If you’ve ever wondered about starting a Pinterest marketing agency, you’ve come to the right place. It’s not that difficult, but it does take some consideration of your personality, a little money to start, and the drive to get results for your clients.
What does a Pinterest agency do?
A Pinterest management agency essentially manages businesses’ Pinterest profiles or pages to help increase reach, awareness, and exposure for the brand. This can be done both through organic and paid management of their Pinterest account.
Here’s the best part, many people are confused and don’t understand how Pinterest can help them with their digital marketing strategy. It’s often underrated and undervalued with most brands giving it the side-eye wondering if it’s only for women or weddings. That’s not the case.
With a little bit of Pinterest marketing education, knowing what the clients goals are, and a plan to reach those goals, you can wow people with what this underdog search and discovery platform can do for their business.
Once you’ve mastered Pinterest marketing, this can then lead to Pinterest consulting, speaking, and more clients.
How to start a Pinterest marketing agency?
The most important part is to become and continue to be a student of the platform. You can’t manage, consult or speak unless you understand the platform. The best way to do this is to dive in with both feet and get the training moving down the track. Here are five steps you can take to start a Pinterest marketing agency.
1 – Learn Pinterest
You will never be able to confidently manage, consult or speak about Pinterest unless you know the platform. First, take a course. Learn from people who have already mastered the platform and are now teaching. I highly recommend asking for referrals before diving in to just any course that has an awesome sales page. It has to be a place that not only gives solid foundations but also isn’t teaching outdated strategies.
–> Hint, you can start with the Simple Pin Collective, where I teach, to get all the learning, coaching, mentorship, and up-to-date changes.
Second, just start using Pinterest for your own marketing. Play around inside the app and on the desktop. Be willing to take risks and make mistakes. This is the best way to learn what works and doesn’t work for your clients. Push past your perfectionism if this trips you up.
2 – Create your package
Now that you’ve learned Pinterest marketing it’s time to figure out how you will serve clients and that comes through creating a clear, understandable package for future clients.
Lay out scope of work. How many pins per day will you pin? How many creatives will you create? Will you create pin images for the client or have them create their own? And will you do video or story pins? It’s really important to only include the elements you know well and can commit to delivering to your client. Don’t overpromise and underdeliver. That’s a really fast way to lose clients and future referrals.
After you’ve established scope of work decide on the cost. You’ll have to time yourself and decide on your hourly wage. No one can decide this for you. How much money do you want to make after expenses and taxes?
Beta test! This is really important. Think of your first few clients as beta clients that are there to teach you what it’s like to manage. Get feedback, testimonials, and systems from them that will help you get better. See #4 for how to actually get those beta clients.
3 – Spread the word that you’re open for business
The world won’t know you’re serving clients unless you tell them. Create a simple website with an about page, packages page, and a contact page. Don’t aim for the 5-star website to start. People just need to know who you are, what you do, and how to contact you.
Have a few friends read through the site first for grammatical errors and clarity. If they don’t know what you do and can’t figure out how to contact you, future clients won’t either. Get ready for feedback and don’t take it personal. This is business.
Pick one social media platform, not Pinterest, where you’ll post about what you have to offer and share small tips. You’re not an influencer so don’t make what you post confusing. Keep it pure Pinterest tips and leave your beautiful dinner plat off the photo feed.
4 – Find your first three beta Pinterest clients
Everyone needs a first time and the first time is MESSY. Brene Brown has a great podcast on FFT’s (F-ing first times) or if you like the kid version TFT’s (Terrible First Time). You need at least three beta clients to start with your services to validate your methods.
How do you get beta clients? Ask. Tell your friends in the industry, or those that are looking to get into Pinterest, that you’re starting a new business managing Pinterest accounts and you need some practice. In exchange they will get awesome management for a really inexpensive price.
Set up a 3 month contract with these clients in exchange for monthly feedback meetings and how the management is going. As well as a testimonial at the end of your contract. If they had a good experience with you it’s important to put that on your website for others to see. It’s social proof and that’s what future clients need.
5 – Scale
I have a love-hate relationship with this word so let me break down what I mean by scale.
Scaling simply means getting more clients to grow. How quickly you do this depends on you. Do you want to create an agency that serves 100 clients or do you want a small boutique agency? You won’t know this until you get 7-10 clients working with you all at the same time. Either you’ll love the management, rally to hire more people, or you’ll lean towards keeping the business small. Either way to perfectly fine, but know that you need to define what scale means to YOU.
Read the book Do Scale. He breaks down scaling in one of the most amazing ways.
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I have found that one person can manage up to 8-10 clients on their own and work full time. Any more than that and you’ll start to get really exhausted. At this point, we’re talking about hiring your first person and that begins a whole new discussion.
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