Many business owners already know that Pinterest is a smart investment for companies in the retail space – Pinterest drives 25 percent of retail referral traffic today. But how do B2B businesses use the site to generate the same sort of traffic back to their sites?
As with all things in the social media world, the first and biggest concern is to create value. If you provide content your customers want and need – and they’re already spending time on the site – most lead generation companies would tell you it’s a fairly simple matter to drive them back to your site and your sales funnel. You just have to put a little energy into strong content marketing and branding.
1. Create Thematically Strong Boards
If you want to create an experience worth returning for, don’t lump all your content together and hope that your customers will sort it all out – use your Pinterest page to create an experience. Create multiple boards with strong, interesting themes that address your customers’ daily workplace problems. If you haven’t created customer personas, now is a great time – what do their days look like, and what are they trying to accomplish? Break it down to the task level, then find ways to help them complete those tasks easier and more efficiently.
Focus on strong, clever, keyword-optimized copywriting in your pin descriptions, and don’t be afraid to inject a little humor into your content. Remember that your customers are people, too. Don’t forget to link every original pin back to content on your site – and it’s a great idea to mix in repinned content, as well, so that you’re out there being social with users with similar interests.
2. Create Strong Content Marketing Assets
While you don’t necessarily need to create content just for Pinterest, you should, ideally, already be creating strong content marketing materials for use across all your social channels. Focus on rich content like e-books, white papers, how-to articles and statistically rich infographics. Even if the design of the actual editorial materials isn’t over-the-top fancy, all you need to turn your content into a killer pin is a strong photo to accompany it. Which leads to the next point…
3. Use Strong Visuals
Pinterest is rife with stock images and stolen photography that is pinned and repinned by users – most lead generation companies would say that if you want your content to stand out, you need to combine your snappiest copywriting with strong, original images that haven’t been seen a million times already. So skip the stock photography and look into hiring an affordable photographer, or look for Creative Commons images that aren’t already oversaturating the channel.
Do a little research ahead of time. When you create your content marketing calendar, search Pinterest and see what types of images are already being used for similar content. Then plan to do something better.
4. Create a Brand Experience
Since Pinterest is an inherently visual channel, it’s a great place to showcase your brand. Don’t be afraid to create a few boards dedicated to showing off your best product or packaging design, your new logo work, or even your super-cool office space. But beyond that, every little detail counts. For example, choose cover photos for your boards carefully, to create a colorful and cohesive impact that reflects your brand’s personality.
Want to learn more about leveraging social media for lead generation? Qualified lead generation companies can help you evaluate the best multi-channel solutions for your business. Visit LeadGeneration.com for a free consultation today.