If you’re tired of asking your Instagram followers to download your freebie or take your quiz, it’s time to start getting your lead magnet on Pinterest.
Pinterest is one of the best ways to grow your email list (and email marketing is the best way to monetize your Pinterest marketing efforts, but that’s a convo for another time).
Your Pinterest audience has the capacity to be so much bigger than your social media following, and they’re full of users looking for exactly what you’re offering.
But there are right and wrong ways to promote your lead magnet on Pinterest. Today, let’s focus on the right ways with 5 steps to start marketing your lead magnet on Pinterest.
What is a Lead Magnet?
Whoa, whoa, whoa, Sarah. Take a few steps back. What’s a lead magnet? And why do I need one?
A lead magnet, which might also be called an opt-in or freebie, is a marketing tool that promises some kind of resource or value in exchange for a lead’s contact info.
Common Lead Magnet Examples
- Checklists
- Mini-courses
- Workbooks
- Guides / e-books
- Quizzes
- Templates
Basically, a lead magnet is anything you’re offering to your audience that’s (hopefully) going to be valuable enough for them to be willing to trade their email address to get it.
And when it comes to marketing your service-based business, it’s a golden ticket to your dream clients’ inboxes, where you can form a deeper relationship with them that eventually leads to a sale.
There are lots of ways to create and market your lead magnet, but today I want to focus on how to market your lead magnet on Pinterest, because well, that’s my jam. But also because I see so many online service providers missing out on the chance to grow their email list through Pinterest, and I don’t want you to be one of them!
How to Market Your Lead Magnet on Pinterest
1. Make sure it’s something they actually want
Growing your email list with a lead magnet isn’t as simple as typing up a checklist, putting it behind a Flodesk opt-in form and calling it a day.
The end-goal behind using a lead magnet to grow your email list is to fill your email list with your ideal clients.
Sara of Between the Lines Copywriting has a great example of how not to create a lead magnet. One of the first freebies she offered was about optimizing your Pinterest account. That meant she was getting email subscribers who were interested in Pinterest marketing content and services, not her copywriting and email marketing services.
So if you want to create an effective lead magnet, you have to really get into the mindset of your ideal client and think about what kind of resource they would be looking for before they’re ready to hire you.
Maybe it’s a checklist of things your homepage needs to include, or a mini guide on setting up your Facebook ads account. Whatever it is, it should be enough info that it’s worth the trade, but without giving away your secret sauce (that you should probably be charging for).
As a bonus, before you create your lead magnet, spend some time on Pinterest and see what kinds of freebies and opt-ins are popular there. You can get some good ideas of what formats your audience is preferring and also see if there are any gaps in the freebie “market” that your lead magnet could fill.
2. Embed your lead magnets on your own website
Once you’ve created your lead magnet and set up your freebie delivery sequence through your email provider, you need somewhere to send your Pinterest users that they can actually opt-in to your list.
This is most important step to effectively market your lead magnet on Pinterest.
Do not link to your Flodesk opt-in form. Please.
I understand, it’s easy to create and one of the biggest benefits of Flodesk. But when you only link to your Flodesk form, you’re sending traffic to a platform that you don’t own.
There are several downsides to this:
- You’re missing out on tons of traffic that could be coming to your site and boosting your SEO
- You don’t have the ability to redirect the traffic if the link ever changes, or to point them toward other content on your website
- You can’t add enough context to the form, meaning you might miss out on conversions
- Pinterest doesn’t like it
Pinterest prioritizes pins that link back to your claimed domain. A pin that links to your Flodesk form won’t perform as well, and it might not even show up as “your” pin. Big bummer.
You don’t have to design and write copy for a full, long-form sales page, but even a simple landing page for your lead magnet will convert so much better for you.
Here’s what the landing page for my Pinterest checklist freebie looks like:
Because it’s so important, I’m going to say it again – if you want to promote your lead magnet on Pinterest, create a landing page on your own website first. I’m telling you exactly what to include later in this post.
3. Create pin graphics to promote your lead magnet
Alright, now that your lead magnet is ready and you’ve got a landing page to point your Pinterest audience to, it’s time to actually create the pins.
My number one tip for creating lead magnet pin images is to include a mockup of the freebie on the image. Whether it’s a workbook, checklist, or even an email mini-series, make it super obvious that there’s something users can actually get if they click on the pin.
Make sure you’re also including a strong call-to-action on the pins and using compelling text overlay to convince users that your pin is worth the click and the signup.
4. Use the right Pinterest keywords
Remember that Pinterest browsing we did when you were creating your lead magnet? That should have given you a head start on your Pinterest keyword research.
Using the right keywords to describe your lead magnet pins is essential to getting those pins in your target audience’s feed.
While I’m sure you came up with a super clever name for your lead magnet, we’re going for clarity over cleverness here. And unless you have a super popular, recognizable business, Pinterest users aren’t going to know or care about that lead magnet name.
So what do you use? Simple, descriptive keywords and phrases that your ideal clients are already searching for on Pinterest.
Honestly, you’re already at an advantage, because tons of Pinterest users search the platform for freebies specifically. A lot of the most popular keywords are for checklists, guides, and templates.
Otherwise, there’s nothing special you have to do to write keyword-rich pin copy for your lead magnet. Just keep following the best practices for Pinterest SEO.
5. Publish pins for your lead magnet consistently
This is another place I see business owners miss out on opportunities to promote their lead magnet on Pinterest all the time. They schedule a few pins one time, and then never again.
As long as your lead magnet is still something you want to market, there’s no reason you can’t pin to it every week!
In fact, every time you sit down to create pins, I would create a new batch of graphics for your lead magnet.
The only hard and fast rule I swear by is to not post the same URL more than once per day, otherwise, you can be pinning to your lead magnet as frequently as you want!
Bonus: promote your lead magnets throughout your blog posts
You don’t have to rely solely on linking directly to your lead magnet to get more subscribers. If you’ve already been pinning to your blog posts, go and update those posts to include calls to actions to the lead magnet!
You can do this simply by linking to your lead magnet landing page, or even embedding an in-line form directly into your blog.
Blogs will likely make up most of your Pinterest strategy, so it’s important to optimize your blog posts for Pinterest traffic!
What to Include in Your Lead Magnet Landing Page
If I lost you around step 2, welcome back! Arguably, your lead magnet landing page is the most important (and most overlooked) part of successfully growing your email list from Pinterest with a lead magnet.
But what should you even include on the page?
As a reminder, Pinterest users landing on your website are likely unfamiliar with you and your brand, so they need more information to trust you enough to want to give you their email address.
Plus, if you’re trying to optimize your website for SEO, you should aim for a minimum of 300 words on your landing page.
Both of those points are why you really shouldn’t be half-assing your lead magnet landing page. Here’s what you should include:
Lead Magnet Landing Page Must-Haves
- Headline / Page Title – this will probably be the title of your lead magnet or the primary benefit / solution that the lead magnet solves, ideally keyword-rich
- Short Description – give any necessary context or details about your lead magnet that would convince a reader to download it, but don’t overwhelm them with info
- Opt-in Form – This is how your reader will actually sign up to receive your freebie. Make sure the opt-in form for your lead magnet is located “above the fold” of your website (aka visible without scrolling)
These are optional, but I’d recommend including as many as possible that are relevant!
- Extra Details – are there any other benefits or features of the lead magnet that would be worth telling, maybe in a bullet point list for the skimmers?
- Visual / Mockup of the Lead Magnet – sometimes showing is better than telling, especially if there are a lot of components to your lead magnet
- Audience Identification – can you make a connection with the target audience of your lead magnet? Tell them that you get their struggle and how the lead magnet will help them.
- Social Proof – if you’ve gotten positive feedback from the lead magnet, highlight that in a testimonial section!
- About Section – who are you and what makes you the expert on this subject?
- Bonus Call to Action – do you have another lead magnet they might be interested in? Or you could direct them to your most popular blog posts, or another page for them to continue their journey
The success of your Pinterest marketing depends on so much more than just what happens on the platform itself. It’s about the entire funnel, and your lead magnet is just one component of it – although admittedly a big one.
If this convinced you to create a landing page for your lead magnet, I’d love to hear about it! Send me an email or DM me on Instagram so I can cheer you on!
