Have a wedding-related business? This is your lucky day! Today we’re going to be talking about marketing wedding services on Pinterest. Since everyone thinks that Pinterest is all about weddings, it’s actually pretty crazy that we’ve never discussed this topic on the podcast yet.
I have Vanessa Kynes on the podcast with me today. Vanessa is a Pinterest marketing strategist for small businesses. She’s noticed over the last year that she’s seeing more traction for people with wedding-based businesses. They’re typically service-based providers (wedding planners or photographers). It’s made Vanessa think about how these wedding service-based providers can use Pinterest to their advantage.
Marketing Wedding Services on Pinterest
The First Steps
The first thing you need as a wedding business when diving into Pinterest is a business account. It’s super easy. You also need to claim your domain or website, which gives you access to rich pins and analytics. The next thing to focus on is creating at least ten niche-related boards. These boards should focus on the topics that brides will be searching for — summer wedding, wedding rings, wedding dresses, etc.
Next, you need to be creating your own content that will draw people to your website so that they’ll book you as their vendor.
The Two Types of Pinners: Dreamers and Doers
How can you really tap into the mindset of someone planning their wedding?
Vanessa believes there are two types of pinners: the dreamers and the doers. The dreamers aren’t even engaged yet but have been planning their wedding day for years. These future brides aren’t necessarily looking at trends.
The doer is the bride who is engaged and is ready to take action. They’re not planning their wedding for today or even the same month but a year in advance. As a content creator or a wedding service provider, you need to be anticipating wedding season trends. You already need to be thinking about spring/summer of 2019. You have to be thinking forward.
Targeting Your Local Brides
How can you brand your profile and boards? What kind of boards do you want to create that you know brides will be looking for?
Since you’re likely a local service-based provider, the most important thing to remember is that you’re not targeting all 200 million users on Pinterest. You might be targeting the Portland area brides. You’ll need a good grasp on those keywords (“Portland wedding venues” and “Portland wedding photographers”, for example. You need to incorporate those keywords into your profile name (e.g. Kate Ahl, Portland Wedding Photographer).
Make sure that your profile description contains both the important keywords about your business as well as your location. Include those in your board descriptions as well.
Your goal is to attract someone who can hire you right now. Wedding photographers have a huge advantage – the ability to create blog posts using the beautiful images you have from the weddings you’re shooting. Brand your photos and think of three keywords that represent the blog post. Then you can create a pin for the blog post, include a text overlay (“beautiful Portland outdoor wedding”) and pin it on Pinterest. Utilizing the keywords and the pin description will help you attract someone who is interested in that venue or the type of photography.
Create a board that’s dedicated to local venues. If someone sees that you’ve taken a beautiful image at a venue they love, you could likely be the person they choose to book. Pinterest is about discovery. You have the opportunity to inspire someone with your image through your keywords.
Related: Creating Images that Capture the Pinner’s Attention
Lead Acquisitions
One thing that’s connected to Pinterest, but isn’t necessarily marketing, is lead acquisitions. Saves and impressions are great, but getting the traffic to your website is what’s most important. And once you get them to your website, you want to take them on a journey. For example, you could provide a free wedding checklist when they sign up for your email list. Make sure once they’re on your website from Pinterest, they know exactly what to do.
Always place a call to action at the end of your blog posts. If you have good reviews on Yelp, create a testimonial page on your site. That way, anyone coming to your site will see that you are recommended by other people.
Marketing Wedding Services on Pinterest: Q & A
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These questions all came from my Facebook group, which you can join if you haven’t yet.
How do you turn your wedding photographs into a really great Pinterest strategy and how often/many of those photos should you use? – Megan
The trickiest part of marketing images is the text overlay on top of the image. When placing the overlay, make sure that you’re not taking away from the shot. You should always have a branded logo somewhere on every image. If people are using the search option for local photographers, they will start to recognize your logo and see the style and continuity of the images.
Make sure you have three or so boards that every image can be pinned to. (A main board, a details board, a venue board, etc…) Also, dig into your Google analytics to find out what kind of pins are bringing you the most traffic. Prioritize those images.
Does text on images work for wedding photography? – Jennifer
People do click on really beautiful images without text on them. Just make sure you always have some sort of branded logo on them. That will provide a subtle amount of context that will draw the viewer in.
Are there any mistakes I should avoid as a wedding stylist/florist/planner? – Megan
A mistake is a missed opportunity. You have to ask yourself why a bride is booking a wedding planner. Maybe they’re afraid they’re going to be stressed out. Offer some pins that say “My Top 10 Tips to a Flawless Wedding Day.” Flip it the other way and work with the bride’s questions and problems in order to increase the chance that they will hire you.
Another mistake is creating images that don’t lead back to your website. Pinterest is not just a Look Book. Don’t miss any opportunities to get people on to your site.
How often should I be pinning and what type of content should I pin?
Dig through your Google analytics and see what has resonated well with search engine traffic. Start with your top performing content and pin those pins. Start out pinning ten pins a day, including pins that aren’t your content. Pull content from publications or places that are far enough away from you that they aren’t necessarily a competitor. You can use Tailwind to get those pins scheduled in advance so that your system doesn’t fall through the cracks.
Are there any good Tailwind tribes for weddings? Is that something to be incorporated into the strategy?
The point of tribes is to get your content pinned by other people, so it couldn’t hurt. The most effective thing is just having a good workflow. Load up your Tailwind queue for the whole week or month and then walk away. Have a good strategy for getting your own content on the platform and go from there.
One idea that might work is having a group board for a wedding with the bride and the event planner piling all the pins onto the board. After the wedding is over (with the client’s permission), keyword the board. Use it in a way that can make it powerful in the search option. That’s a great way to reuse something you’ve already created.
Getting Started On Your Pinterest Wedding Marketing
When you start something new, especially marketing your business, what type of expectations should you have? Keep in mind that Pinterest is a slow burn. It could take 3-6 months to see traffic coming in from the platform. Of course, service-based providers don’t need thousands of people on their site every day. You can only serve a certain number of people a month anyway. You just need a minimal amount of clicks that will turn into leads.
Your strategy doesn’t have to be perfect. You just need to get started and get your content out there. If you’re using keywords on your blog and creating content regularly, you’re improving your SEO presence as well.
If you don’t know where to start, sit down with a pen and paper and make a list of some action items you need to tackle right away. Then tap into who your bride is so you know who you’re targeting. We don’t want you to be overwhelmed with everything we’ve talked about today. Just work on 3 simple things that will help you kickstart your efforts at marketing wedding services on Pinterest.
Want even more info on how to use Pinterest as a wedding professional? Check out Vanessa’s expert tips over at her site.
Time Stamp:
Intro
4:12 – Vanessa’s Wedding Experience
7:30 – The First Steps
9:06 – The Two Types of Pinners: Dreamers and Doers
11:23 – Targeting Your Local Brides
18:52 – Lead Acquisitions
20:40 – Q & A
34:52 – Getting Started On Your Wedding Marketing
Hi Kate and Vanessa,
Great podcast!
I think I can add some insight into the “text overlay vs. not” question. I have a quite a history with Pinterest weddings. I opened my wedding blog’s account when Pinterest was a baby in 2011.
I completely agree about always branding the images. But there are also situations where text on the image can do well. Most of my pins are overlays or strictly text and some take off nicely. (But please don’t go by me on “almost all overlays” … I am not a service provider and do not have a local focus, so my specific strategies aren’t relevant here. lol.)
Straight photo pins catch the attention of those looking for planning inspiration. But the piece about learning what to do when planning a wedding is huge, too. The text overlay pins that do best are title images for “how to”, “top”, or list-type blog posts. Most couples are doing this for the first time and get lost in the details. So, service providers can write thoughtful blog posts about what clients need to do related to their area. This can be effective if they’ve keyworded local and put a lead capture at the end.
Or even articles tangent to their area of expertise can help. Photographers may find, for example, that a lot of their clients do not use wedding planners. So couples often have a lot of non-photography questions. If a photographer writes a post answering the top 10 questions she runs across it puts her on the readers’ radar as a vendor. Or an officiant can write about local outdoor wedding venues. Any topic that catches the interest of couples before they’ve committed to vendors.
HTH!
Bobette
Totally helps! Thank you.
Bobette,
Thanks for your comment and your experience! I definitely think those ‘how to’, top 10, etc. types of content are super valuable because they solve a big problem for the beginning bride planning their wedding! I think a photographer is often the first thing a bride books (at least in my case), followed by venue. Those should be top priorities for a wedding professional either as a photographer, planner, or venue host!
Vanessa
You are welcome!
Very helpful article. Thanks for the ideas you shared to us about the marketing wedding services. Keep on posting.