How To Grow Your Email List With Pinterest
I had just started my blog and service based business in late 2021. I knew I had wanted to incorporate a blog because I love to write long-form content. Since I was just starting out, my only marketing plan with my blog and sharing my free resources was to use social media, Pinterest, and good ol’ fashion SEO.
After a few months of creating a few blogs, I decided to check my Google Analytics to see if any of my articles had gained any traction. To my surprise I was generating 10-20 sessions per day from a single blog post, consistently over several weeks.
I was shocked! And of course pleasantly surprised. This is what you want to see when you’re just starting out with your blog. But, I had more questions:
Where was this traffic coming from
Why was this particular post so popular
And what were the readers doing after they read the post
I’m going to show you my strategy for going from 0 to 50 email subscribers of ideal customers using Pinterest, a Blog, and Email!
Catch the YouTube Video here
or keep reading…
Now, most gurus are going to tell you to think about your call to action on your blog post, but I have a more agile approach to marketing. Instead of building all my pieces up front and wasting a lot of time creating lead magnets and email forms and workflows, my initial goal was to prove out this blogging thing was even going to go somewhere by making sure that the blog content itself was something that was going to get traffic.
Where was the traffic coming from
Not too much surprise here, the only source of traffic to my blog was Pinterest! I had created a couple Pins when I initially wrote the blog, and these Pins were bringing me the traffic to my blog.
I decided to go with Pinterest because it’s a search platform where I know business owners are looking for social media / digital marketing tips. Seeing that these Pins were bringing traffic to my site, without much additional work, affirmed that Pinterest as a platform to share my blog and free resources was a good long-term strategy!
Why was this post so popular
When a blog post or a Pin starts to take off you want to make the process repeatable and find the components that are working so that you can apply the same methods to other Pins.
When I looked on Pinterest at my specific Pins that were bringing the traffic to my site, there were a few things that stood out:
The topic is very niched to Instagram Reels and Call to Actions. My post is top ranking for “Call to Actions for Instagram Reels” keywords
The Pin Headline drew in the user with the words “killer” and the number “3”
The Pin Graphic is clean, the title is clear, and there is a call to action on the Pin
Lastly, the topic is timely with Reels and short form video still gaining attention for Instagram
Where did the users go
Now that I understood why this Pin was driving traffic I had to figure out what the user did once they finished reading the blog.
They left.
Crickets.
They were very rarely reading my other blogs. They were not going to my home page. They were not joining my email list. They were not looking at my services.
These warm leads to my site were just gone!
Optimize the blog post with a Call to Action (CTA)
(Is it ironic that the blog gaining traffic was about Call to Actions and I didn’t have a powerful call to action at the end of that post?)
Now the blog post had consistent traffic, and the blog topic was proven, NOW it was the right time to start optimizing the article. (Remember when I said I had agile marketing methodologies!) Once you prove that certain articles drive an audience, you can brainstorm what you want your reader to do once they finish the blog post.
I love waiting on creating additional resources, email opt-ins, workflows, etc. until you know the blog post is a topic users want to read about! You should still have a Call to Action, or a Call to Engage at the end of your post, but before you know if it’s going to be worth your time it is ok to wait and see!
Here are a few ways to keep users on your website and engaged with your content:
Provide other blogs or resources that can expand on similar topics, so that they can read more
Invite the user to join you on other platforms. For example if you’re talking about the topic on a Podcast or YouTube, you could link to those resources to keep the conversation going
Present an offer to the reader to join you on a discovery call so that you can share more about your services or how you can solve the readers needs
End with a free lead magnet that dives deeper into the topic of the blog post
For this blog post I decided I wanted to work towards growing my email list
so I created a lead magnet diving deeper into the blog topic, “Call to Actions for Instagram Reels”. In this case I created a PDF of several more creative “call to actions” I’ve seen used on Instagram Reels.
An email list lead magnet generally consists of an opt-in form where a user can enter their email address in exchange for a shareable document like a PDF.
Through my email provider, Flodesk, I was able to create an opt-in form for this new lead magnet. I updated the blog post to include the opt-in form at the end of the blog post.
(Most email marketing platforms have this option, but if yours does not, you can use a link to an “email landing page” or on Squarespace you have the option to allow users to fill in a form and the email addresses get saved in a spreadsheet)
I hit publish.
And let the Pinterest and SEO magic do its thang.
In 7 days I gained 7 new email subscribers. In 45 days more than 50 new email subscribers.
With this tiny change, each day someone has the ability to find my blog article through Pinterest and subscribe to my email list. Without me, the business owner, ever physically asking someone to join. Without tricks. Without doing anything extra.
Grow Your Email List With Pinterest
One of my favorite things about Pinterest is that the platform generates a warm audience for you. Pinners are searching on Pinterest. And they have to take a few steps before they ever leave Pinterest and land on your website. So when they do convert as a visitor to your site, they have a high search intent for the topic they were originally searching for.
In my case, the Pinner was already searching for “Call to Actions for Instagram Reels” on Pinterest when they came to my site. By providing additional value and expanding on the blog post topic, the Pinner was willing to exchange their email address for the free download.
Optimize your blog posts
If you’re wondering how you can grow your email list with Pinterest and your blog, start with reviewing your analytics!
Which blog posts are getting consistent traffic? As you can see from my example, it doesn’t even need to be a large number! (10-20 sessions per day)
How can you go deeper into the topic of your blog post?
Create a free digital download
Add an opt-in form on the blog
Cheers yourself with your coffee and jammies, because you don’t need to be face to camera on Instagram asking people to join your email! 😆
Let me know if you try this strategy! Seriously, I would love to know if it works for you! OR get support on this strategy by filling out an application to work with me!
p.s. If you want to catch this in video form, I have a video on YouTube that explains in a little more detail on how I used Pinterest to start building my email list.
Catch the YouTube Video here
Pin it!
