There are a lot of Internet marketers using mostly Facebook and then some maybe using things like Twitter and Instagram, depending what niche they are targeting. Some are even using LinkedIn for B2B applications or Vine for marketing videos.
But strangely enough, very few are actively pursuing marketing in Pinterest. Fortunately this leaves a wide gap to fill, something that we will be actively addressing with our campaign, today will focus on How to Increase Traffic to Website using Pinterest.
When most people think about Pinterest, food and clothes comes to mind. But this is not all that Pinterest is good for. It can be used to market basically anything you can find online worth selling.
You can use it to push traffic to various blogs or websites, elicit reviews from people or simply to create awareness about something. It could also be simply used for fun, but if fun had been what we are pursuing we’d likely be sitting playing Minecraft.
Agreed that for some people, Pinterest is a form of entertainment and fortunately for us, some of these people have a credit card on hand. Naturally not everyone visiting your site through Pinterest will buy something but it still remains a great platform to drive traffic and can be used to even exponentially increase your traffic as you encourage users to share your content amongst their friends or followers.
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How to Increase Traffic to Website Using Pinterest
What this article aims to do is to form a guide of sorts to introduce you to the intricacies of marketing with Pinterest. Not only will it tell you what to do, it will also serve to inform you about what not to do, as not every marketing strategy works for every social platform.
Firstly, create a profile
Chances are that you already have a personal Pinterest profile. Even if you do, it is normally best to have a specific account that you can treat as a business of sorts. Personal interest and business does not always mix well. This is also a great way to ensure that you target the correct follower.
It is of key importance to have a complete profile. Pinterest users in general are very aware of profiles not filled in according to what they believe to be the standard.
Also when setting out to create a board, make it niche specific, focusing specific interests to that board only. A general board with a wall of random niches will not draw any interest, and even if it does, it will very soon drive the people pinning in in the first place away too.
Think about this analogy. If you would walk into a superstore with all the items randomly placed, with fridges places at random throughout the store, how long would you remain in that store before running out in a fit of rage. Would you go back there? Likely not, right.
The fridges can be seen as boards while their content may be seen as pins. Certain fridges contain certain items. The same can be said about our Pinterest profile. So let us pick a niche, say cellphones. Your first two board can be something like Android and IPhone.
In these two boards you can also differentiate between phones and tablets, maybe even further differentiating between different sizes in later boards. Try to be as specific as possible, but not to the point of obscureness. So if someone looking to buy a new cellphone strolls by your board they may see an interesting image of a phone he likes, and may even end up buying it.
Now normally cellphones are bundled with contracts and do not sell by themselves, but for serving as a tutorial this had been a great example proofing to you how target specific niches with great visuals.
So instead of trying to sell someone a cellphone by using an article trying to convince them why they should buy this specific phone, you can simply trigger a response of desire by posting a visually appealing image of the product which they can easily click on.
So the article helps, but in a totally different way. It helps to enable your customers to find you through Google by using the article to get on-page SEO going and also drum up some interest from backlinks.
Getting back to the image, it is important to remember that this is essentially what would be selling your product. So please, no selfie grade images here. Either use images directly from the manufacturer, of which plenty is available for this specific niche, or get someone to photograph your products for you.
If you feel you are competent doing your own photography ask yourself this three questions: Do you know what Depth Of Field means? Do you know what shutter speed means? Do you know what white balance means? If you answered no to any of these questions, get someone professional to do the photography, it will definitely pay of in the end.
Another key aspect of the images is the information you convey on them. People will often much more readily share an image if they believe it to be some sort of promotional offer. So instead of just having a photo, have a photo including either a promotional code or even better, a price.
This can be edited into your image very easily, but is still remains key that the image looks professional, with the color of the text working with the image instead of against it. Again, don’t skimp and believe a DIY job with MS Paint will do the trick.
Verify your website
There are a host of sellers on Pinterest that still has not done this, but there are really no reason you should be doing the same. Think about a verified Twitter account and the hype surrounding it and you will get an idea of what you can expect.
The good thing is, Pinterest verification is so easy, although many users don’t know this. You will be viewed as some sort of authority by most and this will definitely help you get more sales.
This will also enable you to use rich pin buttons, allowing other people to share your images on their boards. If done right, this could easily go viral, introducing even more people to your site. This could very well snowball into something huge as people share images much more easily than giant walls of text.
Sharing is caring
Make sure that you get word of your profile out to as many users as possible, either by using another social media profile or email marketing lists. A lot of people in Pinterest are essentially addicted to sharing images so if you can get the first few going it can easily turn in your favor. Do yourself a favor and monitor a few profiles for a week or so and see how much they share.
You will likely be amazed by all the activity. Myself have gotten introduced to actively marketing on Pinterest after a colleague told me how easy it is to drive traffic with this social platform.
Although I have not delved into this aspect yet, there is also a paid advertising side to Pinterest which you can use to get your profile seen by even more eyes. This leads me to really believe that there can come great results from Pinterest as a marketing platform.
Great care should be taken with this strategy however, as a failed marketing technique can become real expensive, real quickly draining your advertising budget with users clicking the link simply out of curiosity. It can be a great tool but should only be used after you have studied your target market enough to be able to deliver an effective campaign.
Spy on your competition
Search for a few users you deem as your main competition, marketing something in the same niche as you are. Take a look at users following them and simply follow these users. Chances are high that these users will follow you back as this is the norm on Pinterest. You may encounter spam accounts but it is likely that the majority or the accounts you get follow backs from would be natural users which can be marketed to.
The wonderful thing about this action is that It can be either done by yourself, or automated. Bots designed to specifically do this are available, but it may land your account in hot water due to following someone controversial or simply get your account banned if you go overboard.
It is therefore best to either do it yourself or hire a virtual assistant that can do this for you. So depending on your strategy you can choose which of these two methods will work best for you. Not all people are using Pinterest for long term gain and do not care about banned account ( a strategy often referred to as churn and burn ) so botting would be best for them.
I however like to see a return on investment for all my hard work and seek long term gain rather than short term results, so personally I employed a virtual assistant. The decision ultimately lies with you. What I like about using an assistant is how easy and cost effective it is, with various online portals filled to the brim with people looking for these exact jobs.
Encourage sharing
So ultimately, a user has clicked on your link and landed up on your site, ready to buy. So instead of just doing a sale, encourage them to share your site as well. There are a number of ways that this can be done, but there are a few key methods that usually works well.
Popup reminders
After a user has been on your site for a short while it, a popup can serve as a gentle reminder for them to pin your board, armed with a button to complete this action instantly. It is however of key importance to offer your guest an opportunity to view your site for a while first, getting drawn into it so to speak.
A popup served too early will likely only annoy your visitors as it get in the way of the action they came to complete. Waiting a while will also likely ensure that you get followers that are truly interested in what you have to offer and not simply someone browsing to pass time.
Email newsletters
This essentially speak for itself, but if you have a newsletter going out, always have a few popular pins highlighted in the newsletter, also giving users the opportunity to pin the specific post or board.
This normally works well if you have a website or blog high in images. This method can serve as great subtle advertising, as a user will easily pin something without a feeling of being advertised to.
Graphics drawing attention to your pin button
This is best left to niches you believe the user not being fully acquainted with technology and can even serve to annoy tech-savvy users so use this method sparingly, and only in specific niches. Definitely not something you will be doing while promoting high end cellphones but it could have a place in your marketing strategy
A final word
So for everyone wanting to get into Pinterest for marketing purposes I can truly say that it does work. To review the strategy let us go through a few key pointer again. Create a new, niche specific account, verifying the website you are using as soon as possible. Share you site to anything willing to listen.
This will get word out and start attracting followers interested in your chosen niche. Identify your competitors early, and start targeting their followers as well.
Encourage people visiting your site or board to share your pins by making them visually appealing, also subtly reminding them in various ways to do so.
If you follow these guidelines and have picked the correct product to market you may very well find yourself becoming a successful internet marketer. Some people are looking to quit their jobs, while others only want a side income, the choice will now be yours to make.
source/www.moneyhomeblog.com