Let me guess.
You’ve been on Pinterest for several months now and you’re scratching your head thinking:
- Why am I not getting more followers?
- Why aren’t my pins getting repinned?
Unfortunately, many Pinterest users have unrealistic expectations about what and how quickly Pinterest marketing can impact their business. What makes matters worse are the mistakes businesses make when setting up and managing their accounts. Somehow businesses have gotten it into their minds that if they just pin (or save) a bunch of pretty images onto Pinterest they are all set! Not true.
I’m going to reveal the 14 most common mistakes people make on Pinterest. Let’s begin!
Mistake # 1: You don’t have a plan.
Pinterest marketing should start with a plan. Just as in life you cannot hit a target you cannot see. What is your goal exactly?
How to fix the problem: Clarify your company’s Pinterest marketing goals.
Here’s a list of the most common Pinterest marketing goals. Decide which ones you want to focus on and rank them in order of priority:
- Increased exposure
- Increased traffic to your store or website
- Increased sales and profits
- Get more people subscribed to your email list
- Gain market intelligence
- Develop brand advocates and influencers
- Rank higher on search engines like Google
- Grow business relationships
- Reduce marketing expenses
- Other
How to fix the problem: Identify your target market.
The purpose of identifying your target market is so you can learn and understand their wants, needs, and problems. Your goal on Pinterest is to be helpful and to educate your audience on a wide variety of topics they care about. That way they can get to know your brand and interact with it.
Help them on a wide range of topics impacting their lives—in ways that both directly and indirectly relate to your products. When they begin to trust you, then and only then will they like and follow you. This is when you will start to see an increase in web traffic and sales.
a) Who is your target audience?
b) What’s their age / gender?
c) Where do they live?
d) What is their status? Single, married, and so forth.
e) What do they really like or find interesting?
f) Are they high spenders or conservative with their money?
g) What is their lifestyle?
h) What type of help do they want? What do they want to accomplish exactly?
i) What problems do they have? (This is critical to identify because you want a large percentage of your content aimed at helping them overcome obstacles and solve problems).
Knowing the answers to these questions will help you design Pinterest boards and pins that speak to their wants, needs, goals and concerns.
There are 8 more steps to goal planning and understanding your target audience; I reveal those in my course Pinterest Marketing for Business online course. But this will get you started in the right direction.
If managing Pinterest for your business seems is overwhelming for you and you feel like you are going around and around in circles with Pinterest and not getting anywhere contact me about my Pinterest account management services. Or to learn more about how you can be more effective on Pinterest check out my Pinterest Marketing Course for Businesses. Chapter one is FREE.