HOW TO MAKE MONEY WITH YOUR PINS ON PINTEREST

Recall on our article about 5 Steps to use Pinterest to promote your business Products, Audience, and Sales we wrote about some solid ways to get your pins go viral through well Optimized Profiles, Pins and Boards.

Well, in this article we’ll be checking out various ways you can make money on pinterest through Pinning but before we get started let’s checkout STEPS TO TAKE BEFORE YOU START MAKING MONEY ON PINTEREST

 

1. Pick a Niche to Promote on Pinterest

Pick a niche that interests your passion and focus all your efforts on that one niche. One of the best ways to start gaining followers on Pinterest and getting your pins seen by large audience is by being super focused on a specific niche.

Think about it, if you are following someone on Facebook or Instagram, it’s because you like what they have to offer and want to see more of it. Wouldn’t you get turned off if you followed, let’s say a home decor profile and end up seeing a ton of fitness or cooking posts in your feed.

That’s not what you signed up for. Right? And more than likely, you’ll end up unfollowing them because that’s not what you’re interested in.

You’ll have much more success making money on Pinterest if you are giving people what they came to you for. Not a bunch of random pins that they have no interest in.

2. Create a Pinterest Business Account

You need to create a business account on Pinterest to start promoting products and services. If you already have a personal account, it pretty simple to switch over to a business account.

All you need to do is go into your profile settings on the top right hand of your account and switch your account to business. Then under business type, pick what kind of business you represent. It’s that simple.

If you have a website or blog you’ll also need to claim your site to enable Pinterest analytics and rich pins. I’m not going to explain how to do this because it all depends on what company is hosting your website. You can find the instructions on how to do this with your host provider in the Pinterest Help guide here.

3. Build Your Profile

Next, you should also build a compelling profile which includes your business name, and relevant keywords related to your niche. This will help you get found for not only your business but the types of things you will be promoting.

You’ll also want to fill in the “About You” section. Again, use keywords that people are looking for that are relevant. Lastly, you’ll want to connect your Pinterest account to your other social media profiles such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

4. Stay relevant to boost your earnings

The best way to go about adding affiliate pins and earning a commission is to add them to relevant boards. For instance, you do not want to pin an affiliate link to a pair of shoes on a personal finance board, this is spamming and you won’t make any affiliate sales this way.

Instead you should create different boards specifically for your affiliate pins. Using the same example as above, if you create a board called “Fashionable Shoes” and pin all your affiliate shoe pins to it, this is not spamming people.

People are looking at your “Fashionable Shoes” board because they are interested in shoes. People are much more likely to make a purchase because that is what they are looking for and in turn, you make more money with your pins.

Start off by creating at least 20 boards that are super relevant to your business, Pinterest business account and the types of product you plan on promoting.

Make sure you also fill in your board descriptions with a nice paragraph on what the board contains. Again, use relevant keywords throughout your descriptions without keyword stuffing.

Fill these boards with your pins as well as popular pins from other pinners that are relevant to your niche. Please don’t only add all your pins to your own boards. This looks spammy and won’t get you very far earning money on Pinterest.

5. Pin Descriptions and Keywords are Important

Create awesome keyword-rich descriptions to your affiliate pins.  If you just pin an image of the affiliate product and only add your link, then your pins will not get many eyes on them.

You need to add an eye-catching and intriguing pin description with relevant keywords related to your product. This is how your pins will show up when people search for the product or a solution to their problems (ie your product or service) and increase your chances of making a sale.

Create multiple pin images of your affiliate product to get more eyes on them.  Make long vertical pins with different angles of the product. Adding a text overlay to your images will also increase the number of eyes on your pins.

6. Join Pinterest Group Boards

Join group boards that are related to your specific niche and affiliate products. To join these board, you’ll need to contact the board owner and request an invitation. Most group boards will have instructions in the board description on how to contact them to request an invitation.

Most times, there is an email address to contact the board owners. Never send a group board request that says something like “Add me to your board”. I know that I don’t even bother when I get requests like this.

Instead, send a nice email and politely ask for an invitation. Let them know you love their pins and are following them. Be complimentary, you’ll catch more flies with honey.

Group boards are a great way to get more eyes on your pins. Be sure to read the board rules, if they specify no affiliate pins then don’t pin them to that board, you will get kicked out.

Even if the group board doesn’t allow affiliate pins, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t join them. It’s still a good way to get noticed and gain more followers. Once you grow your following, your affiliate pins will get seen by your followers in their smart feed.

Schedule your Pinterest pins Usin TailWind

Pinterest wants its users to be consistent and engaged on their site. The more consistent you are, the more your pins will get seen. Of course, nobody can spend all day, every day on Pinterest, no matter how much we’d love to.

This is where a Pinterest scheduler comes in super handy. Tailwind is the best scheduler available right now to schedule your pins.

It’s one of the easiest ways to pin your affiliate pins on autopilot as well repin them consistently onto your boards with little effort. Using Tailwind to auto-pin is very inexpensive and will save you a ton of time.

There are lots of different ways to make money using Pinterest. You may have read some other articles on “how to make money on Pinterest”, but the problem is most of these articles involve blogging or having a website?

Although these are great ways to make money on Pinterest, they aren’t the only ways. Of course, if you do want to try your hand at blogging, I do cover it in this article.

But you can also make money on Pinterest if you don’t have a blog. There are many other ways to make money from home pinning using this visual search engine and social media platform.

Whether you want to earn a full-time income or just want to make extra money, here are 9 ways to make money on Pinterest.

Make Money on Pinterest with Affiliate Marketing

Using affiliate marketing as a means to make money on Pinterest is probably the most popular way to get paid to pin. If you are unaware of what affiliate marketing is, let me take a minute to explain it.

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing in is basically promoting products that you use and love in exchange for a commission. Whenever someone purchases the product or service you are promoting, through your affiliate referral link, you earn money.

Once you sign up to promote a product, you are given links to your affiliate referral code. This is how the companies of products you refer know that you are the person who made the referral.

You can post affiliate links directly through pins on Pinterest. When someone clicks on one of your affiliate links, he or she is taken to the merchant’s website to complete the sale and you get a commission (a certain percentage of a transaction, or a flat fee) on the sale.

For example, if you want to promote a company’s product, you simply create a compelling pin that contains an affiliate link to the product and start circulating your pin on Pinterest.

When someone clicks on the pin containing the link to the product, he or she is taken directly to the merchant’s sales page, check out section or website to complete the sale. It is easy to promote products on Pinterest that you believe in and think your followers will benefit from.

How to find affiliate programs to promote

There are affiliate programs for tons of product and services you use on a daily basis. You are probably not even aware of them if you are new to affiliate marketing. They may not always be labeled “affiliate”. Some might be labeled “referral”, “refer a friend” or “invite friends”.

Here is a short list of referral programs for popular products that you are probably using right now.

Use Refer a Friend Programs

Many companies show you where to sign up for their affiliate program, usually in the footer of their website. If you don’t see a link to a product you use and love, then contact the company and ask them if they have an affiliate program.

Make sure you let them know you plan on using the links on Pinterest so they are aware and are ok with it. Some companies don’t advertise their program directly on their site. It never hurts to just ask.

Sell Your Products To Make Money on Pinterest

You can sell your own physical or digital products directly on Pinterest. You can sell eBooks, e-courses, stock photos, jewelry, clothing, or anything on Pinterest.

Create beautiful pins with links back to your products and add them to Pinterest to advertise your product. When someone clicks on one of these pins, he or she will be directed to your storefront or check out area to complete the sale or transaction.

If you do not want to create your own products, then you can buy products in bulk at cheap prices from a company and resell them at higher prices.

This requires you to invest upfront to own your own inventory. If you do not want, or can’t invest upfront capital to own the products, you can still sell products on Pinterest.

You can use a drop shipping business model where you receive payment from a buyer and then forward the order to a drop shipper (company or manufacturer) that delivers the product to the buyer.

Make Money as a Pinterest VA

If you have a large following on Pinterest and know all the in’s and out’s of how the platform works, why not become a Pinterest VA? A Pinterest virtual assistant is a VA that specializes in Pinterest.

As a Pinterest VA, you’ll help grow his or her clients’ businesses through Pinterest. A lot of businesses do not have the expertise and time to manage their own Pinterest platform, so they hire Pinterest VAs to manage the platform for them.

You can do a variety of tasks for your clients, including

• designing compelling pins for clients
• writing SEO-rich text for pins
• setting up a pinning schedule using tools like Tailwind
• setting up a Pinterest account
• sending requests to join Pinterest group boards
• and more…

You can make a full-time income as a Pinterest VA working for one or multiple clients. Advertise your services in blogging facebook groups, on Fiverr or even by creating pins and circulating them on Pinterest.

Pinning on Pinterest to Sell Your Services

If you have a service based business, you can find clients to grow your business via Pinterest. It works just like affiliate marketing, but instead of sending people to someone else’s sales page, you send them to yours.

Once on your sales page, Pinterest users can find information on the services you offer or provide. Then they can buy or sign up for your services online.

The best way of promoting your online business services is to link Pinterest images from your Pinterest account to your website, blog or sales page online.

Whether you are an SEO expert, wedding planner, freelance writer or social media consultant, you can make money selling your services using Pinterest.

Make Money with Mailing List Using Pinterest

Have you ever heard the term “the money is in the list”? If you haven’t, then it refers to making money by growing an email list and marketing to your subscribers.

Email marketing is a powerful marketing tool companies and individuals use to promote their products and services. The more people onto your mailing list using Pinterest, the more money you make. You then can earn commissions by promoting products or services to the people on the list.

The best way of building an email list using Pinterest is to create a direct downloadable opt-in freebie such as an eBook and e-course that you share on your Pinterest account through eye-catching pin images.

When someone clicks on one of these pins to download the opt-in freebie, he or she gets added to your email list. This way you can build and grow your email list and sell your products and services to the people on the email list at a later stage.

Plus, or you can promote other people’s products and services to your email subscribers through affiliate links and make money for any sales, leads or clicks generated through your affiliate marketing efforts.

Earn Money Blogging Using Pinterest

If you have a blog, you can drive loads of traffic from Pinterest to your blog and make money with display ads. When your blog gets more traffic, you can make more money using PPV (Pay Per View) advertising model where you get paid based on the pageview your blog gets.

If you use PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising model on your blog, then you can expect to earn more from PPC ads as you grow pageviews from Pinterest. More traffic means more potential clicks. PPC ads earn you money every time a user clicks on one of these ads displayed on your blog.

Pinterest could be the main source of traffic or one of many sources of traffic to your blog. Many blog owners earn thousands of dollars from online ads.

Become a Pinterest Influencer

If you have built a huge following on your Pinterest account, you can make money as a Pinterest influencer. There are lots of big companies that will pay you to help them succeed on this visual search engine.

The work would involve repinning pins of the companies you would like to work with, creating awesome-looking pins, and creating Pinterest strategies for your clients.

If you are an expert Pinterest user and really understand Pinterest, you can also join Pinterest’s Pin Collective program to work with Pinterest advertisers.

You can also join an influencer marketing agency like Intellifluence which connects influencers directly with brands looking for influencers to run and manage Pinterest campaigns for them.

Make Money by Promoting Other Companies on Pinterest via Sponsored Pins

If you have a lot of Pinterest followers, then you can also make money by promoting products or services of a company on your Pinterest platform via sponsored Pins.

Some companies will pay you a flat fee which varies based on your number of followers and the number of pins to be shared to promote their products or services.

You can publish sponsored posts with links back to the client’s site on your blog and then create compelling pins with links back to the sponsored posts. When a user clicks on one of these sponsored pins, he or she is directed to the relevant sponsored post on your blog and can click through the links to the client’s site.

Another way is to add sponsored pins from your Pinterest platform to the client’s site directly. You can contact companies directly to ask for sponsorship. If you have thousands of followers, then many companies will approach you.

When choosing a company to promote via sponsored pins, it is very important that the products the company is offering appeals to your audience. If it isn’t, you’ll have a hard time making money.

Make Money on Pinterest as a Consultant

If you really understand how Pinterest works, you can make money on Pinterest as a Pinterest consultant. Lots of businesses do not understand how Pinterest works and how to benefit from Pinterest marketing.

That is where you come in by becoming a Pinterest consultant. You can create and execute Pinterest strategies for your clients, make beautiful images and pin them for your clients.

You can also manage your clients’ Pinterest accounts and build strategies and offer more services to help them succeed on Pinterest.

CONCLUSION

It is possible to make money on Pinterest if you know your stuff. You’ll need to create beautiful and eye-catching images to get noticed but there is more to it than that. Just remember, Pinterest is a visual search engine.

Just like with Google, SEO (search engine optimization) is how your pins will show up in search results. You must create compelling SEO-rich descriptions as well as visually appealing pins that grab peoples attention.

Remember to keep your pins relevant to what your audience started following you for in the first place. You’ll have a hard time converting your followers into buyers if you are promoting random products and services that they weren’t looking for in the first place.