Today I have a fun episode! I was recently planning my toddler’s 2-year-old birthday and obviously the first place I went is Pinterest. I don’t think that’s a surprise to anyone, and I kind of was just really nerdily thinking about my buying decisions, what my natural user behaviors are, and that kind of stuff. So as I was planning and shopping, I gathered seven things we need to remember about the way that people use Pinterest specifically when making a buying decision. Want more sales from Pinterest? That’s what I want to talk about today. Let’s get into it.
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Table of Contents
1. People ARE Saving Your Stuff On Pinterest (Even If You Aren’t)
Right out of the gate, the first reminder I have is that people are saving your stuff. The amount of screenshots of Instagram posts with no username that I found on Pinterest that had obviously been cropped and saved by someone else was unreal. The disappointing thing about that is then sometimes I couldn’t buy it even when I wanted to. If you want to make more sales from Pinterest, first you need to GET ON Pinterest.
I think it’s important to remember that you could have potential buyers looking at your product or service or whatever you sell on Pinterest right now, but they have no idea that you are the one that could provide it for them. So it’s not that they just choose to shop local or go to someone cheaper or Amazon or something like that, it’s that they literally have no other option. All they have is what is clearly a screenshot of an Instagram post, but it goes nowhere.
So that’s just kind of obvious, but one of the biggest kind of hesitations business owners have is that they think people aren’t using Pinterest as much. The truth is, in Q4 they hit a RECORD number of monthly users (498 million). Gen Z is fastest growing cohort.
And keep in mind with this reminder (and the next ones!), I’m planning a two year old’s birthday party, right smack dab in the middle of the mommy blog industry where a lot of people are doing it right. It’s not one of those niche industries where you can rank, even if you’re not doing anything and just fluking your way to the top of Pinterest search results. This is in the mommy space where this is a lot of good content where people know what they’re doing and still sometimes these random images do well. I can only how much better they would have done had they been pinned by the actual creator and linked back to a website.
2. Affiliate Links are HELPFUL
Want to make more sales from Pinterest? I think a lot of times we can have some blocks around affiliate income or feel like it’s not as easy as it sounds or you’re spammy for including affiliate links in your blog posts or stuff like that. It can be a mindset hurdle that you don’t even know that you’re facing because there certainly is so much less than legit affiliate type marketing things out there.
However, when you think about your ideal client and the content that you are creating as a consumer, I would much rather you have a affiliate link than no link. So take the extra time and create an affiliate link. Even if it’s just an Amazon thing. I bought a book off Amazon literally yesterday because somebody linked to it in their blog, and I was grateful for that. I was like, “oh, yay, I don’t have to Google it”. Anything you can do to make your ideal client’s life easier is going to make them like you more.
3. People don’t care if it’s more expensive (if it’s what they want)
Isn’t that good news if you want to make more sales from Pinterest? Obviously there are caveats to this (and it’s within reason), but I found t-shirts that I want to wear to my kids’ party. One for me, one for the dad, one for him, and yeah, it’s kind of cringe, but it’s a two year old’s birthday party, so I’m just going to let myself have that moment.
But my point is: there were a million versions on Etsy, and I’m sure I could have taken it to Google or some less than legit websites, and I could have found a cheaper option, but I didn’t care about that. I was not going to get something that I didn’t want just because it was a cheaper option.
That said, if it was something like a hundred dollars a shirt, maybe I would’ve shopped around a little more. But for the most part on Pinterest, because of how visual the search platform is, when people find what they want, they know what they want. They’re less likely to shop around to save a less than significant amount.
There are actually studies showing too that Pinterest users spend more money on the platform. Household incomes tend to be higher on the platform. So if you’re interested in that, I will link to some of those resources below:
- 1 in 3 Pinterest shoppers have an annual income of $100,000+
- 70% of Pinterest’s luxury audience is under 35 years old
- Pinterest users spend 80% more per month than on other platforms
4. People head to Pinterest for Big Occasions and to Start Making Plans
So when I have a big project ahead of myself and whether it’s a wedding, a two year-old’s birthday party, if I’m going to rebrand, or create a website, if I’m going to plan a bachelorette party for my friends, if I’m going to plan a family vacation, Pinterest is often personally one of the first places I go to start.
I’m not only gathering ideas, either. I’m saving ideas that I fully plan to implement. Do I implement or execute on every single thing that I pin? Of course not. But I do a lot of it. And when I’m about to embark on one of those big events or big projects, which by the way all costs money, I am going there knowing that I’m planning something and knowing that I’m likely going to spend money. I go to Pinterest first.
So when we think about what kind of content Pinterest users like it is, you can create content throughout the buyer’s stage journey from, but usually if you’re selling something, content that is going to be most helpful is during those initial stages and then what they are searching for right at the point of making a buying decision.
5. Pinterest is a LONG game (Pinners are Planners)
I started my board about two months before I actually bought anything and four months before the party. I often say that Pinterest is a long game. If you want to make more sales from Pinterest, you’ve likely heard me say that over and over and over again, and that’s partly because it takes a while for the platform to trust you and for your pins to start ranking, but it’s also just because pinners are planners and it takes a little bit longer to make a buying decision.
In my opinion, that’s totally okay because one, they’re more likely to make a buying decision and two, they’re less likely to spontaneously buy something which can result in purchase regret and refunds.
Also keep in mind that Pinterest is the most supportive platform in the world when it comes to vendors because they are making it easy for someone to come back and buy. It’s not like Google ads or Facebook ads where you have to keep paying for retargeting ads. Pinterest is like, “Hey, want to save this”, or, “Hey, you were interested in this, are you still interested in this?”
Pinterest wants to see you succeed so badly, and it is just one of the many, many reasons why I love the platform so much.
6. Straight images (not graphics) are still helpful if they’re high-quality
Graphics and stock photos might be all we have, and that’s okay. Everyone starts somewhere. However, as a business, your marketing will do so much better with high quality photo and video content. You’ll make more sales from Pinterest with high-quality visuals. And when I say high-quality, yes I mean that the images should be clear and professional, but I also mean that they are intentional and showing the transformation.
How well is it communicating your product or service’s value in the image? If you want to make more sales from Pinterest, this is a MUST.
I think that’s one of the things that I want to focus on even more this year is just making the straight images and straight video go so much farther and really being proactive with, “Hey, this is the kind of content that we should start getting when you’re doing X, Y, Z in your business. Can you please get me more photos and videos?”
And I’m going to be doing it in my own business as well. I have just started taking my own Pinterest seriously, and one of the reasons I haven’t done it prior is because it is one a lot of work. I know that as a Pinterest manager, it is a ton of work to grow a new account, and it is a long game. And as a small business owner, I haven’t always been in a space where I had hours and hours every single month to dedicate to working kind of on my business versus in my business. You know what I mean?
Anyway, I’m looking forward to doing even more experimenting this year, and I think it’s going to be really fun.
7. Pinterest is a LOVELY Place to Hang Out
So fun. So creative. So inspiring. I can’t even tell you guys. Regardless of if you want to make more sales from Pinterest, I genuinely enjoyed being on the platform for an extended period of time, not working, and it felt like a breath of fresh air.
You guys have heard me talk about how Instagram is a pain. It’s all agitation content, so do this, do that. It’s a ton of work to create stuff on, but I’m not even talking about as a vendor.
I’ve complained about it as a business owner for sure, but even as a user, one of the reasons that I started using TikTok a lot more is that I wasn’t getting inundated with business content all the time, telling me what I was doing wrong, and if I just bought this one thing, I would have a million dollar business and all of that. It just felt like Instagram was such a heavy place to be, and that’s kind of why I moved to TikTok as a consumer.
The point I want to get to is that if your business is to bringing joy to people, Pinterest is where you want to be, okay? Every time we get any kind of verbiage from Pinterest about the direction the platform is going, it’s always like we want to make Pinterest a positive place on the internet. We want it to be a fun place to be. We want to use the content, the pins, the structure of the platform to bring more joy to people. It’s just, honestly, it’s my favorite.
I know I’m biased, but I didn’t just wake up and be like, “I think I’ll be a Pinterest manager today”. It really is one of my absolute favorite platforms time and time again, and throughout algorithm changes where it has certainly had its share of frustrations, it is just like time and time again my favorite place to be.
7 Reminders if You Want to Make More Sales From Pinterest
Just to wrap up, I shared seven reminders that came to me while I was going through Pinterest to plan a party and walking through how I made the buying decisions. If you want to make more sales from Pinterest, I hope you found this helpful!
And in case you are curious, here are the buying decisions I actually made (so far!):
- Family shirts from Etsy
- A book on Amazon
- Some craft stuff inspired by a mommy blog (not purchased but also not for sale)
- I ordered a cake from someone local based off a screenshot
Finally, I hope that if it’s been a while since you’ve signed onto Pinterest or you’re on the fence about whether or not it will work for your business, I just want to make it clear that I highly, highly recommend it. And obviously we would love to chat with you if you’re looking outsource it to make more sales from Pinterest! Learn more about working with us here!
LINKS MENTIONED:
- Hire us to be your Pinterest Managers
- FREE guide on how to balance fast and slow marketing strategy: https://thekarareport.com/roadmap
- Learn more about working with our marketing agency here
- Follow me on Instagram
