Easy as 1, 2, 3: Back-to-School Marketing on Pinterest

Ready to say goodbye to the summer slump and slow sales? Let’s get back to business with back-to-school marketing on Pinterest. 

In case you missed it, Pinterest is the place to make sales for your products and services. Especially if your ideal customers are women, Americans, Millennials, or Gen Z. 

With over 500 million active monthly users, Pinterest notes that “80% of weekly Pinners say they feel inspired by shopping experience on Pinterest” (Source). 

Plus, with over 90% of searches being unbranded on Pinterest, you have a unique opportunity to stand out, gain leads, and make sales. Unlike platforms like Instagram and TikTok — which are very big brands and influencer-driven — with a solid keyword strategy, any site or shop can succeed on Pinterest. 

That’s because Pinterest is a search engine — not just a social media site — and a seasonal keyword strategy like the one you’ll learn here is your best bet to increase clicks, subscribers, and sales. Use it to leave the low months of Q3 behind, and springboard into Q4. 

Whether Pinterest is new to you or not, this is your step-by-step guide to successfully marketing on Pinterest. We’ll be focusing especially on making the most of the Back-to-School season, but these strategies can be used for any seasonal strategy. You can repeat this for increasing results for the Fall, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and the holidays. Let’s go!

How To Prepare for Back-to-School Promotions

Before we can get to the Pinterest of it all, we need to talk about what exactly you’re going to promote. You’re right in assuming that Pinterest is about pretty images, but it’s equally about having high-quality links to share. 

So, is it content and/or products? Will you run a promotion or sales? Make a list of all the links you can start sharing on Pinterest. Use a document or spreadsheet to list the names and exact links you’ll share.

For example, as I prepare my personal development blog for Back-to-School marketing on Pinterest, I’ll be sharing all relevant content written for students and parents and about the college experience — plus, any lead magnets and products that are perfect for the season like my goals planner. 

Need to Create for Pinterest?

If you don’t have anything to share that’s specific to the Back-to-School season, no worries — get creating instead. And don’t just guess what your audience would want: use Pinterest itself to research topics. 

Log into your free Pinterest business account, navigate to Pinterest Trends (click on Business Hub in the top left, then look under the Analytics column for “Pinterest Trends”), or use the Pinterest search bar. 

You’ll have the best luck with Pinterest by not targeting “back-to-school” directly as a general keyword, but with more specific-to-your-audience keywords. Think beyond the actual going back to school and more to the other needs, questions, hopes, problems, experiences, and events around that time. 

For example, this is also the time when business owners and side hustlers can get back to business, especially if they have kids. It’s a second new year, a time to get back to goals, routines, and healthy habits for many — not just parents and students. Go beyond the classroom! 

Remember, back to school is also the gateway to the fall season and all that comes with it, including a slew of holidays and festivities from pumpkins and football to wreaths and winter. 

A. Pinterest Trends

Before you start scrolling and searching for topic ideas, set Pinterest Trends to the region where the majority of your audience resides. Click on the dropdown menu in the top right to change locations. This step is likely for you if you’re based outside of the United States but the bulk of your customers are American (or the most profitable percentage). 

Use the Pinterest trends search bar to look for related keywords for topics that matter to your audience. Use the resulting data to validate whether this is a good topic to create for. If the keyword exists, and the resulting trend graph shows search volume in the coming months, it’s a great topic to create for. Make sure the keyword peaks during the season you’re targeting. 

Discover trends that are either growing trends or seasonal trends. Use the trends tool to explore relevant-to-right-now trends (these are keywords with fast-increasing search numbers). You can create for the trends on display or forecast upcoming seasonal trends using last year’s data. Select “seasonal trends,” then set the end date to 01/09/2023 (or the date you’re targeting).  

Just a heads up: if you want to grow your Pinterest fast, create seasonal content! 

It’s important to note that Pinterest trends has a limited view of keywords, and typically only the biggest searches are listed here, so use the Pinterest search bar instead. 

B. Pinterest search bar

Type in relevant keywords to your audience during the back-to-school season. If you’re in the mindset and mental health space, maybe those are journal prompts for September. Or if you’re in the food and recipe space, perhaps that’s meal prepping for busy weekday nights. 

Find the keywords that will direct the content and the products you’ll create. Let the predicted results guide your search for the right keywords (predicted results = the search terms that appear as you start typing).

Keep an eye on the search bubbles that appear above the search results for further ideas. Click on them to find new search terms, like with the example below: “back to school supplies” or “back to school hairstyles.”

Not sure what to sell on Pinterest?

This section is for bloggers and content creators specifically, so feel free to skip ahead if you’re product-focused and already know what you’re selling on Pinterest. 

When you’re committed to the content creation game, it can be challenging to know exactly what your offer is or how to position it. The best practice here is to be natural and organic in your marketing. 

For content creators and bloggers, your number one pathway for selling with Pinterest is your funnel! Pinterest drives clicks to your website, but it’s up to you to capture those interested leads. How? You need opt-in forms for relevant freebies or even an interactive quiz that turns visitors into subscribers. 

It’s also wise to have tripwire or thank-you offers that appear on your custom thank-you pages for subscribing. And creating an email welcome sequence that pitches something of value like your product or service to your new subscribers. 

That’s not all! 

Don’t Forget About Affiliate Marketing

Sure, in a perfect online marketing world, you’ve created your own offerings. Don’t worry if you haven’t had time to create a product or develop services to sell; you can sell someone else’s instead. Affiliate marketing on Pinterest, especially for Back-To-School can be quite lucrative. 

With affiliate marketing on Pinterest, your best bet is either a high-volume of low-ticket products like the Amazon Associate’s Program or low-volume of high-ticket products. Back to school is a high season for spending, with many brands running big promotions and sales. 

You can get in on the action with affiliate marketing on Pinterest, even without having a blog of your own. Slight warning here though: there are many nuances to sharing affiliate links and products on Pinterest that you should learn before you start. 

Not to worry, you can watch my beginner’s guide to affiliate marketing on Pinterest on YouTube here.  

Keep It Relevant – Avoid Dating Pins

When promoting sales on Pinterest, it’s a good idea to avoid adding dates to your Pin images and videos. Don’t add text to your Pins with phrases like “Back to School 2024” or “Sale Ends September 15th.” 

This is because Pins have a very long lifespan and will continue to be found for years to come. So by dating your Pins, you’re making them irrelevant when they don’t need to be. 

Keep dates and years on your site’s content or product pages, but not on your Pins. That way they can continue to send traffic your way for many years to come. Advertise sales dates and discount expirations directly on sales pages. 

3 Steps to Marketing for Back To School On Pinterest

With your links and offers ready to share on Pinterest, follow these three steps to marketing on Pinterest. We’ll be using Back-to-School as an example, but you can do the same for any Pinterest marketing. 

Step 1. Design Click-Worthy Pins

Pinterest is a visual platform. To get clicks, your Pins (aka the images or video files that link to your content or products) need to be of a certain quality. 

Don’t sweat it: If graphic design is not your forte, I highly recommend that you use Pin templates that you download or purchase online. There are countless Canva Pinterest Pin templates available to you for free or on the cheap. 

Design Pins in the 2:3 ratio or 1,000 x 1,500 pixels, saving image Pins as JPEG or PNGs and video Pins as MP4. Refer to Pinterest’s creative best practices. 

Here are some quick design tips to help you get clicks:

• For blog posts, use very easy-to-read text on your images that specifies what the linking content is about and encourages the click.
• For podcasts or YouTube videos, add text about the topic of your episodes, and specify that it’s a podcast or video with an icon for “watch now” or “listen now.”
• For products, use lifestyle images that showcase your product with very minimal text like your shop name or domain at the bottom.

And please, always update your Pin templates to your own branding, using the fonts and colors that match your brand consistently. Yes, especially if those are Pin templates you’ve found or purchased online.

For all of your relevant content and products, you want to design multiple Pins per link, making each unique yet still on brand. 

Need Pin inspiration? Not sure what your designs should look like? Search on Pinterest for your keyword and match the vibe of the top-ranking Pins. (And please do NOT straight-up copy anyone’s Pin designs; that’s lowkey theft, and it’s not cool). 

Step 2. Optimize with Keywords

Remember those keywords we were searching in Pinterest Trends and using the Pinterest search bar to find? It’s time to use them! 

Where possible, add your keyword phrase to your Pin image. Easy-to-read text that tells pinners what they’ll get when they click is the standard for content. 

Plus, when you save or schedule your Pins to Pinterest on the Pinterest website directly or when using a scheduler like Tailwind, you need to optimize your Pin titles and descriptions with keywords. 

Here’s how:

• Write a catchy and enticing 100-character maximum Pin title that features your primary keyword phrase. For example, “5 Insightful Back-to-School-Journal-Prompts for September.”
  
• Then, craft a 500-character maximum Pin description that describes your linking content or product, encourages users to click, and uses related keywords. For example, “Heading back to school this September? Looking for some back-to-school journal ideas? Click here to use these back-to-school journal prompts, topics, and questions to inspire you to have the best school year ever. Write them in your bullet journal, planner, or diary this fall for a back-to-school to remember.”

Need help with optimizing your Pins? No problem! Why not let Tailwind Ghostwriter AI do it for you?

Step 3. Save or Schedule to Pinterest

You’ve done all the work — now it’s time to unlock all that Pinterest potential for your site or shop. With your Pins designed and your Pins optimized, it’s time to save or schedule your Pins to Pinterest. 

Hop onto the Pinterest website and select “Create a Pin,” upload your images, drop in your link, and finalize your Pin titles and descriptions. If you have the option, select relevant topic tags for your Pins, then hit publish, or choose a date within 30 days to schedule.

Choose the best possible Pinterest board for your keyword. Create a back-to-school-related board if you’re creating multiple Pins and have enough content. Make sure your boards are titled with relevant keywords and have board descriptions (write them like you would your Pin descriptions, minus the call to action). 

If you want to get farther ahead than 30 days, I recommend you use Tailwind’s scheduler. Why not have your entire back-to-school seasons’ worth of Pins scheduled? That way you can start working on the next season: Fall, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. 

Please space out your Pins with the exact same links, waiting at the very least a few days (if not a week) to share the same link again. 

And do NOT repin (or save the same Pin) again to a different board. We’re in the era of save a Pin once, then go create a new Pin. Quality is far better than quantity when it comes to Pinterest. 

Need more help with Pinterest? If you want to go deeper and elevate your Pinterest presence, I invite you to get my Free Pinterest Best Practices Cheatsheet. It outlines the top 7 rules you need to follow to be successful on Pinterest.