We get a lot of business owners who come to us and want to start marketing on Pinterest. That’s awesome! It’s always a great idea to diversify your marketing, and growing your account on Pinterest is a great way to do that. However, not everyone is set up to perform well on Pinterest. And we don’t want you to invest with us if you’re not ready. It sucks for both parties!

Here are a few indicators that you’re not ready to start marketing on Pinterest:

You don’t have a working website

You absolutely need to have a website to be successful on Pinterest. Pinterest is one of the queens when it comes to driving organic traffic to your website, and if you don’t have one, you’re missing the main purpose behind marketing on the platform. We no longer take on clients who don’t have a functional, running website for this reason.

Your website isn’t mobile-friendly

According to Hootsuite, 82% of Pinterest users are using Pinterest on their mobile device. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, then you essentially don’t have a website to direct traffic to at all. Not only that, but people will click on your pin and immediately exit your website, and this will tell google that your website sucks, which will harm your Google search ranking.

You don’t have a lot of pages on your website

The Pinterest algorithm now penalizes you if you’re constantly linking your pins back to the same URL (for example, your homepage). You need to have many pages on your site to get more impressions, which is why we highly recommend having a blog or a lot of product pages.

You don’t have any video content

Like every other social media platform out there, Pinterest is becoming more and more video-focused. We love reposting reels and tik toks on Pinterest (and they do incredibly well!), so if you don’t have any already made, or you don’t have any b-roll video, you might not be ready to use the platform.

You have no imagery to share

Pinterest is a visual search engine, and we need images to pin! Make sure you have lots of photos or graphics created before you start a profile. The Pinterest algorithm also does not reward pins that use the same photo over and over. Also, the best photos are professionally taken ones.

You don’t know your audience

We need to know who we’re talking to in order to develop a strategy for you. The more you can tell us about your target audience’s buying habits, demographics, etc., the better we can create Pinterest content that speaks to them.

Your business “genre” isn’t popular on Pinterest

This seems like an obvious one, but if you’re a auto mechanic, we don’t recommend using Pinterest to grow your business. Why? Because people don’t use Pinterest to find their nearest auto mechanic. Make sure your audience is on Pinterest looking for your products/services/information!

There aren’t other lead forms on your website

Yes, Pinterest is amazing for getting eyeballs on your site. But the next step is to keep them coming back for more. In order for this to happen, you need to have forms and things in place that will get them to either sign up for your email list (which you OWN), or follow you on another social platform. We highly recommend placing email sign-ups throughout your site, for example:

• on the sidebar of your blog
• in your website footer
• as a pop-up when people land on your website

We also recommend placing an Instagram or Tik Tok follow button in the footer of your website. Better yet, embed your Instagram feed so your audience can get a preview of why they should follow you there.

We’re pretty passionate about this because social media sites are rented land. Pinterest or Instagram could crash and be gone over night—you never know! So it’s a good thing to use them to grow your email list, since it’s the one thing that you actually own.

If you read through this blog post and have all of these things already in place, congratulations! We are so proud of you! AND we’d love to start working together 😉 Reach out here if you’re interested in hiring a Pinterest Manager!