How to Use Pinterest to Connect with Even a Local Audience

I want to start off by saying I adore Pinterest (both as a marketer and a user).

Since its launch in 2010, I have wasted away (okay maybe not wasted away) many of my evenings and weekends pinning away. Whether it was new recipes, future home inspiration, interior decorating, make-up tutorials, or planning out every detail of my DIY wedding.

Honestly, I’m not sure what I did without it before.

The more I begin to use it, the more I see businesses getting more strategic with how they use it - which is fantastic! In fact, I found my wedding venue through Pinterest (which is a pretty big ticket item). 

Now, marketing on Pinterest isn’t for every business, and I wouldn’t recommend spending too much time or too many resources on it if it’s not where your audience is hanging out, but if it is,  it’s important to really strategically think about how you can get the most out of it and get in front of the right audience.

Most people assume that Pinterest is only successful with bigger eCommerce or B2C businesses, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.  Whether you a service industry, B2B or only serve a local service area, you too can be successful with Pinterest.

Want to know how? Keep on reading.

1. Optimize Your Profile for Location

When marketing to a local audience on Pinterest, it’s important that your profile mentions the areas that you serve as well as where your business is located -- including in the username. Seems pretty obvious right? You’d be surprised how many Pinterest profiles are created without that detailed location information.

For instance, if I am looking up wedding venues in upstate New York, specifically the Hudson Valley, a profile that includes Hudson Valley and wedding venues will more likely show up in results for me.

If you only list out what you do in your profile but not where you do it, you’re not going to be getting in front of your target audience.

2. Get Specific With Your Copy & Keywords

It’s important that when you’re setting up your boards and pins that you are optimizing them for local searches.

In fact, did you know that your pins aren’t only found when a user is searching Pinterest, but that Pinterest boards can also be indexed by Google? With that in mind, make sure your pin and board descriptions are detailed and specific.

Just as you consider the copy and what messaging will resonate with your audience on your website, you should also be thinking through descriptions that will resonate with your audience on Pinterest and keywords they will be searching.

Put yourself in their shoes. If you were looking for your particular product or service, what would you be searching?

If you’re not really sure, reach out to some past customers and ask them what kind of things they searched while they were in the process of doing research. This will help you in crafting the descriptions for your pins.

If you are a home construction and remodeling company, for instance, and you’re posting recent work, consider detailing the type of home it is and what was completed during the project.

Is it stone or paneling, is it a cape or craftsman, where was it located?

For example, this pin does a great job of describing what style home, and where it’s located. They don’t simply say craftsman home or home in Austin - they describe the type of home, add an adjective and specifically say where it is located.

3. Use Pinterest Ads to Target Your  Local Audience

Did you know that more than 75% of pins that are saved to Pinterest come from businesses? In fact, promoted pins on Pinterest are less disruptive than ads on other platforms. They feel natural to the platform and people appreciate when they aren’t bombarded with distracting ads, but rather helpful, relevant content.

Now, Pinterest ads aren’t just for large brands like Target or Urban Outfitters. They can be a super effective way to get in front of your local audience too.

You can target your local audience in three ways:

• customer list targeting
• visitor retargeting
• look-alike targeting

Pinterest reports that people who have used ads on their site have seen retargeting increase clickthrough rates by 3x. Just like you can tailor ads on Facebook for a specific local audience, you can do the same through Pinterest.

4. Team Up with Other Local Businesses

Consider looking up other local businesses on Pinterest and interacting with them with an added local boost.

Where do you start?

Let’s say you’re a local construction company, you may want to connect with local landscape companies, pool companies, lumber stores, real estate agents, and anyone within your industry or space.

If they’re on Pinterest, follow them and start repinning or commenting on their pins.

Do this regularly. Set time aside to be doing this several times a week if possible. But why, you ask?

For one, people who are searching on Pinterest will begin to see you more often as you’re actively pinning things that are related to industry-specific searches.  

Two, you are targeting your ideal, local audience that you want to be in front.

Third, you’re likely to get the attention of the companies you are actively interacting with. It doesn’t hurt to also reach out to these local businesses about partnering in strategy. Share the love and advice with them.

5. Create a Resource Center Pinboard

Inbound marketing is all about providing informative content and resources for people to educate themselves, for you to build trust, and for them to come to you when they’re ready to buy.

Just as I’d encourage every business to build out a resource center of offers such as guides and videos on their website, I also highly encourage business to build out a resource board on their Pinterest page. This will not only position you as a helpful expert but drive people from Pinterest to conversion points on your website so you can capture their contact information.

For example, say you are a home appliance store, you can build a resource center with buying guides, comparisons on products, infographics.

IMPACT client, Yale Appliance + Lighting is an excellent example of this; using the resources they’ve built out on their own resource page as well as resource boards on their Pinterest. 

Use What You Have

Regardless of your industry, you’ll probably already have these content pieces built out and ready to go; it’s just a matter of compiling them with some nice visuals on an optimized Pinterest board.

Starting from Scratch

If you’re just getting started and don’t have a collection of these content pieces just yet, consider looking at other local businesses in your area and repinning their content to include on your resource board. This way you can start building an audience and trust so when you DO have resources of your own to add, half the work will be done for you.

Circling back to teaming up with local businesses, consider encouraging partners to build out resource boards as well, sharing some of your pins.

For example, if you’re a home appliance store and have a buying guide on refrigerators, consider teaming up with local home builders, interior designers, or real estate agents to see if they would be open to pinning your resource on their Pinterest board and offer to do the same with any that they have.

In the end, Pinterest can be a valuable tool to a variety of businesses.

Regardless if you are a service industry, B2C, B2B, or eCommerce, if your target audience spends a good amount of time on Pinterest, it can be a great platform for driving traffic, leads, or even sales. It also comes down to your strategy and the content that you should be including in your pins and on your boards.

Happy pinning!