How to use Pinterest Marketing to Plan Ahead for Busy Times
We know Pinterest is an amazing way to send consistent, passive traffic to your business! In this blog, I am going to outline some of the tools and tips I use to help me plan ahead for my business and how I use Pinterest Marketing to get ahead of upcoming events, seasons and trends. Planning ahead allows me to be visible and successfully marketing my content, product and business right when I want to be, instead of trying to play catch up when it’s just too late to make a timely impact.
I’ve said it before…Pinterest is a long game. What does this mean? It means, if you put the work in, pin using best practices, follow basic Pinterest strategy and guidelines, you will see the results over the next few months. Sometimes it takes Pinterest 30-90 days to really start sharing and circulating your content to a larger audience. This means your content will start off slower, making its way around your following and their communities but as time goes on, if you have followed basic guidelines for Pinterest, your content/pins will grow and grow in views, clicks and saves. These views, clicks and saves will lead to more traffic to your business, blog or shop! And then, you will enjoy the benefits of planning ahead, getting your content out there and being AHEAD of the crowd. And ready for the season or event right on time!
We live in a get it done now, want success immediately, instant gratification world. It’s hard to wait for anything. Planning anything ahead isn’t always easy for us. The fun thing is, on Pinterest Marketing you can put in the work and then you can watch your content makes its way around Pinterest. I check my analytics often but I know and understand that they are only going to go up and up when I have taken the time to do it correctly. So be patient, Pinterest Marketing will reward you for your work.
How do I use Pinterest Marketing to plan ahead? Like everyone, I have busier seasons in my life and business. For me as a Pinterest Consultant and Small Shop Owner, fall and the upcoming holiday season is a very busy time. I make sure I plan ahead so that I can finish anything I can ahead of time. Why not? Here are a few tips for planning ahead for your Pinterest Content.
Pinning
Start pinning time sensitive/event specific content about 2-3 months ahead of time when you can (sometimes we don’t have that much time so I suggest getting started when you know something is coming). Sprinkle in a few fresh pins every day or two over several weeks. Then, add them to your other relevant boards (using Tailwind is highly recommended if you want to schedule ahead. Pinning ahead and scheduling your pins out will allow you to get content/event related pins out to the public and they will be in full distribution as it gets closer to the event or season. You have prepped well and your marketing efforts will be in full swing!
Batch Pin Graphic Creation
Spend some time batch creating pin graphics. Instead of trying to come up with new pins as needed, I suggest you create a batch of pins for any content you plan to share. I keep a folder on my desktop and fill it with pin graphics to use, I organize the pins by content and then when I need to do some pinning, I have graphics ready to pin and FAST. Remember, Pinterest loves fresh pins, make sure you are creating fresh pins for your content on a regular basis. But, don’t stress that you have to constantly be creating completely new graphics. Keep in mind that while you do need to change things up for a pin to be considered fresh, you can use the same image if you use it differently. Consider zooming in or out, consider cropping the image to show a new angle or view. And change the text overlay. Use new text, try some new keywords, try a different font. Pinterest reads your text and image so as long as it is different, it is considered fresh.
Create New Pins for Evergreen Content
You can and should also create fresh pins for older, evergreen content. If you have a blog or product that continues to be popular, create a batch of fresh pins and keep that content circulating. It’s a great way to bring a new audience to something you have already created. And the time savings of sharing older content when you are busy is priceless. We don’t always have time to write a fresh blog or come up with a clever new product suite.
Scheduling
Pinterest allows you to schedule Pins out for months with a scheduler. I use Tailwind for scheduling. Pinterest will not penalizing you for using Tailwind. I suggest you schedule pins out for at least 2 weeks to a month. Scheduled pins are a combination of your own original pins as well as other people’s relevant content. Use the amazing tools inside of tailwind to help you. These include Tailwind Tribe, Smart Loop and Board Lists. Check out this blog post for more about the tools available for Pinterest and Tailwind. Tip - I recommend you always first pin a pin organically within Pinterest. But, after it is pinned that first time, schedule it out to all of your relevant boards via Tailwind. It is an incredible time saver! I love that when I do a batch of Tailwind scheduling, I can sit back and relax and know that my pins are making their way around Pinterest. Keep in mind…always also go on Pinterest a couple times a week to pin in real time. Pinterest wants to know you are there, using it as a real person. This is a link (click here) for a free month if you are not currently using it and want to try.
In Conclusion
Planning ahead pays! I say it all the time. Sometimes it’s not always easy or even possible because things happen and last minute decisions need to be made. In those cases, we get started when we can. But, if you can plan ahead, Pinterest Marketing is a great way to get the word out early. When you apply Pinterest best practices, you will benefit from the time savings and reduced overwhelm of marketing and selling for your business. Planning with Pinterest takes one thing off your plate. Once you have done it, you can sit back, do some fun organic pinning a few times a week and watch as the consistent, passive traffic comes to your business from Pinterest!