Book launches are festive celebrations of a book’s journey into the hands of its readers. Oftentimes authors dedicate launches to express gratitude to those who have supported them along their publishing journey. The best book launches involve considerable planning and coordination. Venues are secured. Bookmarks and giveaways are purchased. Cakes are frosted, PowerPoint presentations are perfected. The experience can be exhilarating, invigorating, demanding, and – sadly – short lived. Keeping the momentum moving requires diligence, planning, and strategy.
Pinterest can help. Here’s how.
At Pin Lit, we rely heavily on the Trends Tool, which tracks trending content on Pinterest. This tool guides our strategy to align client content with broad-based, current interests. The Trends Tool informs the general messaging gleaned from resources like educator guides, coloring sheets, and promotional materials, create book lists on related topics, and analyze themes in their book's storyline.
Another critical function of the Pinterest interface is the Search Bar, found in the upper right corner of a Pinterest platform. While the Search Bar functions much like a Google search, the information it generates is much more specific than that of the Trends Tool. With it, we can discover the exact terms a client’s potential audience is searching for. This broad and narrow approach to discovering marketing opportunities to enhance a book’s visibility way beyond its launch date.
Meet Claire Noland, whose charming picture book RAVEN’S GIFT: A FEATHERED FLIGHT OF FAITH launched in early October. The story is inspired by a legend demonstrating determination, perseverance, hope, and faith. In it, a group of biblical birds come together to honor the birth of Jesus. Typically, Christmas stories have a short shelf life. However, RAVEN’S GIFT is more than your average Christmas story, one that can live beyond its launch window. The Pinterest Trends Tool and Search Bar will guide us along the way.
First of all, let’s see what the Trends Tool tells us about the sales window for Christmas stories. Notice, on the right side of the graph above, that Pinterest users have begun searching the terms “a Christmas Story” and “Christmas Story” in October, about the same time that RAVEN’S GIFT was launched. Moving to the left, we can see that these terms peak on December 27th, and then crash hard after that. Bah! Hum bug! Not to worry, though. The good news is that, due to the evergreen nature of Pinterest marketing, RAVEN’S GIFT will begin ranking in search again by next October. That’s nice, but we want RAVEN’S GIFT to get attention beyond December 27, 2023. Right? Back to the Trends Tool we go.
In analyzing another layer of the RAVEN’S GIFT, we discover that Claire explores the important roles that birds hold in the Bible. Not only do birds have a lot of symbolic and metaphorical importance to the story, but this feathery subplot is also just what we need to make RAVEN’S GIFT’S marketing message fly all year long. Returning to the Trends Tool, we notice above that the term “birds” pulls up a trend line that remains between 60 and 100 over the span of the entire year. Yes! The keyword “birds” is a hot topic, one that we can incorporate in all of our campaigns.
Then, to take this further, let’s go to the Search Bar to get even more specific information about RAVEN’S GIFT messaging. Remember Claire's birds are part of a biblical theme. Notice above that the term “bible birds” in the Search Bar unveils a juicy list of topic ideas and keywords, providing us with great guidance in establishing an evergreen presence on Pinterest throughout the year. We now have the information we need to breathe life into RAVEN’S GIFT long after the holiday season has passed. You might say that Pinterest is the gift that keeps on giving!
Keywords gleaned by accessing the Search Bar are terms actual Pinterest users have searched for. This means that Claire has an audience looking for information, inspiration, education, and ideas to create projects centered around birds in the bible. Claire, being the creative marketer that she is, can create book lists, clever downloads, and nifty blog posts about the bible birds she’s showcased in RAVEN’S GIFT. And you’d better believe that we at Pin Lit will do all that we can to elevate her message with graphics, context, and gusto!
This type of strategic analysis can be repeated with about any topic under the sun. By allowing the Trends Tool and the Search Bar to guide our exploration of a book’s themes, characters, plots, and subplots, we can collaborate with clients to discover keyword strategies to highlight their books, programs, and services for as long as they’d like.
How about you? What themes and topics would you like to explore? We encourage you to pull up the Trends Tool and the Search Bar and see what delights await.
To learn more about ways that we at Pin Lit Marketing might help you develop an evergreen presence on Pinterest, schedule a Fit Call with Deb today.