinterest (source).

As a creative entrepreneur it is important to know these numbers! I know they’re boring, but these numbers mean that you are missing out on millions of Pinners seeing your products if you're not using Pinterest! Getting excited yet?! 

Still not convinced? Let me walk you through 5 main objections I hear from creatives like yourself, and give you some easy solutions to those objections. 

Objection #1: “I don’t have the time.”

I know you don’t need one more thing to focus on in your business. Most creatives are solopreneurs and do all the things themselves. Maybe you are so frustrated with social media and spending all your time on Instagram or Facebook posting your products and not getting anywhere. Does this sound like you?

If I told you that spending just 30 minutes a week pinning your products to Pinterest could increase your traffic and sales, would you be willing to do it? 

Think about how long you spend creating Instagram posts only for them to last a few hours and then they get lost in the feed. This is not the case with Pinterest. Pinterest pins last infinitely and can drive traffic for months, and even years after posting. If you incorporate Pinterest into your process of creating new products for your shop, it will become second nature to you. When you create images or social media posts of your products, add one extra step and create pins too. Resize your images to be Pinterest optimized and add them to your Pinterest account or your Tailwind queue (more on Tailwind and how it can save you time below!) You can purchase templates to use that can make it easy for you to create these images. Simply pop in your product image using your favorite image editor and you’re done.

Objection #2: “Pinterest is so confusing.”

Learning something new can be confusing, but as a creative entrepreneur, we have to step out of our comfort zones in order to grow. The purpose of Pinterest is to draw a customer in by search, have them click your pin, and get them to your website. If you already use Pinterest for fun, then you probably know the basics on how to use it. When you switch to using Pinterest for your business, you will begin pinning your products, but keep in mind the following 3 basics to get them to click through to your site.

The 3 basics about Pinterest that I tell my clients to remember: 

1. Images (remember that Pinterest is a visual search engine, so the images you post need to be enticing or informative for your customer), 

2. Keywords (Pinterest uses SEO, just like Google. You need to make sure your pin descriptions include keywords about your products that people are searching for, so that you can get your pins seen), 

3. Consistency (you have to stick to a schedule/plan. Pinterest wants you to be on their site often. We know it’s impossible to be on there all the time, especially when you have a business to run, but scheduling your pins can help you achieve this).

Once you get someone to your site from Pinterest, you want them to stay on your site and make them a customer for life. How, you ask? Get them on your email list! Once they arrive on your site, offer a 10% discount with a pop up, or offer a free checklist or instructions on how to use your products. Pinterest can get them there, but you have to sell them once they are there! 

Objection #3: “I don’t know how to get started.”

In just a few minutes a day, and in under a week, you can have a Pinterest account set up and ready to go. 

First, you need to have a business account. Note that if you have a personal one, it can be easily converted. Having a business account will let you have a claimed website, offer stats and analytics to see how you are growing, and enable Rich Pins to pull in price and product data. If you have a personal account, it can be easily converted to a business account. You can find instructions on how to do this under the account settings in your profile.

After getting a business account, you will want to optimize your profile. I have written a blog post that walks you through this step-by-step. 

Next, you will want to start creating boards. You want to have a board for each type of product you sell, and one for ALL your products housed in one place. You can read more about how to set up your boards on my website. 

Once you have your boards set up, you can start adding in pins. This is the fun part! I suggest when starting out you want to pin a ratio of 50% your products and 50% valuable and relevant content from others. By adding in your products and relevant content from others, you are creating boards that are rich and varied. That “other” content could bring in people to your boards, where they will discover your products! And you don’t have to pin any of your competitor’s items. Think outside of the box here. If you are selling an art print, you can pin interior decorating tips or framing ideas to your board instead of other art prints. 

Objection #4: “I don’t know how to pin, how many I should pin, and how often!”

How to Pin
There are a few ways to pin to Pinterest, but I want to give you the easiest and most time efficient way to do this. (see last example - for all you scrollers)

1. You can manually pin, by uploading your images to Pinterest directly. This can be super time consuming, and maybe something you do when you first create a new product. 
   
   Side note: Your images do best if they are vertical, and have a 2:3 ratio, and are 1000 x 1500px (This is recommended by Pinterest). I personally start with a template and use Canva for this. You can grab some templates from Carla HERE to make it super duper easy!!

2. I highly recommend installing the “Pinterest Save Button” to your online shop and the Chrome Extension to your browser. These 2 things can pin straight to Pinterest in one click and you don’t have to add in the title, description or URL because it will take it directly from your shop (or wherever you are pinning from). (Shortcuts are the BOMB!!) 
   
   With the Pinterest Save button a red P will show when you hover over an image on a product page. Click that and a popup will appear and you can choose a board to pin to. The best thing about this is that this will also work for anyone who visits your website. They will also be able to easily pin your products to their boards!
   
   With the Chrome Extension, a red P that looks like the Pinterest logo will be in your browser’s toolbar.  While you are on a product page on your website, click that button and it will pull up all of the images on that page and you can choose which one you would like to pin. Pro Tip: Make sure at least one of your product images is a vertical image! Vertical images do better on Pinterest. Super Important!

3. Use Tailwind. Tailwind is a Pinterest approved scheduler and can save you so much time. Once it is all set up and you are using it regularly, it can help cut your pinning down to 30 minutes a week. In Tailwind, you can upload multiple images for a product at one time, and schedule them to be pinned to different boards at the optimum times and days for your audience. 
   
   How does this work? For example, if you are a wedding invitation designer, you can pin your product to many different boards over the course of a few days (in what is called an interval) so that you are not pinning them all at once. Tailwind can help you find the optimum times to pin this so that your audience will see it. You can then pin that same pin to a wedding invitation board, a wedding stationery board, a spring wedding board, a wedding details board, a wedding planning board, and your “all products” board.
   
   Best practices from Pinterest say to schedule each pin 2 days apart and no more than to 10 boards in an interval. If you do this with a few products a week, this fills up your Tailwind queue quickly and saves you time! 

How Many Pins?
As far as how many pins, Pinterest best practices say to pin no more than 25-30 pins per day. I know that sounds like so much, but starting out with just 5-10 scheduled pins a day will help you see results and you can increase that number to 25-30 pins as you go.

How often can I pin the same thing?
Pinning the same product pin over and over can get you marked as spam, but thankfully Tailwind helps you with knowing the last time you pinned that pin to a board. It’s also helpful to create what are called “Fresh Pins”, which are different images for the same product.That way you are not pinning the same pin over and over. Pinterest sees it as fresh and your audience will also see it as fresh content! Pro Tip: Purchase templates (or download these for free from Carla here) and use them to create fresh pins. 

I can’t say enough how much Tailwind helps us Pinners...YES, give me all the simple easy breezy tools that make our work-life easier! 

It can be OK to pin the same pin with the same image more than once. If you are going to do this, though, keep in alignment with Pinterest’s best practices, and repin that product pin a couple of times a year to keep it in circulation. If you have new followers, they may not have seen that pin before, so space them out every few months to get fresh eyes on it!

Objection #5. “I have tried using Pinterest before and it doesn’t work for me.”

This is one I hear a lot! Remember, Pinterest is not a social platform...it is a visual search engine, even though you will see it referred to as a social platform (but that’s another story for another time).

Pinterest is a long game and you need to be patient. I often tell my clients that we will see a big boost at the beginning, but it will take time to see bigger results. It takes on average about 3-6 months (and sometimes longer) to see real results. YOU HAVE TO STICK WITH IT, because the results are worth it!  

Maybe you have used it and have been patient, but it’s still not working for you. There is a strategy to it and there is more to it than just pinning. Remember those 3 basics I spoke of earlier: images, keywords, and consistency? If you haven’t seen any results, you can go back to your pins and check the following:

• Are your images the right size, are they bright with bold, clear text to describe what the image is about? Remember it’s a visual search engine after all! 

• Are you writing good descriptions with keywords? A description needs to be about 2-3 sentences with your main keyword and a call to action: Tell Pinners what you want them to do...click on the link, download the checklist, save this pin, etc...Pinners will do what you tell them to do!). 

  • Keyword Example: Are you planning a Fall wedding and need an elegant invitation design? These Fall inspired floral wedding invites are the perfect pairing to your Fall wedding. Click through to order now at weddingpaper.com. #weddinginvitations #fallweddinginvites 

  • Yes, I use hashtags!  They are searchable and clickable, and Pinterest recommends them as a best practice. Use just 2-4 relevant ones at the end of the description (Note: this is the only place on Pinterest it is recommended to use a hashtag or two). 

• Are you being consistent? Pinterest wants you to look like you are on there all the time. This is why Tailwind is so awesome. You set it and forget it. Really, just once a week, take 30 minutes, hop in Tailwind and fill your schedule for the next week or month. 

Then if all of the above are set, start checking your Analytics (your numbers)...but please give it about 30-60 days before really looking at the numbers. If you stress over the numbers ALL THE TIME, it will drive you bonkers. You want to see growth over time, month by month, and comparison to year over year, once you are there. 

The numbers can help you see which Pin styles are working and which boards you are pinning to are working. Lower numbers may mean you need to switch the images/text around. Numbers need to be part of your strategy.

You can check your stats in Pinterest under the Analytics tab, but to be honest, the best way to see your true traffic is with your Google Analytics. I highly recommend connecting Google Analytics to your shop!

{Note from Carla: I have personal experience with having your pins work for you in the long run! I had a shop selling party printables and had a blog showcasing the printables. The blog is still out there and I had pinned everything over 5 years ago. I still see so many people coming to the blog from Pinterest today and sometimes even get inquiries about where to get some things. There is a note on the blog saying we have closed, but left the blog up for party inspiration! As you can see, Pinterest can really work for product sellers!}

Are you ready?

Once you know the basics and adding the routine of pinning your products to your schedule,  you will wonder why you haven’t used it before. Pinterest needs to be a marketing staple in your toolbox!

Don’t listen to the hype that you have to be on all the social platforms at once. Pick one or two and stick with it. But if you want true traffic to your shop (and Instagram isn’t doing enough for you)...Pinterest is the way to go. It will continue to bring in traffic for months and even years to come.  Among all my clients, Pinterest IS the number one traffic driver to their websites and shops!

If this all seems right for you but still feels confusing or like too much work, there are many services that can help get you setup the right way. I offer Pinterest management services that include profile setups and optimization along with monthly pinning services. All of this can be done for you, saving you time and bringing in consistent traffic.

[Back to Carla]

I hope this insight from Amy helps you to see that Pinterest is not only a valuable tool for product sellers, but that it really should be a part of your marketing toolbox. It can seem intimidating to get it set up and maintain, but once you are setup and have a system (or service) in place, it can be easy and will drive traffic to your website. I’m also a big fan of Tailwind to schedule your pins: It’s an amazing tool to get you in front of your customers! If you are interested in trying it out, click here to get started with Tailwind.

If you have any questions on getting started or anything Pinterest related, please feel free to contact me or Amy. We’re happy to help you get pinning!