3 Ways to use Promoted Pins to Grow Your Business

Growing your business with Pinterest is a multi-faceted prospect. There's your fabulous profile that attracts new followers, who hopefully become customers down the road. There are your carefully curated boards used to educate your audience, which give new people an understanding of who you are and what you're all about.  And of course, there are the organic repins that circulate your gorgeous pins all over Pinterest.

And then there are promoted pins.

You tell Pinterest who might be interested in your pin and then you pay for engagement. (To learn more about what promoted pins are and why you should use them as part of your business growth strategy, check out this post.)

But don't fall into the trap of promoting the same type of pin over and over! Promoted pins have several benefits for you to take advantage of. Let's check out three of them.

#1. Make Product Sales

This may seem like the obvious use of a paid advertisement, but many business owners get stuck trying to create product pins that work. If you sell through Shopify, BigCommerce, or Salesforce, you can create buyable pins straight from your shop and then promote them. (In order to have pretty, vertical pins, we create one tall image for every product and stick it in the product photos right on our shop. That's the image we pin for our buyable pins.)

If you're an Etsy seller, you can pin your images straight from your shop. We aren't fans of the short, square images, so we choose to create vertical pins for each product and link them back to our shop.

And if you sell on any other platform, pin a vertical pin of your product with a killer description in the headline and keywords in the description, then promote it. (This post has a tutorial for creating product pins if you want some ideas.)

What do product pins do? Well, anyone who clicks through is sent straight to that product or your shop. If they love your image and your killer headline, they might click through and end up a customer. As long as your product listing stays active, as your pin circulates all over Pinterest, it can earn you sales long after you end your promoted pin campaign.

Promoting product pins increases your business as your pin is shown to, and then clicked on, by people outside your own audience who love you and want what you have to offer.

#2 Grow Your Email List

This is a 3-step process that you can use to consistently increase your email list.

1. Write a meaty blog post (or post inside your active Facebook group. A video would work as well!) that will resonate with your ideal customer. For instance, if you sell your own art, write a post educating people about how to hang a grouping of 3 pieces, or inspiring them to create their own gallery wall.
2. Create an enticing freebie to go with your blog post. Maybe tips and tricks for hanging level pictures every time, or 3 designs for a well-balanced gallery wall.
3. Promote a pin that sends people to your post and then offer your fantastic freebie. If it's a long post, put a banner with your freebie at the top and the bottom, and maybe even in the middle. We cautiously use pop-up forms also, but not to the point of being annoying 🙂

Here's an example of a pin to a blog post with an email opt-in freebie that we promoted.

The pin says, “6 Webinar Myths & How You can use them to Build Your Business.”

When clicked, it sends people to a blog post of the same name. But at the top is a banner that says, “5 Days to Craft Your Brilliant Webinar…Free Guide!”

And, of course, when someone clicks on that banner, they enter the first name and email to receive their free guide.

This is a great way to use your best blog posts from the past to grow your business. For each of the posts that have the most traffic, create a freebie as an opt-in, then promote a pin that sends people to the post. It's a simple way to increase your email list without new content.

#3 Improve Your SEO

Part of what helps you get found on Pinterest is your repin rate and how people respond to your pins. A combination of the right keywords in your description and promoted pins means Pinterest will show your pin to people outside your own following. The more interaction and engagement your pins get, the more likely you are to be found in the search.  Those people may either save, “heart,” or click, and each of those actions helps you get found in an organic Pinterest search. And remember, you won't pay for those clicks and they can go on for years, which can help grow your business on autopilot.

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