This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase.
Are you hooked on Pinterest?
One of my favorite pastimes has been to go on Pinterest. Browsing the cute home decor, fun DIY projects, and recipe ideas is so relaxing for me.
If you have a passion for Pinterest like I do you, may be surprised to find that you can actually make money from Pinterest!
Many of the ways to make money on Pinterest require a blog or website, but some don’t!
If you are planning on starting a blog, I recommend a self-hosted website through SiteGround. It costs about $4 a month and then you own a little piece of the internet!
Depending on whether you want just an extra stream of income, or if you want to make Pinterest your full-time business or career, there are several options for you:
Table of Contents
1. Using Affiliate Links
First, what is an affiliate link?
An affiliate link is a link that has special tracking on it, so when someone clicks on your specific link if they make a purchase then you get a commission from the sale!
On Pinterest, you can link to blog posts that you have affiliate links in and when they click on the links or buy something, you can then get a cut.
Or you can even pin your affiliate links right on Pinterest! Pinterest is the best platform for affiliate marketing because of the huge viral potential on Pinterest.
How often do you share a post on Facebook? Probably not a lot, right? But on Pinterest, you are sharing dozens of pins per day!
The key is to have pins that look good and have descriptions that are captivating and keyword rich. It is important to also pick affiliate programs that you trust (think places that you consistently buy from).
One of the keys to Pinterest affiliate marketing is to make sure that you are consistently pinning everyday. You can pin manually or you can use a scheduler like Tailwind or BoardBooster to schedule your pins.
I love Pinterest affiliate marketing so much that I even created a course all about how to do it.
These are the same strategies that I use to make affiliate sales on Pinterest every single day!
You can take $10 off the course when you use the coupon code PINMONEY at checkout!
2. Selling Physical or Digital Products
Maybe you have a shop and want to promote your products online with Pinterest, you totally can!
Whether you have an Etsy shop selling handmade baby clothes or a blog where you sell e-books Pinterest can work for you.
You can pin shot of your products right on Pinterest and direct them to your product page. Just make sure that the product is cohesive with the rest of your Pinterest feed and that it is a vertical image (at least 735 x 1102 pixels minimum!).
You also can use lifestyle images on Pinterest when selling your products since they have a higher repin rate. Do this by collaborating with bloggers or influencers and then promote their posts where they feature your products.
If you have a blog on your shop’s website Instead of linking pinned images directly to your product page, try linking to a blog post that mentions the item. This way the reader can see even more of the value that the product provides and will begin to envision how they will use it in their life.
When someone is browsing on Pinterest, most likely they are not looking for your brand, so it is super important to make a good impression right off the bat.
You can do this by having beautiful pins, a professional website, and having a simple and straightforward shopping experience. by making it easy for them to contact you from the site.
If you already have an online store or are just opening one, you can use Pinterest to sell them as long as you make your pins fit for Pinterest. You can use tools like Tailwind’s Pin inspector in order to gauge which of your existing pins are doing well so you can make similar ones for your product pins.
3. Promoting your services on Pinterest
You might be thinking, okay, cool Kinzie, that works for them…what about me? I have a service based business. Don’t worry! I’ve got you 😉
When promoting your service business on Pinterest, you can use testimonials, motivational quotes, tips, strategies, and your portfolio in order to show your audience what you can do for them.
Link your pins to blog posts that will have a good call to action (CTA). These CTA’s will usually inspire your audience to join your email list, opt-in for a free trial or consultation, or download a resource in exchange for your email address.
If your CTA is a free call then you can warm them up by chatting with them to see if you would be a good fit for each other. If you have some kind of email opt-in make sure to add them to a sales funnel or welcome sequence that will warm them up to you. This will make them much more likely to purchase your services or book a discovery call.
If you aren’t sure how to set up your sales funnel check out this post where I’ll walk you through the fundamentals of ConvertKit.
Make sure your CTA’s are easy to find and in multiple places on your website. In order to establish yourself as an expert in your field, you can link pinned images to your case studies and other content that will help your audience see you as the awesome biz lady that you are!
4. Pinterest Influencer
If you have a lot of Pinterest followers or get a lot of clicks, you can use this to your advantage. You can partner with brands on group boards in order to get engagement and followers and bring traffic to their site.
Pinterest also has what is called the Pin Collective where they match influencers with brands. Right now it is a super tiny group of influencers they have accepted, but hopefully, they will open that up to more in the future!
Through your own negotiations for sponsored posts, you may be able to secure a deal with a brand where you are paid by the Pin.
5. Advertising
You can put banner ads on your website using an advertising network. Traffic from Pinterest to your site can make you money when people will click on these ads. On average you can earn around $7-10 for every 1,000 page views. Rates will also differ depending on the ads and advertising company you go with.
When you pin pins that have keyword rich descriptions that come up high in Pinterest’s search, you can get this constant flow of traffic.
To increase Pinterest exposure, try creating several pins for each blog post and see which one performs the best.
6. Pinterest Virtual Assistant Services
I actually did this for about two years and it was so much fun!
A lot of bloggers and companies are actually looking for people to manage their Pinterest accounts. A Pinterest manager will implement strategies in order to help the business achieve their goals.
There are lots of different things you can do as a Pinterest manager.
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If you are savvy in graphic design you can design the pins for each product or blog post
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You can schedule pins in with a tool like BoardBooster or Tailwind
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You can manually pin, pins
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You can manage the brands Promoted Pin campaigns
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You can do an account makeover where you update the accounts board descriptions, board titles, board covers, etc. to give the account a more professional feel and to stand out!
7. Growing your list
Your aim here is to get visitors to come to your website from Pinterest and then to become an email subscriber. In order to do this, you will pin super relevant content from your website on Pinterest.
To gain traffic you can use Pinterest SEO, join group boards, and loop your pins with BoardBooster.
Then as this traffic comes to your website you can have opt-ins where people can enter their email address to get access to exclusive content, a freebie, or a coupon.
Once the new subscriber is on your email list you can send them through a welcome series or a sales funnel so that can get to know you and like you which ultimately makes them more likely to buy from you.
Related: Why You Need An Email List & How To Start One
8. Book sales
Whether you are launching a book, or you already have an existing one and want to promote it online, Pinterest is a great way to form a connection with your readers. You can create interesting pins to entice them.
If it is a fictional book you can give them sneak peeks into the lives of your characters in a blog post, do a review of five books in your niche and include yours!
If you have a non-fiction book, you can share reviews, quotes, and excerpts from your book that can help your audience get to know your work a little bit better. If there are lots of pictures in your non-fiction book, consider making a collage of some of the pictures to draw your target audience in.
You can direct them to a formal sales page with information about how to purchase your book or send them to a blog post or a short story that promotes your book.
There are a lot of ways you can successfully make money on Pinterest. It is a fun, exciting, and effective way of making money online with your products or services so have fun with it!
Which of these strategies are you going to try?
