You might be surprised to know that that there are 250 million users on Pinterest…AND millions are educators. Pinterest is a visual platform used for discovering new ideas and their advertising option is an excellent opportunity for education marketers to put their products and services in front of an engaged, qualified audience of educators. Most searches on Pinterest are unbranded, which means educators are open to new product and services. Are you reaching them?
Why Pinterest?
An MDR survey conducted in the summer of 2018 found that 73% of educators use Pinterest for professional reasons. The most active segment of educators using Pinterest are K-12 educators who are actively looking to be inspired for their classroom.
Pinterest advertising offers a unique distinction from other types of online advertising in that it includes search result targeting within the Pinterest platform. Bidding on search results allows you to combine intent marketing with highly targeted advertising.
Pinterest advertising is a natural extension of your existing social media marketing campaigns. If you are already using a targeted list to create custom audiences on other channels, you can use the same data to reach your audience on Pinterest. One advantage of using a single source of data to create custom audiences across all your campaigns is you can target the same audience on multiple channels, including Email, Direct Mail, Facebook, Instagram, Web Ads, and now Pinterest. Just like Facebook and Instagram advertising, Pinterest is simply another option to make the most out of your social impressions.
What does a Pinterest Ad look like?
Pinterest ads look almost the same as regular pins, but will have small text below the description indicating that it is a promoted pin.
Pinterest Best Practices
Similar to Instagram, Pinterest is a visual platform and is meant for curating both helpful and inspirational content, as well as beautiful imagery and design. Make sure your pins follow Pinterest’s Creative Best Practices by incorporating these 5 tips:
Use eye-catching, high-quality, vertical images (Pinterest recommends a 2:3 aspect ratio).- Put your brand or product front and center, and include your logo on every Pin you create (avoid the bottom right corner though, since that gets covered by Pinterest icons!).
- Provide enough context in the image itself, and add a brief description to the text overlay to enhance your message.
- Tailor your Pins for different marketing objectives; if your goal is building brand awareness, try aligning the content to seasonal events such as Teacher Appreciation Week or Back-to-School. If your goal is drive online sales, ensure there is consistency between Pins and the corresponding landing pages, and make your text overlay a clear call to action.
- Take your Pin to the next level with a Promoted Video! Use real video footage rather than stringing together stock images or photo files, and keep your videos short (under 20 seconds) to get the best engagement.
Use eye-catching, high-quality, vertical images (Pinterest recommends a 2:3 aspect ratio).