Did you know that 478 million people a month use Pinterest? While it may not be the first platform that springs to mind when creating your marketing strategy, you shouldn’t overlook its potential.
Home decor, DIY, recipes, party planning, and fashion trends are some of the most popular categories for creating Pinterest boards. But, according to a recent report from Pinterest, the main reason people go to the platform is to look for inspiration and new ideas. Unlike other social media platforms, it’s the place people go when they want creative inspiration and to get ideas for future plans.
If you’re a coach looking for clients, Pinterest is a great platform to focus on; it’s your chance to put yourself out there and inspire your potential customers.
Because regardless of what type of coach you are, your target audience is on Pinterest!
But maybe you’re wondering how to get started. Let’s dive in and take a look at how to use Pinterest for coaches specifically so you can maximize its potential to find your dream clients.
Quick Pinterest Facts
In fact, did you know that:
- There are over 478 million active pinners
- Pinterest users like to spend (almost 9 in 10 people use Pinterest for purchasing inspo)
- Many pinners are driven and focused and create boards with titles like “career development” and “2023 ambitions.”
- 9% of Pinterest searches are unbranded, meaning people are looking for originality from the platform and not big brand names
If that doesn’t sound like a platform full of ideal coaching clients, I don’t know what does!
What is Pinterest?
If you’ve ever saved recipes you’d like to try on Pinterest or planned your dream wedding, you might not even know how unique the Pinterest platform is.
But Pinterest is a social media platform AND a search engine combined.
Just like you use Google to search for something, and Google recommends different results, Pinterest does precisely the same.
The difference is that Google will show you websites, but Pinterest is a visual search engine that shows you images.
As a social media and search mix, Pinterest brings together the best of both worlds.
Just like on any social media platform, you have your own profile and can gain followers and DM people:
But as Pinterest is also a search engine, people can also search for content:
This means you can work to build your social profile but also reach thousands of your ideal clients without actually having thousands of followers yourself.
You can use Pinterest to drive people to your other social media pages, a blog post, your website, and or to sign up for your newsletter. Simply by optimizing your content to rank on Pinterest as a search engine!
How Do You Use Pinterest?
Depending on your purpose, there are various ways you could use Pinterest. These are the most common ways the average user interacts with the platform:
Explore and search
You can start by exploring the Pinterest home feed, which displays a curated collection of pins based on your interests. You can also search for specific ideas, topics, or keywords.
Save and organize ideas
When you come across images or content you like, you can save them by clicking on the “Save” button. You can then create boards to categorize and organize saved ideas. For example, you may create boards for recipes, home decor, fashion, travel, etc.
Follow users and boards
One of the key features of Pinterest is that you can follow others or a specific Pinterest board that aligns with your interests. This allows you to see updates from the accounts and boards you follow in your home feed.
Pin and upload content
You can actively contribute to Pinterest by uploading your own images or content. This allows you to share ideas, inspirations, and creations with your followers and other users.
Interact with content
You can engage with pins by liking, commenting, and repinning them to your own boards. You can also click on pins to view the source website, read articles, watch videos, or shop for products.
Discover recommendations
Pinterest provides personalized recommendations based on a user’s activity and interests. These recommendations appear in the home feed, “Explore” section, or as notifications.
Collaborate and connect
Become part of the Pinterest community by inviting others to collaborate on your boards and join group boards to contribute ideas and inspiration. You can also connect with friends and discover new users through the “Following” tab.
Customize settings
By adjusting settings such as notification preferences, privacy settings, and account preferences, Pinterest users can customize their experience on the platform.
Why Should You Use Pinterest For Business?
You may wonder why Pinterest should be part of your social media marketing strategy. Well, let’s break it down for you:
Increase visibility and brand exposure
Pinterest allows small businesses to showcase their products, services, and brand aesthetics through visually appealing pins. When you optimize your Pinterest business account effectively, it can help you reach a wider audience and gain visibility in your niche.
Drive traffic to your website
Each Pinterest pin includes a link directing users to the source website. You can use your Pinterest profile to directly increase your conversions and sales. When you pin blog posts or products, you can include a relevant link for people to click directly through to your own website.
Use it for market research
Wondering what type of pin content you should create or what your audience is looking for? You can use Pinterest to gain valuable insights into consumer preferences and trends.
By analyzing popular pins, boards, and keywords related to your coaching niche or industry, you can better understand what your target audience is interested in. This information can inform your content creation, marketing strategy, and even the coaching packages you offer.
engage with your audience
Pinterest gives you an excellent opportunity to engage with your audience meaningfully. You can build relationships with potential customers, influencers, and industry peers by repinning, commenting, and liking relevant content. Engaging with the community helps foster trust and increases the chances of people visiting your website, sharing your content, and signing up for your coaching programs.
How to Use Pinterest For Coaches
So now I’ve sold Pinterest to you as a platform you should use for your coaching business and how people use it; you’re probably wondering how to actually use it for your coaching business.
Is there a specific way to set up a Pinterest business account that will maximize the time and effort you put into creating pins and Pinterest boards?
Let’s answer those crucial questions by breaking down how to use Pinterest for business:
Step 1: Set Up Your Account
If you’re reading this post because you aren’t using Pinterest for your coaching business yet, presumably you either;
a) Don’t have a Pinterest account at all
b) Have an account but haven’t optimized your account properly
So you’ll either need to start a new account or optimize your current account.
Make sure your Pinterest account is a business account!
Your first step is to make sure your account is a free business account.
That’s because a business account:
- Allows you to have a business name.
- This means you can “claim” your website, so a link to your website appears on your profile.
- Gives you access to Pinterest analytics, which provides insight into how your pins and profile are performing.
- Gives you access to rich pins. Rich pins are helpful as they provide more information on your pins, including automatically putting information from your website onto your pins (plus rich pins are free!).
How to Set Up a Pinterest Business Account
There are actually 3 options for getting a business account:
- If you already have a personal Pinterest account (aka an account you just use for fun!) with an existing personal Pinterest account, you can either…
- Link a business account to your existing account. This will mean that you keep the personal account you have but then have a business account linked and can switch back and forth.
- Convert your existing Personal account to a business account. You can just convert your current personal Pinterest account to a business account if you don’t think you’ll use your personal account anymore.
- If you don’t have a Pinterest account…
You’ll need to create a new business account from scratch. You can also do this if you’ve got a personal Pinterest account, but it’s not relevant to your coaching business.
Follow this Pinterest step-by-step guide to change your account settings and get a business account if you need help with this!
Claiming your website on Pinterest
Once you have created an account for your business, you’ll need to claim your website.
This verifies your website’s authenticity, and once you have claimed your site:
- Your profile picture will be shown next to pins that come from your website.
- A small globe icon will show next to your website URL on your profile.
- You’ll be able to access Pinterest analytics
Plus, it’s free!
To claim your site on Pinterest, follow this Pinterest help guide.
Setting up and optimizing your profile
Once you have claimed your website on Pinterest, you need to start creating and optimizing your profile.
This includes:
- Writing a display name. Make sure to put your business name and include keywords on topics you cover, e.g. “ Name – Life Coach “, so when people search for a life coach on Pinterest, your profile comes up.
- Setting a profile picture.
- Writing an “About” section. Again, you’ll want to explain what you do and use keywords directly here.
- Follow relevant pinners. The content you see in the Home feed will include pins from people you follow, so make sure to follow accounts that are relevant to you and your coaching services!
If you would like more detailed help for each of these steps, you can sign up for my free Pinterest course Easy Pinterest with Emily.
We cover creating an amazing profile on Day 1 of the course!
Step 2: Research and Target Your Ideal Clients
Once your account is up and running, you’ll want to create content to engage your target client.
The best way to make sure you’re reaching the right people on Pinterest is to create boards and pins targeting keywords that:
- Are relevant to your content
- Engage your ideal client
When you share a pin with a well-optimized pin description (full of relevant keywords) to a Pinterest search engine-optimized board, that pin could eventually start to rank for those keywords in search results!
How do you add keywords to your Pinterest content? Let’s take a look.
How to find keywords your potential clients will engage with
There are three ways to find relevant keywords to use for your content on Pinterest:
Method #1: The trending tool
If you go to the Trending tool by Pinterest, you can search for specific topics you cover.
If you search for a topic and there is a suggestion, it means Pinterest has data on this keyword:
Click on this keyword, and Pinterest will not only show you how many searches this keyword is getting over time but also other relevant keywords you can target:
Method #2: The search bar
Another way to find keywords is to use the Pinterest search bar.
Just begin to type a relevant keyword, and Pinterest will predict what you are going to search for when typing in this keyword (based on what other Pinners have searched previously):
You can use these as keywords for your content.
If you then search for that keyword, sometimes Pinterest will suggest keywords underneath:
You can also use these as keywords!
Method #3: Look at your competitors
Lastly, you can also take a hint from your coaching competitors who are already doing well.
Just search for relevant topics, and see what keywords are being used in the top results. Then you can use the keywords as inspiration for your own content (do not copy exactly, though!).
Remember, you can search for both pins and boards in the search bar:
You can do this to help make sure the pins you are creating and the boards you are saving them to are SEO optimized with relevant keywords.
Creating content to target your ideal clients
Following keyword research, you can then create your own content to target your dream clients!
This includes:
Creating boards
Each Pinterest board is where you’ll save pins, so make sure to create boards for topics you cover in your coaching business.
(You can also create multiple boards that serve purely to engage your dream clients and not necessarily for content you cover on your blog!)
Make sure to use relevant keywords, but also to make your board descriptions interesting and helpful for the reader.
Also, create Pinterest boards that are a mixture between useful content and promotional content about your business. That way, clients won’t be put off and think your Pinterest account is purely self-promotional.
How to Make Pinterest Pins
Once you have somewhere to start saving pins, you can upload images that lead to your own content.
Simply create compelling pin designs that your target audience would enjoy and upload them to the relevant board with an SEO-optimized pin description and a link to your website where the relevant content sits.
It’s easy to create a pin, but you want to create pins people actually engage with! Some tips:
- Make sure to follow the best practices for your pin designs. Create long, vertical images at the recommended size, and include text on your pin to give it more context.
- The text on your pin should give a clue as to what the content on your site is about but not give it all away. This will make the viewer want to click through and engage with your coaching content.
- Just like we researched what keywords top-ranking pinners are using, also check out their pin designs. You will be able to see what pin looks pinners are engaging with for certain keywords, and this can inspire your own designs.
Put a watermark, your logo, or your website URL on ALL your pins. There are people out there who will steal your pins and use them to lead to their own site! So make sure you put something on them to show you created them.
Track Your Metrics
Once you start sharing pins, you’ll want to know what type of content performs best so you can create more of it! You can easily access analytics on the Pinterest app or through your account. Understanding how your audience interacts with your content can help you optimize any future content you create.
You can check things like how many impressions your pins got, saves, total audience, engagement, pin clicks, clicks through to your website, and best converting pins. Knowing these numbers can help you understand more about your audience, the times of day they look at your content, and how they react to it.
Experiment With Pinterest Ads
If you want to drive more traffic to your account in a short space of time, you may want to experiment with Pinterest ads. You can target users who fit your client demographic or even people who have previously interacted with your website or your pins.
You can pay to promote pins so they show up higher when people search your target keywords, or you could create specific ads for your small business.
Be warned, though; it’s probably best to try getting organic traffic first as if you don’t know the ins and outs of advertising on the platform, it can get expensive with little return.
Step 3: Convert Your Pinterest traffic!
With Pinterest, providing you are following Pinterest’s best practices, using good SEO strategies, and being consistent, you can expect to start getting traffic to your site within 3 – 6 months.
So once you start getting those potential clients over to your website, you need to convert them!
How to convert potential clients into actual paying clients
Many of these potential coaching clients will be coming over to your website from Pinterest to engage with your free content.
They might not even be aware that you offer a coaching service.
They will simply read that one free blog post, then leave.
This will happen most of the time, but do not be disheartened; to avoid them leaving for good, you’ll want to try and get them onto an email list.
Once they’re a loyal subscriber, you can build a relationship with them until they are aware of your paid-for services and are ready to buy.
How to drive email sign-ups
One of the best ways to drive email sign-ups is to offer a free incentive.
By creating something valuable, you can offer it to your site readers and drive readers to join your email list on autopilot.
I recommend creating a helpful resource relevant to you and your coaching niche. Creating highly relevant content will ensure you only get people signing up for your freebie who would also be interested in your paid-for coaching packages.
These freebies can include:
- Downloadable PDFs
- Webinars
- Email courses
- Ebooks
- Checklists
- Workbooks or worksheets
- Video or audio content
- Reports
Once you have people signing up to receive your emails, you can work on creating automated email sequences that promote your paid-for coaching packages.
You could even ask your subscribers one or two of these discovery call questions and see who replies to establish which of your readers are engaging. Once you have that engagement, you could suggest your paid packages to them!
How to find coaching clients FAST with Pinterest – Final thoughts
I hope this post on how to use Pinterest for coaches has helped you realize that Pinterest can be a great tool for marketing your coaching business. Use it to create or update your Pinterest marketing strategy and stay on top of any changes the platform might make for lasting success.
Now you know how to use Pinterest and that it’s the perfect platform to find coaching clients, it’s time to start using it!
