How to use Pinterest to grow your email list

Today, I want to talk about list building, specifically, how and why you should be using the power of Pinterest to grow your email list.

It seems all anyone ever talks about is how Pinterest can drive tons of traffic to your site, and yes, it does that very well.

BUT... what good is all that traffic if you're not capturing it by getting your target customers' email addresses?

They read your great blog post and then they leave and forget all about who the heck you are. #notcool

This is why you need to be focusing on the best way to use Pinterest... as a free lead-generation tool.

How would it feel to know that every day Pinterest is driving tons of targeted people, not just to your site but onto your list? All for free... um, yes, please!

What if this formula could also run on auto-pilot? What if it actually saved you time all while bringing in tons of subscribers and new customers daily?

Today I'm ready to share everything I know about how YOU can harness the list-building power of Pinterest. (and I'm gonna show you exactly how you can do it!)

When I started Dish It Out Social in January 2016, I knew that I eventually wanted to create courses. So, I immediately focused on growing my email list. One of the first freebies I ever created was my 10-day email course.

I was obviously super excited (at first) to promote the damn thing wherever I could. Promoting it felt easy and it was fun to watch my list grow.

But... I soon became exhausted with the daily promotion of my free course in a million Facebook Groups and on Twitter plus I just didn't have the time.

Sign-ups dropped and I knew there had to be a better way to keep building my list. Being a Pinterest strategist you think I would've realized all the untapped potential Pinterest had to help me grow my email list but apparently... I just wasn't doing it right. *facepalm

I mean sure, I was using Pinterest to promote my blog posts which had plenty of links and graphics in them for my free course, and I thought this would be enough to bring in subscribers. And it did but it was nothing to write home about.

Then I got wise when I started to notice some strategies all the big bloggers/infopreneurs were using. Once I started putting these strategies in place I saw a huge increase in sign-ups to my list.

My only regret is that I didn't do these things sooner. But... as I always like to say, better late than never!

So here's what I did...

I decided to create some new pins that would lead directly to my opt-in/sign-up page... and I set up a landing page for my freebie with the help of ConvertKit landing page builder. I created 3 different pins that lead directly to my landing page.

In the beginning, my first couple of pins didn't do so well on Pinterest, I was barely getting any repins and no clicks. This had me a little discouraged... but I researched what was working for other people in my industry and I decided to create even better pins.

Below you will see the new pins I created. These three different pins feature an image of my lead magnet, so as soon as someone clicks they are taken to a landing page with more information and then they're asked to enter their email address to get their free resource.

I'm very happy with how these pins turned out and right now they are generating about 10-20 signups a day.  Not too shabby!

In fact...

Pinterest was my biggest source of leads in 2022! I've added over 1000 subscribers to my list and you know what else... it didn't cost me a dime.

The best part of using Pinterest to grow your list is that with Pinterest I don't have to physically promote my opt-in every single day. Pinterest takes care of all that for me.

Today, I'm gonna show you how to use these Pinterest strategies that will help you grow an email list of loyal fans and buyers. I'm so excited to share what has been working for me. So without further ado... Here are my top 3 tips to help you harness the list-building power of Pinterest.

1. Design High-Converting Pins To Grow Your Email List

This really is the most crucial step. Without a great-looking pin that gets repins and clicks, this formula simply won't work.

So how do you create a pin that drives tons of traffic to your post or opt-in page?

You do your research... search Pinterest with your keywords and look at the other pins that make you want to click through or sign up. What do they have in common?

Maybe they have great headlines or images that you can try and recreate with your own pin. You can set up a secret board to keep all these pins, then you can look at the elements you like and draw inspiration from them.

You should consider creating multiple pins for each freebie to drive even more traffic to your opt-in page. I always go by the rule that the more pins you have to promote the better.

2. Use Content Upgrades

I really need to implement this one way more on this blog... I only have 2 upgrades and the experts say you should have one for every single blog post... or at least your top 5 posts.

What is a content upgrade? It's a simple checklist, PDF guide, swipe file, video tutorial, webinar, or anything that prompts people to give you their email address to get.

Think of an upgrade as a valuable extension of your blog post. For example: if you just posted "10 things to write about when you have writer's block" you could condense the 10 points into a checklist or even create a checklist with "5 more things to write about" to make people naturally want to give you their email address for that additional info.

Tips for content upgrades:

• Make it valuable and make sure it follows up with the information in your post

• Place the sign-up for the upgrade in the beginning, middle, and end of your post (people sometimes need the reminders)

• Let people on Pinterest know that you have a freebie by announcing it on your pin or even showing an image of your freebie.

3. Use a Resource Page

One of the things I did that has been working really well is... I created a separate page on my WordPress site titled "The Secret Pinners Toolkit". I put links to all of my free courses on this page and then I created a few pins to send Pinterest traffic directly to that page.

You could do something similar even if you just have a few content upgrades. Call it "resources" or your "library of downloads"... easy peasy!

The thing I love about growing my list with Pinterest is that it's effortless. It's like I've hired someone to do my promoting for me, except it doesn't cost me a dime...

Or my time... Once I put in the time to create the things I mentioned above then Pinterest takes care of the rest. It promotes for me... all on auto-pilot. I <3 Pinterest!

If you want to learn even more about growing your list with the power of Pinterest, you'll want to check out my List-Building Secrets Masterclass, available now for just $27!