How to use Pinterest for your service-based business? A Pinterest checklist!
How to use Pinterest for your service-based business?
What works best for your service-based business!
Whether you’re an avid pinner or a newbie to the platform, it’s likely that you will be aware of its focus on the power of photos. When it comes to Pinterest marketing, it seems that the more visually attractive you can make your small business seem, the more traction you will get in terms of shares, engagement, and customer conversion. Of course, that’s easier for some than others – with product providers constantly drawing upon their most recent feeds of images for their next Pin. For service-based businesses, however, posting something that visually represents what you do is a little harder.
So, how do you make Pinterest marketing for service-based businesses work?
WHAT WILL YOU LEARN:
Start with the basics. Your ideal client.
Business profile vs personal profile.
How to review and boost the quality of your Pins.
Think carefully about your hashtags and keywords.
The value of Pinterest Boards.
Rich Pins and why to use them.
Look into the power of videos.
Link your blogs with your Pins.
Analyze your audience and use the information to grow.
Start with the basics. Your ideal client!
Let’s start by stripping your Pinterest marketing back to basics. Think about why you first starting using Pinterest as a platform for your business – it’s likely that you recognized the platform’s value as a way to inspire people, your ability to create content applicable to relevant searches, and the high conversion rate of the Pinterest user through to the potential customer.
All of this relies on understanding your target market and creating content that will attract them. How do you do that? You think about why thy are heading to Pinterest in the first place (are they planning a wedding? Are they decorating their new home?) and then work out how your service will benefit them.
Remember that you’re the expert and that Pinterest marketing for service-based business largely relies on communicating your expertise – and presenting it as inspiration. That means not only having a great image (after all, anyone can do that) – but also backing it up with valuable and well-written content.
Once you’ve captured their interest as a potential customer - whether with a great photo that you took from a previous wedding you photographed or with some great decorating and interior design work you did with a previous client – you’re in a great position to turn your Pinterest marketing into relationship building.
This blog is designed to open your mind to new ways of making Pinterest work for you as a service-based business.
Should you have a business profile or a personal profile?
This question is a great starting point if you’re just getting started with Pinterest. Opting for a business profile may seem like a big step, but in actual fact, Pinterest is wildly different from other social media platforms, and the business profiles display in almost exactly the same way as personal profiles. The key difference lies in what you can do behind the scenes with analytics and promotions, and from a business perspective, the more you can do to enhance your Pinterest marketing presence, the better!
Review and boost the quality of your Pins.
Pin quality breaks down into two key areas: the Pin itself that pops up on a users feed, and the content that it clicks through to. As a service-based business, you will no doubt have a great deal of content you want to share with potential customers, and you definitely shouldn’t shy away from getting this content on Pinterest. It may look like a completely visual and picture-based platform, but some of the best-performing Pins click through to excellent and informative content, like blogposts and freebies. The trick is in adding a clear call to action over your pin that will make users want to click through to your content.
My suggestion here is simple: pick an image that reflects what you do in the clearest and most obvious way possible. If you’re a photographer, pick a photo you took from a previous wedding or event and stick your logo in the corner + add a call to action. If you’re a corporate Consultant or event planner, pick an image that reflects your area of business and, again, put your logo in one corner + add a call to action.
The trick is simply – always pull the focus of the image back to your logo and your business name. So that’s clear to the pinner what you are offering and what they will receive when they click on your pin. And voila – you’re making Pinterest marketing for a service-based business, work for you!
Think carefully about your hashtags and keywords.
This one is less of a suggestion and more an instruction, and it’s where far too many visual and product-based businesses tend to fall short. Please give some thought to your hashtags and keywords – don’t just throw in dozens of hashtags hoping that one or two of them will attract a potential customer. Keywords play a huge part in deciding which Pins and posts show up with various search terms, so break your service down into its core elements and assign serveral relevant keywords for each.
Pinterest marketing works via a search-engine based experience, so getting your Pins onto the search results feed is all based on your keywords – what are they, how often are they used, and how relevant are they in line with your description and the rest of your content? The more streamlined and joined up the entire Pin is as a whole, the better.
Remember, you’ve already had to put great thought into communicating your business service through valuable content and Pinterest marketing, so coming up with your keywords and hashtags is really the easy bit! But it’s so important, so don’t forget.
Not sure where to start your keywords research?
The value of Pinterest Boards.
There are two different uses of boards on Pinterest, and as far as Pinterest marketing for a service-based business goes, this is where you get a chance to shine both as a standalone business and among like-minded business owners.
As a standalone business, your boards are a way of organizing your profile in an aesthetically pleasing – and effective – way. Users are drawn to profiles where they can easily decipher different areas of content, and so using boards is a great way to turn your widescale Pinterest marketing into separate areas of your service. Whether you do this by season, by client size or even by delivery time, boards are an easy way to showcase the different branches of your service-based business and keep your content in organized compartments.
Group boards are an entirely different thing; enabling like-minded and related users to come together and share their content in one “central” board. Generally, group boards will be owned by one admin, and they will have a say on who is given the authorisation to post on the group board. It may seem quite strict on the surface, but actually group boards are one of the easiest ways to reach a brand-new market without even needing to try – as the followers of everyone else included in that board will automatically start to view your posts as well.
Rich Pins and why to use them.
Rich pins are a way of indexing your content and providing the basic outline of each post – without the user having to go through and read the entire thing. In relation to Pinterest marketing for a service-based business, rich pins provide an opportunity to communicate the key messages of each blog, giving users a view into the content you are providing. And in the case where content is the main area of your Pinterest’s value, this seems like a pretty important branch of your marketing strategy! Discover HERE how to enable rich pins!
Look into the power of videos.
As a means of Pinterest marketing, videos provide an upbeat, enticing, and often unique way to display content. Particularly for a small business that can’t necessarily rely on a powerful product image to sell the brand, videos widen the scope of service you can get across quickly and effectively; enabling everything from voiceovers to example videos.
Videos are one of the most popular mediums when it comes to engagement, as a well put together video will often be both relatable and useful to your target market. So next time you’re struggling with how to visually display your latest service addition or upgrade, consider an afternoon of filming how you are working or come up with a great tutorial.
Link your blogs with your Pins.
Are you attracting followers to read your blog through Pinterest, or to check out your Pinterest through your blog? In short, do you know which is your most popular touchpoint for the first contact with a potential customer or follower? The likelihood is that you don’t know, and so many of our recommendations around Pinterest marketing for service-based businesses are actually targeted at both platforms.
What this means is linking the two together, by adding a “Pin It” button to each blogpost, and copying the blog into a Pin that will ultimately click back to your website or blog page. That way, no matter how a potential follower first comes across your content, they are encouraged (and far more likely) to visit your Pinterest profile and /or your website.
Analyze your audience and use the information to grow.
Growing is one thing, but do numbers really mean that much if they aren’t translating into conversions and new sales? Your real goal should be getting more website visitors, and the simplest way to do this is with some analytics around who your audience is, how they are engaging with you and what routes they are taking towards and away from your Pinterest page. Are they reading, sharing, or simply scrolling past? How could you change that to make sure all of them are interacting in some way?
Once you understand your audience, your Pinterest marketing will become a lot more effective.
Pinterest marketing for service-based businesses is inevitably a challenge when compared with product-led businesses. After all, they have it easy – they simply pick the latest shot of their product being used, or their most up to date marketing image, and post it with a few great reviews and tips. For service-based businesses, content is far more important, and that’s where I can help you. My Pinterest management plans are created with you in mind, capturing your existing online presence and devising a strategy moving forward that enhances it, rather than completely overtakes it.
You’ve earned your fanbase, and my job is to help you communicate with them as best you can.