Is Marketing on Pinterest Worth it?

Updated May 4, 2021

When it comes to social media platforms, most businesses and marketers seem to have a firm understanding of the importance and place of each one. Everyone needs a Facebook Page, and Instagram has high engagement rates while Twitter is great for joining conversations and talking breaking news.

But what about Pinterest?

Pinterest sometimes gets ignored, being written off as the place high-income women go to buy organic gourmet dog treats for their furbaby, but that’s not a fair assumption. While sure, I’d be willing to bet you can probably find those dog treats on Pinterest with a careful search, there’s much more on the platform, and many more audience members who are checking it out.

If you’re wondering if Pinterest marketing is worth it from a generic standpoint, the answer is yes. There are no big long pros-and-cons lists in this post, just a lot of benefits that Pinterest can offer and insight into how to decide if it’s right for your specific business.

Who Should Use Pinterest Marketing?

Source: http://www.someecards.com/workplace-cards/pinterest-marketing-business-advertising-funny-ecard/

Pinterest marketing isn’t right for every business, and I want to acknowledge that upfront. We never want any of our clients to invest in a service or platform that won’t work for them.

Whether it’s right for your specific business is a question that you’ll have to answer for yourself, but here are two general guidelines that I’ve found to be true:

• B2C businesses typically benefit more from Pinterest marketing than B2B businesses
• Visual products and content do well on the platform, as does DIY content that has a clear value proposition

That being said, if your audience is on Pinterest, there’s no reason that you shouldn’t be too, at least to test it out.

Here’s the latest on Pinterest:

• Pinterest has 100.8 million users in the U.S., according to the Hootsuite Digital Marketing trends of Jan 2021, slide #60.
• Pinterest still has a largely female audience, reaching over 60% of their global audience. 
• Although they’ve often been associated with females, the 2020 stats suggest the up-and-coming demographic includes a significant increase in males. According to Pinterest, 40% are male and GenZ.
• Users are twice as likely to be high earners and educated than they are to be low income, meaning more spending power. One recent study found that 39% of Pinterest users have a combined household income of $75,000 or greater annually.

3 Reasons Why Pinterest Marketing is Worth It

If you’re hemming and hawing over whether you want to go through the hassle of creating another social media profile and dealing with its maintenance, take a look at these 3 incredible reasons why Pinterest marketing is definitely worth it if it’s a good fit for you.

Connect With High-Intent, Ready-to-Purchase Audience Members

Pinterest users, on average, are going to have some extra disposable income, which is already a good start. On top of this, regular Pinners are also particularly high-intent customers.

Consider the following from Pinterest’s site:

• 98% of Pinners have tried something new that they discovered on Pinterest
• 77% of users purchased a new product or from a new brand
• 84% of Pinners actively use Pinterest when they’re trying to decide what to purchase

Source: https://business.pinterest.com/audience/

The vast majority of Pinners are using the platform to help them find, research, and make purchasing decisions. This means that if you aren’t here and your competition is, you’re losing an enormous potential chunk of sales.

Pinterest provides what they call, “Audience Insights” to break up demographics and utilize data. It has links connecting to Instagram, “buttons that say, view similar products”, moving video pins and Tik Toks, options to buy and share pins, and so much more.

Source: https://business.pinterest.com/analytics-and-measurement

Source: Pinterest Q420 Earnings Report

Pinterest continues to be up and coming as they release new functions. They recently released a new story function, culture boards, and the option to react to pins with emojis. They are a platform for both creativity and consumers.

Keep Your Pins Circulating For Ages

Pinterest isn’t like most other social media marketing sites, where users focus on sharing their own thoughts. They come to Pinterest to find and save ideas, not necessarily start a conversation.

Because the emphasis is on saving content, which then, in turn, shares it, Pins will stay relevant and showing up in users’ feeds for significantly longer than posts do on other social media sites, giving you an invaluable opportunity to establish brand awareness without a ton of additional effort.

How long, you ask? One study actually found that the average half-life of a pin is 3.5 months, being impactful 1,680 times longer than the average Facebook post. Some go even longer; the example above is from a pin that was at the top of my browsing feed, and the comments indicate that it’s at least two months old.

Attract Users Who Are Casually Browsing & Actively Searching

This may be the biggest benefit yet: Pinterest is a versatile platform, and users are regularly using the browsing feature to discover content when they’re bored and the search feature to do specific research.

This platform gives you the best of both worlds by allowing you to use demand harvesting to attract users looking for products or services like yours and demand generation to create interest from users who are just scrolling through their feed to kill time on a Sunday afternoon.

Again, this is an outstanding brand awareness opportunity, because you can connect with users at different stages of the buying journey, giving you more visibility and selling potential overall. This is true for organic Pinterest marketing, but it also holds true for PPC Promoted Pin advertising if you decide to go that route and invest ad spend into the platform.

Conclusion

So, after reading this post, the answer to the question “Is Pinterest Marketing Worth It” is pretty simple. For our Reddit fans or those who just want to skim, the TL;DR version of the answer is “absolutely yes, as long as your target audience is on the platform.”

With Pinners’ high average income, their intent to use the platform to research buying decisions and discover products, and the extended half-life of pins, it’s an excellent opportunity whether you want to focus exclusively on organic marketing or throw in their PPC ads, too. Using it well will just come down to some standard best practices and finding what works for your specific audience.

What do you think? Do you use Pinterest marketing for your business? Do you use it for organic marketing or PPC advertising? Let’s connect on social media.

Excited to get your Pinterest marketing campaigns up and running? We can help with that. Get in touch here to learn more today!