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As a business owner, your Pinterest marketing strategy is one of the most important parts of growing your business through Pinterest. Part of that marketing strategy is lead generation and email lists. As you consider how to grow your email list with Pinterest, it is important to be educated on the tools at your disposal. In fact, most businesses on Pinterest that fail do not make use of the free tools and resources that are readily available on the platform.
In this article, we will discuss how to get leads from Pinterest by using a lead magnet. Your lead magnet can be incorporated into your Pinterest marketing strategy using Pinterest marketing tools. Check out these 10 ways to make the most of your lead magnet on Pinterest.
Table of Contents
What Is a Lead Magnet?
For those of you who are new to Pinterest marketing, let’s discuss what a lead magnet is. At its core, a lead magnet is an ethical bribe in the sense that you offer potential clients or customers something in exchange for something else to generate leads. In general, this means giving something away for free in exchange for potential client email addresses.
This might be free resources or free access to exclusive content such as ebooks, recipes, webinars, or something else completely unique to your business. In essence, a lead magnet should entice your audience by offering a solution to a problem they are looking to solve.
Why Promote a Lead Magnet As Part of Your Pinterest Marketing Strategy?
Pinterest is designed to help businesses promote their brand, content, and yes, lead magnets. Marketing your lead magnet is a great way to grow your email list with Pinterest. One of the key reasons to use this platform for many businesses is simply because Pinterest is not as high maintenance as social media. Pinterest is a search platform and, therefore, is optimized for growing businesses. Now that’s not to say that it is effortless. However, given enough time, Pinterest can produce passive growth and lead magnets are a large part of that.
As you learn how to get leads from Pinterest, you will be able to find more qualified and targeted leads. That means that the traffic that comes to your Pinterest profile and your website will be highly likely to be interested in your business offerings. Pinterest is a search engine, so optimizing for growth is just like optimizing on any other search engine. You can use keywords, profiles, boards, and pins to attract relevant traffic to your business. Once you optimize your traffic, you can use your lead magnet to capture these targeted customers’ emails to build your leads!
Create a Lead Magnet Strategy
Before you can generate leads using a lead magnet, you have to create a lead magnet strategy. Start by determining the niche that you want to target. A good way to decide on your niche is to look at your website and determine the theme. When your clients come to your website, they should immediately be able to decide if the theme matches what they are looking for. From there, determine if you are focusing on a topic or a demographic. This will help inform your strategy when deciding on a lead magnet to advertise and how to advertise it.
Create a Dedicated Landing Page
Once you have a solid idea of what your lead magnet is, how you are going to offer it, and who you are going to offer it to, it’s time to create a landing page. Customers do not want to be left to their own devices when navigating your website – they want to have direct links to the information they are looking for. If you are advertising a free product or service, you should include a place for them to get more information about how they can access it.
On your landing page, include more than just a sign-up form or button. There are countless businesses out there looking for leads, so it is not enough to just offer something basic and leave it at that. You have to give your customers a reason to stay and give you their contact information. Personalizing your landing page is a great way to humanize your business and make customers more comfortable sharing their information. A headshot or similar imagery has proven to be successful in this area.
The text on your landing page should be enticing and informative. A headline will bring attention to what it is you are offering and why your potential customers can benefit from it. The content on the landing page should provide further information for the client about who you are, what your lead magnet can do for them, and how you can continue to service their needs in the future. Finally, include a call to action and give your customers a reason to provide their email that sets you apart from competitors.
Link Your Lead Magnet Landing Page to Pins
Now that you have a landing page, you want to make sure that your customers find their way there. Creating standard pins with links to your landing page is a great way to start driving traffic. It can be as simple as pinning a simple, relevant image with a link to your landing page behind it.
Add Social Proof
Another great strategy is to give your customers a reason to believe that the value you are offering them is legitimate. How can you do that you ask? With social proof! Provide social proof to show your customers that you are good to your word. You can add this on your Pinterest profile, on your website, or on your lead magnet landing page.
If the customer is unfamiliar with you and your offerings, they want to see proof that what you are offering is no joke. Providing customer testimonials is a great way to reassure new customers that you mean business. Not only that, but it will improve your brand credibility overall. Customer testimonials have been proven to increase the value of your offerings as well as the perceived legitimacy of your business.
Offer Content Upgrades
A content upgrade is similar to a lead magnet and can relate directly to your magnet with the right Pinterest marketing strategy. A content upgrade is a free offering that relates to the content it is coming from. For example, in a rich pin, you could offer a free resource with an infographic that summarizes the content from the pin. In these cases, you can also link other free offerings such as your lead magnet.
Create a Call to Action in Blog Posts That Relate to Your Lead Magnet
Similar to content upgrades, it is beneficial to create a call to action in blog posts that relate to your lead magnet. Blogs are powerful marketing tools, especially when it comes to Pinterest. Most traffic that comes to your website from Pinterest will come to your blog posts. In this case, you are seeking to enrich your lead magnet content and support your call to action.
For this type of content, instead of linking pins directly to your lead magnet landing page, you are going to explain to your customers why they need what you are offering by linking to your long-form content. While blog posts are the standard, you could also link to your other content, such as a podcast, video, or other content designed to promote your lead magnet.
This content should be viewed as a way to convince the customer that they need your lead magnet without telling them they need your lead magnet. Essentially, you are reverse engineering your content to teach your customers about your offerings and show off your knowledge. The call to action shows that your lead magnet is the solution to the problem that you identified in your content.
As you create your content, consider what problem you are solving with your lead magnet, what questions it answers, and what should your customers know that will guide them to want your lead magnet.
Create a Lead Magnet Idea Pin
Don’t forget about idea pins. An idea pin can help you educate your customers about your lead magnet without making them filter through long-form content. Because idea pins are a new form of pin, they are prioritized in the search results making them ideal for driving traffic. Idea pins are unique because you can use both still images and video through the multi-panel feature.
You can use these to provide a high-level overview of the problem that your lead magnet solves and why customers would benefit from what you have to offer. This is a fast way to catch customers’ eyes and drive impulse leads. A call to action can top off the content by enticing the customer to download your lead magnet for further information.
These pins are not like social media posts that follow the same layout and will not disappear in 24 hours like an Instagram post. These pins stick around for months or years to create passive growth. That means that you should curate them to last, not just for short-term trends.
Feature Your Lead Magnet On Your Profile As a Call to Action
There’s that call to action again! What is it and what can it do for your lead magnet when applied to your profile? A call to action is something that invites your customers to click on your content for a reason. For your lead magnet, it could be as simple as “click here to get your free sample today!”
You can use a template to properly size a Pinterest cover photo on your profile that has a call to action on it. There are several ways to find these templates, but the easiest is through Canva. These templates are automatically sized to the proper dimensions and allow you to edit fonts, colors, and images.
In the past, Pinterest profiles were not part of your main marketing strategy. However, strategies evolve over time. It is becoming increasingly common to see customers browsing user profiles before clicking on links and visiting external websites making it the perfect tool for you to add your branding and lead magnet to.
Not only is it becoming more popular among customers, but also from Pinterest itself. Pinterest has encouraged the use of profiles for businesses as a way to connect content creators to their customer base for inspiration and engagement making it a powerful tool for you to leverage.
Create a Video Pin That Explains Your Lead Magnet
Going back to creating pins, consider using a video pin to explain your lead magnet to your customers. This is similar to the idea of using blog posts but in video format. Through this method, you will be explaining to your customer why they have a need for your lead magnet. Video marketing has exploded in the marketing industry in recent years as an effective tool for any marketer.
A video can help you provide an overview of your lead magnet or explain the problem that you are trying to solve with your lead magnet in a short snippet. Instead of having the customer read through long-form content, they can get all the information they are looking for directly from your lips. Pairing this content with long-long form content can help you reach more customers and provide more value to your Pinterest marketing strategy.
Create a “Freebies” Board and Link It As a Call to Action On Your Idea Pins
Finally, create a board that features your freebies! A freebies board should be placed towards the top of your profile with a clearly stated description that identifies it as a free resources page. This way, people will see it when they land on your saved tab which will increase traffic. On this board, you can link all the content that you developed to promote your lead magnets and the landing page itself. Once you create your board, you can add it as a call to action from your idea pins. The idea pin gives your customers inspiration while your board promotes your resources!
Now that you have a good idea of what a lead magnet is and how to effectively use it on Pinterest, you are well on your way to growing your email list and, in turn, your business!