If you’re selling any product on Pinterest, then this article is for you. As a fellow product-based entrepreneur, nothing lights me up like talking about strategies to make more sales and conversions because I know at the core of every business you need to be making sales.
It is one thing to be driving traffic using Pinterest but it’s totally another thing to be converting that traffic into sales month after month consistently using Pinterest.
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Here are 6 top tips to make more sales using Pinterest:
#1 ACTIVATE PRODUCT-RICH PINS
Product-rich pins are pins with meta tags assigned to them that go into the description of what that particular pin is all about. Whether it is about the quantity of the product left or the amount/value that you’re selling the product, all of these different details are what get attached to the pin and then get uploaded when you save that pin on Pinterest. It can take a little bit of time figuring out how to activate rich pins depending on what site or store you have. However, it’s totally worth it.
Why product-rich pins?
When Pinterest is figuring out what products to show in the search feed, that’s when it uses the data extracted from these rich pins to assign a rank and distribute content to the right audience.
How to activate product-rich pins?
If you’re not levering product-rich pins already I would suggest you definitely look into the Pinterest business blog, look at the setup instructions provided for different types of stores because every store has different setup instructions, and activate them ASAP.
If you’ve tried to activate rich pins on your site but you haven’t had success, the best place for you to seek out support is to write to Pinterest technical support. Contact them about the status of your account and let them know you have done XYZ steps and you’re still waiting for these pins to be activated. Usually, when you do all the steps right your rich pins should be activated within 3-5 days but sometimes it can take longer and can even take up to a month for Pinterest to get back to you and fix all the errors in your account.
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#2 CREATE VIDEO PINS THAT SHOWCASE YOUR PRODUCT
There are millions of products out there on Pinterest but why should people be clicking on your pins and buying your products compared to someone else’s products. This is a factor that comes into play specifically if you are a new product owner who has a new business or you have an innovative line of products that not everyone knows about and understands.
Know, Like, and Trust:
In sales psychology, there’s a term called Know, Like, and Trust which means that people are most likely to buy from you if they Know, Like, and Trust a brand or a product. This implies that if you’re selling a product that is brand new or if you’re selling a brand that is completely new and not like a popular brand then you need to be spending some time cultivating the Know, Like, and Trust factor for your brand.
Why Video pins?
There are so many different ways that you can do it but the reason why I recommend video pins is that Pinterest is pushing out video pins in the algorithm. This means if you’re leveraging video pins to grow your company or brand you’re gonna have a much faster growth compared to if you’re just pinning simple image pins.
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How to leverage video pins and cultivate Know, Like, and Trust factor?
- Show behind the scenes of your business
You can show the day-to-day activities of your business, what the warehouse looks like, what the office looks like, how do you ship your packages, and so on.
- A day in the life of an entrepreneur
You can share your own personal story about how you started this business and what your aim, goals, and vision are.
- Showcase the benefits and features of the product
This is going to be a typical marketing-style product pin that you can create in a video format so that it gets more engagement.
- Step-by-step process of creating your product
For example, if you’re selling a DIY product you can show step-by-step how it is done in a video format.
- Showcase social proof
You can showcase and promote your testimonials, reviews, and feedback.
If you want these video pins to be consistently on the top of your profile then you can upload them as story pins which is another feature that Pinterest is actively promoting as well. Instead of uploading a regular video pin that is going to be pushed down and be in the saved feed, you can create these video pins in a story pin format so that they stay on the top of your profile.
There was a study that shows it usually takes 7 touch points for someone to buy your product online which means that they have to see your product multiple times and in different formats before they make a decision to go and buy it. One of the best ways that you can increase your sales on Pinterest by using this study is by leveraging video pins and story pins.
#3 LEVERAGE PURCHASE INTENT KEYWORDS
When you use keywords or maybe even search engine optimization on Pinterest as a blogger or a content creator, the keywords that you target are going to be completely different from the keywords that you target when you are a product seller. The reason is that your keywords and your content are geared towards driving you more conversions instead of just driving your traffic.
Why leverage purchase intent keywords?
This strategy is pretty similar to when you’re trying to sell your products through Google or affiliate links. The reason being that when people are looking for purchase intent keywords they’re already in a frame of mind where they’re ready to buy. So when you’re doing keyword research you have to be looking at keywords that have a high purchase intent.
Examples:
- Instead of targeting the keyword gifts, you can target the keyword gifts for mom that you can buy for mother’s day.
- Instead of targeting a keyword like candles, you can target keywords like eco-friendly candles or DIY candles.
How to leverage purchase intent keywords?
Step 1: Do your research.
You need to spend some time identifying what these purchase intent keywords are for your particular niche or industry.
You can do it in 2 different ways.
- You can either head into the ads manager if you have access to it and start searching keywords by volume which are relevant to your brand.
- If you don’t have access to ads manager or you’re looking for another way to leverage this keyword intent you can simply head into your analytics and take a deep dive into what are the different categories and subcategories that your audience is interested in. This method only works if you have some kind of audience but if you have less than 500 followers and less than 100k monthly views from Pinterest then these numbers are unlikely to show you a lot of data.
Step 2: Implement the research.
At this step, you’re going to be creating boards that are specifically targeted towards purchase intent. Instead of creating generic boards which are just based on generic keywords, you’re going to be creating specific boards which target specific purchase intent keywords. This could look like anything depending on what brand or product you’re selling which is why step 1 where you do the research and create a list of 10-15 keywords is extremely critical.
Another thing you can do to implement your research is to start creating new content that focuses on these keywords so that in the future when you create new products that are related to these keywords you can drive a bigger audience and conversion using Pinterest.
If you want to learn more about keyword research and analytics, you can check out my program Pinfluence Academy where I dive into a lot of detail of how exactly this whole process works and how you can leverage it to build your brand and business.
#4 EDUCATE YOUR AUDIENCE
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As a fellow business owner, I understand the need to be making sales and the emphasis that we have on making sales. However, don’t just start pitching and selling your products from day one without even educating your audience. If you sell something which is common and already exists then you probably can skip this step and you don’t need to spend time educating your audience. If you’re a small brand that is trying to create a product in a different way you’re gonna need to spend some time educating your audience.
Why educate your audience?
For example, Apple when they first released their iPhone nobody knew that we needed an iPhone. However, they spent time educating, marketing and nurturing their audience to make them understand why this iPhone was different and better than other phones out there in the market which has led to their success.
If you sell a crappy product no amount of educating your audience is going to get you more sales. Assuming your product does what it says and has good feedback, the job is not yet over. You do need to be spending time educating your audience even on Pinterest.
How to educate your audience?
- The easiest way is by creating educational blog posts around the products that you have. You can either create blog posts on how this product is used or even incorporate it into different educational articles revolving around your industry.
- The next way to build awareness around your product is to collaborate with influencers, bloggers, or any kind of personal brands in that particular niche so that they can also educate their audiences about how this product is used and what are the different benefits and features. Not only will this help you grow your audience space but it will also help you increase your sales in the long run because the more people that know why they need your product the more likely they are to convert and buy it.
- Another way you can educate your audience is by creating story pins that showcase the effects of your products. For example, if you’re selling an acne cream that has revolutionary technology, maybe you can show the before and after the experience of an influencer or even your own experience to showcase how the product works.
The bottom line is that without your potential customers know that there is a need for your product and without them knowing how your product is differentiated from all the other products, it is going to be hard for you to be driving sales in the long run. Adopt a slightly longer-term strategy and focus on educating your audience instead of just making sales all the time.
#5 TEST PROMOTED PINS
Promoted pins are sponsored pins that you can select and showcase to a specific audience in a specific country using specific keywords. Now the reason why I mentioned test promoted pins is that this is a strategy that you need to test for your brand and see how it works. If you’re a brand new business or even a business owner who is struggling to grow your sales on Pinterest, one of the most effective ways for you to quickly scale up your reach and sales is by leveraging promoted pins.
I have a detailed step-by-step tutorial about how to create promoted pins on Pinterest. You can check that out in the below video if you’re interested in learning more about the technical steps behind it.
How to test promoted pins?
To test product pins, you don’t need to have a large budget. You can even start with just 1-2 dollars a day and you can test different things. You can test the country of your audience, keywords that you’re targeting, etc. You can even split test different creatives and see which pins tend to perform better than the others. This is something that does require a little bit of money so you need to have a little bit of budget set for promoted pins if this is something you want to experiment with.
The way I look at promoted pins is that you can use them as an add-on or a complementary strategy to your organic strategy on Pinterest. So once you know that a particular product is doing well and get you more sales, you can start putting some advertising budget behind it and also test that out with Pinterest.
Another way to test with product pins is to see if there is a demand for new and upcoming products. So maybe you’re currently in the process of creating a product that you’re not sure is gonna sell or how the response is going to be like, you can put in a couple of dollars and see how the response to that particular product is and based on that figure out whether or not you want to go ahead with creating that product.
Pro tip: You can first upload your pins as organic pins and then see how those pins perform. Once you know which pins are doing well then you can select that particular pin to put advertising money behind it. The reason being once you know that your creative is doing well you’re much less likely to be wasting money on ads instead of when you just randomly upload different creatives and test them out.
#6 OPTIMISE YOUR SALES FUNNEL
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Again as a product owner, a lot of time our emphasis is just promoting on social media and creating content that promotes our products but we don’t spend enough time optimizing the process of when a customer lands on your website and what happens from that point until the time they check out and buy your product. There are so many different things that go into the landing page as well as sales optimization but these are some things that you must be testing and absolutely be looking at.
What is the average view duration on your page? So how long is a person staying on your page especially when they’re coming from Pinterest? You can look at your bounce rate, Google Analytics, or even your website analytics and see how long are people staying and bouncing from your website. So are they checking out multiple products or are they just checking out that one page and leaving from that? You can look at your landing page conversion rate to know how many people who land on your page end up buying. If five people buy and there are thousands of people that are viewing your page every month you have a 5% conversion rate.
You can even look at whether or not you have any social proof or reviews on your page. Are there any notifications that people are getting when they land on the page? Are there any annoying pop-ups that people are not enjoying or that are maybe disrupting their checkout experience? You can also look at what happens if the person doesn’t buy. Are they prompted to join your email list? What happens when they join your email list? You can also look into the entire checkout process and see what is happening with the person when they checkout. So are you giving them different options such as Paypal, credit cards, etc? Is there any kind of friction involved when they’re checking out? Is the page too slow to load?
All of these different aspects are simply steps in your sales funnel that you need to be taking the time to analyze step-by-step. This is a process that can take a lot longer than just simply creating a pin. So you do need to be analyzing it one day at a time, one step at a time, and try to see if there are small ways that you can improve the sales page conversions.
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Why optimizing your sales funnel is important?
When it comes to driving more sales from Pinterest, you can either drive higher traffic so you can drive a larger number or you can convert higher traffic and that’s exactly what I mean by improving your sales funnel. When you work on optimizing and improving your sales funnel, the same amount of people can lead to a lot more sales compared to a larger amount of people. If you’re working smart, you would focus on improving your conversion rate instead of just growing your traffic and hoping that people buy.
How to boost your conversion?
There are 2 concrete ways that any e-commerce entrepreneur can use to boost their conversion.
1. Using FOMO notifications
By using a social proof plugin or maybe even showcasing reviews of your product on the landing page itself. You can use apps like Nudgify which is what I use and I believe there are tons of other apps that you can use to showcase social proof. This is something that can help a new customer who has just landed on your website feel more comfortable about buying your product because they see that other people have also bought that product and recommended it.
2. Adding to the email list
The second way to boost your conversions is to find a way to direct the traffic that is not necessarily likely to buy at this stage but might buy later through adding them to your email list. You can probably give them $10 off or $20 off if they join your email list.
This helps you in 2 ways.
1) It gets people into your customer list so that you can retarget and resell them in the future.
2) It pushes people or gives them an incentive to buy something from your website if they know that it’s going to be cheaper on their first purchase.
You can absolutely make that discount coupon limited and you can say that it’s only limited for the first 24 or 48 hours by pushing people to buy your product when they land on your website.