How To Use Pinterest Promoted Pins To Grow Your list…Quick Style

If you’re like most solopreneurs out there pounding the pavement on the information superhighway you know advertising on social media could propel your email list BUT you’ve been gun shy with a wicked case of ass sweats over the whole ‘where and how?’ of it.

I’m right there with ya!

Facebook is daunting as hell with a wallet depleting learning curve and Twitter is just flat out confusing as f*ck. Pinterest on the other hand is a tall glass of water in a desert of advertising overwhelm.

I’ve been guzzling the Pinterest promoted pin Kool-aid for a while now, because:

1. I’m genuinely coo coo for cocoa puffs about Pinterest
2. They make shit scary easy {what a concept!}
3. I don’t have to rob a bank to fund my ads
4. I saw results right away that I didn’t need a secret decoder ring to decipher
5. You’re only charged for clicks to your website NOT repins…but the repins can keep driving traffic long after you stop your ad campaign

It took a hot minute to get past them hating on my ‘badass’ movement {apparently that’s a sexually explicit word, she says rolling her eyes} and a fair share of trial and error but I finally crafted a winning Pinterest promoted pins formula.

Soooo, I want to share with you exactly how to use Pinterest promoted pins to grow your list…quick style! 

It’s a science free 6 step formula that’ll have you sippin on some budget friendly list building boom juice very soon.

The Pinterest promoted pin formula goes a little something like this:

1. SETUP A PINTEREST BUSINESS ACCOUNT

First thing you need to do is create a Pinterest business account or convert your personal account to a business account.

You need a business account so you can:

➽Use your brand name for your account, opposed to a first and last name
➽Verify your website, which will display your full URL in your profile and in search results
➽Apply for access to the promoted pins dashboard

2. APPLY FOR ACCESS TO THE PROMOTED PINS DASHBOARD

Once you have your business page setup you’re going to want to immediately apply for access to the promoted pins dashboard.

It can take a few weeks to be approved by Pinterest so you want to make sure you do this as soon as possible. Then you can move on to putting the rest of the formula together while you wait for approval. You can apply for access HERE.

Once approval is granted you’ll be given access to the dashboard connected to your business account and free to promote any pins that point back to your website.

3. CREATE AN EPIC FREEBIE

A crucial part of the list building puzzle is creating a badass freebie {bribe, goodie, whatever verbiage floats your boat} that your audience can’t resist. So, before you can invest a dime in advertising you’ve got to create that killer offer.

The most devourable type of freebies are:

➽Mini course
➽Cheat sheet
➽Checklist
➽Resource guide
➽15/30 day Challenge
➽Templates
➽Video tutorial
➽Discounts
➽Samples

Decide which one of these freebies would be most valuable to your audience and create it.

Tough love time: Don’t make this something time consuming or difficult. This should be something you can put together in 2-3 days MAX. If it’s any more involved than that you’re getting too fancy for where you are in your biz. Don’t let creating your free offer be the barrier to your success, that’s just lame!

**Note**Throughout this post I will be showing you an example for each step using my ‘Solopreneur’s Quick & Dirty Guide To Branding’.

4. CREATE A BLOG POST WITH AN OPT-IN

One of the limitations of using promoted pins to build your list is that Pinterest be hatin on landing pages. Yep, they’re gangsta like that!

You can’t blame them. They’ve done an epic job of protecting the platform from becoming a promotional dumping ground like Facebook, which is why most of us pinheads dig the platform so much.

No worries though, there’s an easy peasy work around. A blog post! Create a blog post for your freebie that outlines exactly what you’ve got to give.

Your blog post should include:

➽Image that you can use for your promoted pin {optimal pin size is 735×1002, portrait}
➽An explanation about the freebie that tells them exactly what they’re getting
➽A bullet list that outlines how this freebie will benefit them and/or what they can expect to learn
➽Testimonials if you have any
➽A call to action that asks them to opt-in to receive the goodie
➽A button linked to a opt-in form

There should be NO other links in your blog post and no other calls to action. You want this blog post to be as reminiscent of a true landing page as you can get while still maintaining the safety that a blog post offers visitors.

If you want to see an example of a blog post that’s worked like gangbusters for me, check out the blog post I created for my branding guide.

5. PIN YOUR BLOG POST

After your blog post is created and published it’s time to pin it. Pin the Pinterest optimized image to one of your boards, not a group board. Group boards aren’t under your control and can be deleted anytime so make sure you pin your blog post to at least one of YOUR boards.

Tip: Use as many of your targeted keywords in your pin description as possible, while still sounding natural.

Here’s a the pin I use to promote my branding guide.

6. SETUP YOUR PROMOTED PIN

Now it’s time to create your Pinterest promoted pin. Once you login to your the Pinterest ads dashboard, here’s how the process works.

Step 1:

Click the red ‘Promote’ button at the top of your screen

Step 2:

Select a pin by hovering over it and clicking ‘Promote”

Step 3:

Enter in your targeting keywords.
Tip: Add any applicable suggestions that come up with your keyword selections. You can have 100+ keywords.

The keywords you select will be added to your promoted pin and appear to the right in blue buttons AND your estimated weekly impressions will show above that in the top right corner of your screen.

Step 4:

Setup your audience criteria & enter your maximum bid

1. Location – which is only open to the US {I usually leave that blank}
2. Language {I select English, United States}
3. Device {I usually leave this blank}
4. Gender {use this if your brand is geared towards one gender, if not leave blank}
5. Maximum bid – this is the most you’re willing to pay for a click {I usually set this between $0.10-$.020}

Step 5:

Setup your campaign

1. Choose campaign – click the drop down and name your new campaign
2. Enter a start & end date
3. Set your daily budget {I usually enter $2.00-$4.00}

A couple of tips for creating your promoted pin:

➽Do not use any hypey, salesy jargon {this includes ‘free’} on your pin image, blog post or pin description. If you do you can bank on it getting denied.

➽Do not use hashtags in your pin description.

➽Do not put any end dates or scarcity into your free offer. Pinterest will not let you promote anything that has an end date as pins will live on long after that date.

WRAP UP

There you have it. The exact formula for how to use Pinterest promoted pins to grow your list quick style.

This process is not only easy like Sunday morning, but it gets results! I’ve used this exact process to grow my list by 3,000+ peeps in just 4 months.

Here are some stats from my branding guide promoted pin:

➽I’m getting a 42-45% CTR {click through rate}
➽I’m getting $0.06-$0.07 CPC {cost per click}
➽It’s costing me ~$0.21 per new lead
➽It’s generated 2,852 new subscribers
➽Has netted me around $4,000-$5,000 of freelance work.

I’m telling you, if you’ve got your long game mapped out {I.e. you know how you will monetize your new leads} Pinterest promoted pins can propel your list and your brand in a boomlicious, budget friendly kinda way.

Use this Promoted pins blueprint to grow your list and reap the rewards waiting for you!