7 Tips for Using Pinterest in Your Marketing Efforts
With almost 50 million users and 143 percent year-over-year growth, it's safe to say Pinterest already has a big presence and is growing. With a loyal, and largely female, user base, Pinterest is a retailer's dream come true. It's a forum to showcase top products, interact with consumers and see what content is best resonating with them. And the best part is, what would be considered shameless self-promotion on other social channels is actually encouraged and validated by users liking and "repinning" brands’ content.
Many brands have already discovered how to make Pinterest work for them, and it's beginning to have a noticeable effect on their bottom line. The average order value of shoppers coming from Pinterest is around $80, more than twice as valuable as Facebook referrals. Of course, there's a line between good and bad Pinterest etiquette, but if retailers follow these helpful tips, they should have a happy, active following browsing their boards in no time.
1. Build an audience first, then pin regularly. Do this by asking fans to pin pictures of themselves with their favorite products, then add those shots to a VIP board that will give you a significant amount of early engagement and promote your profile. It's important to build a following first because you need an audience to repin, like and comment on the content that you're pushing out. However, only pin a product once; no one likes a self-promoter.
2. If you want followers on Pinterest, don't try to sell products. Instead, create boards related to your brand's lifestyle that will engage users. If it makes sense for your brand, pictures of cute animals are a great way to do this. For instance, L.L.Bean's most popular board is solely pictures of woodland creatures.
3. However, do promote seasonal and top-selling products. Drive users to seasonal products or popular items by creating boards around specific holidays or seasonal products. If your products aren't seasonal, promote them around a specific theme like color, material or designer. Pinterest is great at creating inspiration for future purchases, so the easier it is for someone to become inspired on your boards, the more likely they are to purchase. However, make sure images have a good description and that they lead to a landing page on your site.
4. Promote with contests, not discounts. Contests are great for raising pin count and gathering new followers. Gilt Groupe ran a "Pin to Win" contest for a $2,500 shopping spree to women who repinned images from their wedding dress board. The retailer saw a tremendous amount of engagement around this promotion.
5. Use Pinterest's new analytics. These tools enable you to track how many consumers have pinned content from your site, how many consumers have seen your pins, how many have been driven to your site from Pinterest, and even your most repinned and clicked pins. Analyzing this data can give you useful intelligence about what content will be relevant to your audience and how to market to them moving forward.
6. Use follower data. Your followers give you access to great insights about what they're interested in and what content resonates with them. Look at what else they're pinning and who else they're following to get a clear picture of your audience profile.
7. There's no time like the present. According to a recent survey, 45.9 percent of retailers don't have a presence on Pinterest. If you have one, congratulations; if you don't, it's probably time to join the majority of your competition.
Al Lalani is the founder and head of client success of Social Annex, a social commerce platform provider. Al can be reached at alalani@socialannex.com.
