We’ve all heard of Facebook and Instagram. But did you know Pinterest can prove to be just as important for your business, maybe even more?
Pinterest lets you find and share interesting videos and images across the web. You can organize pins into boards which are visible to your followers and people can browse them in their feed. In addition to cooking classes, arts, and crafts, travel content is a huge part of the platform.
As such, marketing on Pinterest can bring great advantages for tour and activity operators. With more than 250 million users, it’s one of the most relevant places to interact with potential customers in a super visual way.
There are many ways to use Pinterest and here we’ll look and how and why you should use Pinterest for business.
Ready? Let’s go.
Why use Pinterest for Business?
Apart from personal usage, Pinterest offers some great advantages for businesses.
First and foremost, you get access to more than 250 million people on the platform. The majority of Pinterest’s users are female which is good for tours and activities – as we all know, the ladies tend to make the purchasing decisions when it comes to travel.
In addition, you can reach people while they are looking for products and services. According to Hootsuite, 93% of Pinterest users plan purchases on the platform.
Also, Pinterest claims 80% of its users access the site from their smartphones. So it’s a great channel if you want to reach people in the consideration stage and get more exposure on mobile.
As a business, you get a bunch of extra features too. These include Rich Pins, the Widget Builder, and the Save Button for websites.
Rich Pins allow you to add extra information on a pin. For example, you can include pricing, availability, and information about where to buy your tour or activity.
The Widget Builder lets you create special modules that you can embed on your website. For instance, you can embed things like pins and even a whole board on your website to highlight interesting content.
Similarly, the Save button is also used on your website. It allows your visitors to save media from your website and pin it to their boards where their followers can also see them. This can be really powerful, especially when done by a travel influencer, as the pin will include a link to your website.
How to use Pinterest for business effectively
It’s clear that Pinterest can be a powerful platform to connect with potential customers. It also offers special business features that are tailored to helping you increase sales. So how do you utilize all this information? Below are 7 steps you can take right now to start marketing your business on Pinterest.
1. Sign up and complete your profile
Well, first you need to sign up (if you haven’t already). To get started, go to the business sign-up page and submit your email, business name, website, and industry.
We recommend completing your profile by adding all the necessary information to your account and connecting to the rest of your social networks. According to Pinterest, claiming your YouTube account helps you grow followers by 5x.
2. Start Pinning
Pins are at the core of Pinterest. To get started, create a board and upload your first image. Pinterest will give you some guidelines about this but the most important thing is that it’s relevant. Depending on your tour or activity, make sure that you upload content your customers are going to love. For this, you need to understand their profile.
For example, if you offer a hiking tour, your customers are likely outdoor enthusiasts. You can post a series of the top places to hike in the world (including your local area too!) and link back to your website from each pin. Other relevant pins can be mountaineering equipment and accessories like backpacks – ideal opportunities to partner up with relevant brands who can link to your hiking tour in exchange.
3. Promote pins
With Pinterest for business, you can also promote pins so they reach a bigger audience. As Google and Facebook get more crowded, you might find Pinterest to be a cheaper alternative. You can promote pins to reach more of the people who don’t follow you and draw attention to important promotions and giveaways.
4. Add the save button on your website
As already mentioned, there’s a good chance your target customers hang out on Pinterest. You can give them a chance to pin your website content and therefore reach their followers too.
Just connect your website with Pinterest from your account and they will see a Save button when they hover on images on your website.
For this, you’ll need to go to your profile settings and scroll down to “Claim”.
Once you enter your website domain name and hit “Claim”, you’ll get a chance to add an HTML tag to your site or upload an HTML file to your website’s root directory.
If you’re using WordPress, it might be faster to install this Pinterest plugin instead.
5. Engage with people
To make Pinterest a successful marketing channel, you’ll need to put in some ongoing effort. It could be as little as 5 minutes a day but can bring big results for you.
As with places like TripAdvisor, it’s important to engage with people by replying to comments on your pins. Make sure to comment back on theirs and get more exposure this way.
Another thing you can do is follow relevant people by joining popular boards in your industry. You can follow travel influencers where you will often find the exact market you’re after. Here are a few profiles and boards to get started with:
6. Get the Pinterest browser extension
It can be hard to devote time multiple times a day so you can find and pin relevant images.
To make it easier, you can install the Pinterest browser extension and save images as you browse the web. If you happen to find something that’s worth pinning, just click the Pinterest browser button and save it to one of your boards. This can save you a good deal of time in the long run.
7. Measure what works well with analytics
Another bonus you get from Pinterest for business are more detailed stats. You can see things like the number of people you reach and engagements with your brand.
With Google Analytics, you can also track all the people who come to your website from Pinterest and how many of them become customers.
This is the best way to measure if Pinterest is giving you a good return on the time invested.
Conclusion
There you have it. Now you know what Pinterest is and why it can be a valuable source of new customers. You also know how to reach people there effectively.
So what’s next? Well, if you haven’t already, try out Pinterest. It’s free so you have nothing to lose.
And if you want to learn more selling tours and activities using digital platforms, check out these articles on the topic:
- The Top Online Travel Agencies for Selling Tours and Activities
- How To Sell Tours and Activities with Facebook
- What is Instameet and How To Use it for Business
- 10 WhatsApp Tips and Tricks to Market Your Leisure Activity
- How to Market a Tour Company for Free: 7 Big Platforms You Should be on
