Make Your Pins Count: A Valentine’s Day Strategy for Brand Marketers
Not too long ago, the word ‘pin’ brought to mind images of moms adding school announcements and magazine clippings to a bulletin board with push pins. In 2013, almost 5 million moms on Pinterest are pinning recipes, ideas, images, and more, every single day to their boards. That old corkboard is now lying in a closet covered in dust.
What brands need to know about Pinterest is that people, especially moms, are pulling out their credit card and buying things they find on the site. Moms are 61% more likely to use Pinterest and 21% of Pinterest users have purchased something they found on the site. As a consumer brand, there is a growing opportunity to capture and engage the clicks – and dollars – of these users. When marketing to moms, a Pinterest marketing strategy around eCommerce should be a top priority.
Think about the upcoming Valentine’s Day. A quick search for the holiday on Pinterest reveals an overwhelming number of boards that include cookie recipes, decorations, cards and invitations, crafts, and more. Moms are hungry for rich, visual content that can help make this Valentine’s Day the most creative one yet. As a brand, you’re missing out on awareness, engagement, and ultimately revenue if you don’t have an eCommerce-friendly strategy on Pinterest.
Here’s a few tips for creating a Valentine’s Day board that people follow and purchase from:
- Use great visuals – Pinterest is a dynamic social site. If your images are bland and boring, users will scroll right past your pins. No repin for you. Dedicate resources to good photography of your products to ensure your images give off a “wow” factor.
- Vary your pins – Don’t just pin your own products. You’ll turn off consumers. Rather, create an essence for your brand that people want to emulate and recreate on their own Pinterest boards, as well as in their own lives. For a Valentine’s Day board, you might pin cookie recipes, DIY craft ideas from popular mommy bloggers, digital cards you want to send, as well as related products from your brand. You’re creating an overall personality that people want to aspire to, not just giving them something to buy.
- Spend time on SEO – You should have identified specific keywords your customers use to search for products like yours. Take care to include those keywords in the pin description. Even name your boards on Pinterest with key terms, such as “DIY Valentine’s Day Photo Gifts.” This focus on SEO will give your pins a higher page ranking in Google searches.
- Include links in all pins – Links on Pinterest no longer increase SEO, but they drive traffic to your site, increase brand awareness, and make it very easy to purchase. Always use the full link, not shortened ones, which tend to get marked as spam on Pinterest.
- Longer images – Use longer, vertical images, rather than wider ones. Make them longer by adding step-by-step instructions (like how-to on creating your own Valentines), a series of images, or an infographic. Longer images show up larger on the site, and therefore have a longer ‘scroll-life.’ The more visible your pin is on a customer’s board, the more likely they will see it, click it, and repin it.
Longer images give more real estate to a pin.
- Do DIY – Pinterest inspires creativity. People want to cook, bake, sew, create. Pins that feature DIY projects, a tutorial, or a recipe have a 42% higher click through rate than other pins, like products. For Valentine’s Day, these type of project pins are especially viral so make sure to include them on your boards.
- Show the price – If your product has a price and can be bought online, include the price in your pin. According to a survey by Shopify, people are 36% more likely to like a pin that includes the price.
- Keep it fresh – Check your Pinterest page frequently (how often depends on your available resources) to add pins to your boards, and see what others are pinning and saying. Keep the conversation going by engaging with your customers when they comment or repin your pins.
With more than 20 million unique visitors each month to the site (almost double what it was a year ago), the value of Pinterest for brands with an eCommerce business is very much on the rise. If you’re looking for more resources on turning pins to profits and marketing to moms through Pinterest, check out our white paper, “How Pinterest in Changing Purchase Behavior of Moms Who Plan Celebrations.”