What Really Gets People to Save, Click, or Buy – on Pinterest?

Hootsuite recently reported that a whopping 98% of Pinterest pinners report to have tried something that they found on Pinterest.* 😲

*(Source: 23 Pinterest Statistics That Matter to Marketers in 2021; Hootsuite.com)

And, just last month Pinterest’s Audience post included this gem: 

“459 million people use Pinterest every month to find ideas and inspire their next purchase. If Pinterest were a country, it would surpass the United States as the third largest in the world.”

Yes, Pinterest pinners are action takers. They are literally on the platform *looking* for things to do, try, and buy. 

So as marketers, how can we play into this? How can we optimize our content and our strategies – to provide the ideas, inspiration, and info that will indeed prompt them to take action? 

In this post, I’m outlining four things (to start! I may add to this list!) that we can focus on – to get those saves, clicks, buys.

I’ll be covering: (Click on any to jump to that section.) 

• Pin design best practices that stop the scroll and prompt action.
• How to ensure your pins are shown to people who care about them.
• How to offer free things that people really want; and
• How past experience with your content makes a difference, too.

1. Pin Designs that stop the scroll & prompt action.

Let’s start here, because it’s probably the first thing a savvy marketer things about – when thinking about what will prompt your pinner to make moves! 

Your Pinterest graphic (your pin!) is going to be one of the most important factors here, for sure. Great pin designs will get the attention of the right people – and motivate them to act. 

There are several considerations when designing great pins, but a couple of them are really “make or break” when it comes to prompting action…

1) Clear messaging on your pin graphic is critical – if you want to stop the scroll and grab the attention of your ideal audience. You want to craft a concise, clear, and compelling text overlay that clearly communicates what the pin is about – and ideally what problem you’ll solve, or what idea or inspiration you’re offering. 

(You can learn more about Pinterest pin design best practices in this post.)

Here are a few pins I’ve designed for clients. These exemplify (in my humble opinion! 😉) clear, compelling messaging. 

2) Including a call to action (CTA) on your pin can also increase the odds that your pinner will take that next step. It follows, right? These days there are so many things vying for our attention. Sometimes we simply need someone to just tell us what to do. 🙂 Your CTAs can be overt (e.g. “Download the Guide!”) or implied (e.g. “Free Guide for Beginners >”) 

(To read more about CTA ideas and best practices, check out this post!)

And here are a few pin examples that utilize calls to action… 

2. Relevancy (of your pins to the pinners who see them).

It’s easy to understand how your pin designs can prompt pinners to click, save, or buy. But, there’s another very powerful factor at play. It’s harder to see, but it’s crucial. 

It’s relevancy. <—–

Basically, the idea here is that people are more likely to click, save, or buy – when what they are seeing matters to them… When it’s relevant to their lives, their interests, problems they want to solve, etc.

Quick example: My former client Christine is a talented Life After Divorce Coach. When women search for things about reinventing and thriving after divorce, she would love for them to find her pins – and her content and offers. 

But if her pin shows up searches and smartfeeds of women who have *not* recently experienced divorce, it’s unlikely to get their attention. And it’s even more unlikely that they will take action on it. 

So how can you make sure your pins get seen by people who care about them? 

One word, friends… Keywords! 

(You didn’t think I could get through an entire blog post without mentioning Pinterest keywords, did ya? 😉)

You will want to… 

1. Research what people are searching for on Pinterest – around your topics. (For example, Christine discovered when doing her keyword research that common searches on Pinterest include “divorce recovery,” “divorce and kids,” and “dating after divorce” – among others.)

    

2. Use those keywords in seven distinct places on Pinterest: Your display name, your bio, boards, board descriptions, pin titles, pin descriptions, and pin text overlay. 

Be sure not to keyword stuff – but rather write descriptions, etc that are easy for humans to read – and also incorporate your keywords. 

(Pssst… I teach all the steps for researching keywords, organizing them, and using them in all the right places (and in the right ways!) in my e-course Pinterest with Purpose.)

Okay, we have two more action-inducing strategies to cover, so read on….

(You can 📌 pin this article for reference to your “Pinterest marketing” board:) 

3. Free Stuff!

The third item in my list of “what gets Pinterest pinner to save, click, or buy?

It’s free stuff!

Everybody loves something free – especially when it’s valuable. If you can create a lead magnet that your ideal audience really wants to get their hands on… and then preview it in your Pinterest pin design… It’s a big motivator. 

You can point pins directly to the opt-in landing pages you create for your freebies. You can also point pins to blog posts, podcast episodes, Youtube videos, or other content that provides value and “sells” the benefits of grabbing your lead magnet. 

Either way, dangling your freebie in your pin is a great way to get the click! 

And this is a particularly smart strategy because you’re also building your email list using Pinterest. 

I often say that Pinterest-driven clients leads are “cold-warm” leads. 

• They’re warm because they found you when they were *already searching* for something you help with or offer. 
• But they’re sort of cold too, because they typically don’t know you well yet. They find you in their searches or smartfeeds – not because they are already following you on social.

So, you’ll need to have a way to capture the leads – and nurture them – so some will become buyers. And using a lead magnet to get them on your email list – and then using your emails to deepen the relationship – is a great way to do this. 

To inspire you, here are a few pins (that I’ve designed for clients) that preview some pretty irresistible freebies…

4. Positive past experiences with your content.

The last factor I want to mention is this… Sometimes pinners will start to recognize your content when they see it pinned.

Maybe this is because you use some subtle branding on your pins (which is a good practice!).

Maybe they start to recognize some of the colors and fonts you use… 

And if they had good experiences with your content, they’ll often click on over again!

Conversely, of course, if your content wasn’t so hot… they may also remember that, and not visit again. 

I know I personally experience this pretty frequently. I’ll see someone’s pin in my feed and – although I don’t know the creator well – I do remember what I found last time I clicked through to their Youtube channel, podcast, or blog. 

I almost always click through when I see new content from some creators. And there are some creators whose content just isn’t very helpful – so you can bet that I skip it and keep scrolling. 

The moral of this last story is that it’s important to create content that is useful, inspiring, pretty meaty – and basically just worth clicking over to. 

Next steps: Attract the action-takers on Pinterest.

Okay, that about sums it up… my four tips and strategies for inspiring your pinners to action – to get more clicks, save, and sales. 

Again, Pinterest put it best in their recent audience insights article. They wrote: 

“People aren’t here [on Pinterest] to fend off FOMO or doomscroll. They’re here to try new things. To save new ideas. And often, to make their next purchase.”

If you read that and think, “I’m so here for that. Let’s market to them!”… then you’ll want to learn the actual step-by-steps. 

You can shorten your learning curve, and get to the “Wow! Perfect clients are finding me on Pinterest – and taking action!” part faster – by enrolling in my e-course, Pinterest with Purpose.

It’s a self-study e-course that reveals the methods I’ve been refining with my 1:1 clients for three+ years now.

It reveals the strategies that work for coaches, service providers, and course creators. And it takes you, step-by-step, through the process of getting your Pinterest profile set up optimally – so you can use it to grow your audience and land clients! 

Check it out and enroll here!