Pinterest is one of those eCommerce marketing mediums that is often overlooked by new and existing brands. There are other forms of marketing brands pour out money to attract consumers, but little do they recognize about websites like Pinterest that might have a smaller fan following but have more committed users.
Pinterest has an average of 498 Million users every month worldwide. Unlike other social media platforms Pinterest users use the platform for ideas and inspirations. As a brand, you can advertise on Pinterest ads in the form of inspirations and ideas for projects. In a time where consumers are steadily getting disinterested with advertisements, Pinterest is that small niche where advertisements might actually have a higher conversion rate.
Pinterest is a visual platform that brands can use to showcase their products and redirect the customers to a landing page via their postings. Users on pinterest search for various ideas to start a project, and as a brand your posting shows up not as an advertisement that is unrelated but as a legit search result. The best part is that it is not competitive like a Google search result.
By actively using Pinterest and creating more inspirational content you can increase your brand awareness, drive traffic to your website and ultimately boost sales. In this blog we will look into the aspect of why you should use Pinterest as an eCommerce marketing medium and show you some effective tips to generate conversion through it.
Features and Benefits of Pinterest eCommerce Marketing
The visual nature of Pinterest opens up the opportunity for brands to elaborately showcase their products for users to interact with. Reaching potential customers on Pinterest is easier compared to other platforms. The search terms used on Pinterest makes it easier for brands to target the potential consumers easily.
Pinterest postings are always linked to an article for users to read more about it. As a consumer who is looking for ideas, if the article attached with a picture helps them with idea generation, they will definitely follow through the link. Users of Pinterest have the ability to pin and group together a bunch of ideas for inspirational purposes that can be viewed by every other user based on the privacy setting. This is a great way for users to get to know about your products and brand.
Like other social media platforms that allow you to make purchases directly through them, Pinterest also has a feature known as ‘Buyable Pins’. Once you create a business account with Pinterest you can easily set this up. The Pinterest business profile dashboard will help you analyze and collect data in order to improve your eCommerce marketing on the platform. Rather than advertising, create useful content that users of Pinterest will find helpful.
Tips for Optimizing Pinterest
Content that your brand posts on Pinterest has to be optimized so that your post actually shows up and unlike Google, Pinterest users scroll longer through the search result. So the competition to show up as the first result is not so important. Here are some tips to help you get started on Pinterest eCommerce marketing;
- Pinterest requires both the users and viewers create an account before they can access the website. As a business or brand, ensure that you complete your profile with relevant details before you start posting. Write a clear and concise bio about your brand. Adjust your logo dimensions to fit perfectly in the profile picture section. Add links to online stores or galleries etc., if your link is too wide, use link shorteners like LNKS.ai to shorten your links before adding them.
- Boards in Pinterest are a group of pins. Pinterest users create boards as a place where they can add all the inspiration pins together in order to reference it at a later stage. Similarly, brands can also create boards. For example, if you are a jewelry brand, you can create boards like earrings, pendants, rings etc. When a user searches for any similar keywords , Pinterest will show relevant boards as the search results.
How Pinterest is Revolutionizing eCommerce Advertising
The finding inspirations and ideas has always been the strong suite for Pinterest. Brands across the board have hopped on Pinterest to share various ideas and inspirations incorporating their own products. Ever since Pinterest introduced video uploading, more brands have taken into video as the preferred format for Pinterest advertising. Short videos on Pinterest have shown to have a higher engagement rate in comparison to static images.
More and more social media platforms are adding the feature where viewers can make a purchase directly from a brand through the social media. Pinterest also has something similar to this known as shopping ads. Users can interact with these pins and shop right away through Pinterest.
When a user logs into their account on Pinterest, they are flooded with ideas and inspirations based on their past searches. Most of the users find inspirations without searching for them. The Pinterest algorithm has advanced targeting capabilities to reach the target audiences every time they log in. This type of content that the users can view without the need for searching helps brands show up on the home feed based on the varying interests of the user. Pinterest is more than a place for cute pictures of dogs and cats.
Successful Pinterest Ad Campaigns
If you still feel like eCommerce marketing on Pinterest is not worth it, then you can see the following examples of some successful Pinterest Ad campaigns. Brands that have successfully used Pinterest as a medium of advertising have seen a considerable amount of sales and brand awareness increase.
Merrell Canada, a leading footwear brand increased their outbound click volume by 2.53 times and an increase of 60% improvement in cost per outbound click. They used a wide variety of content on Pinterest to get the desired numbers. They utilized video, carousel, collections, Idea ads, and Standard ads to enhance the brands appearance in various formats for the Pinterest users.
KitKat, a household name for chocolate lovers across the globe, used Pinterest to introduce their new line of Easter products. Pinterest helped the brand increase the product awareness by 11% and another 11% increase in purchase intent from those who weren’t even planning to bake with chocolate. KitKat created a bunch of recipes that can be made during Easter using their new line of Easter egg chocolates.
These are just two of the popular brands that have used Pinterest to increase their brand awareness and sales. You can read about other case studies here. Similarly, you can do the same for your brand.
Designing and Executing Pinterest Ad Campaigns
Like every other form of advertising, you need to have a clear idea about who your target audience is. Based on the data of your preferred demography, you need to craft content accordingly. In order to find the desired target audience and create content to increase conversion rate, you have to research the audience’s preferences, interests and behaviors. Once you have enough data, you can start creating your Pinterest ad campaigns.
While you create the content, always cross- reference it with the research data that you have. Always use high-quality images of your products to upload and don’t reuse the same image for multiple campaigns. Take multiple versions of the same product image simultaneously, so that you can use it for each ad. After the image comes the copy, write an eye catching copy that will make your viewers want to know more about the product/service. Include relevant keywords to this copy so that your post will show up on the home feed of Pinterest users with similar interests.
Pinterest provides an array of analytics for your business account. Keep track of the performance of existing posts and create more content based on the analytics. Regular checks on your analytics and improving content accordingly is an effective way to make sure your brand posts show up on the target audience’s feed.
Psychology Behind Using Pinterest for eCommerce Marketing
Pinterest is a hub of ideas. It is a visual platform that helps users visualize their ideas and help make them bring it to life. Brands need to tap into this as a marketing strategy. Pinterest boards help users find individually curated contents from other users as a source of inspiration. The amount of personalization PInterest offers, coupled with helping people bring their dream into reality, makes it the best place for brands to showcase their products.
For a generation who loves to try DIY projects and finding easy hacks to common problems, Pinterest becomes a source of knowledge. Brands that advertise products on Pinterest know that and hence they add their brandings inside a piece of content that actually helps the users achieve something. Utilizing the fact that users come to Pinterest for ideas, brands create content based on them.
To ensure that your brand content sticks to the psychological factors, you should focus on creating content that is visually appealing while having content that tells the viewer the story of how your brand can help with their inspiration. As a business owner, you have to create content in varying formats that are available to ensure that users can interact with the content based on the format choice that appeals to them.
How Pinterest Drives the Ecommerce Customer Journey
From inspiration to purchase, that is how Pinterest works for brands. Pinterest’s visual appeal resonates with customers who are planning to find new inspiration for their projects. Once the user finds a post, they pin it to their board and come back later when it is time for purchase. Brands can create multiple boards that can focus on general audience and niche audience simultaneously.
When a Pinterest user visits the profile of the brand, they will be able to access all the boards that the brand created and hence can explore more. This can generate an increase in brand awareness and improve sales number. Brands should create content not as advertisements but as inspirations and ideas that the Pinterest users can relate with. Ensure that you make it easy for customers to make the purchase of your product from Pinterest easy by including direct purchase through Pinterest or adding relevant links to the product page.
Many brands overlook Pinterest and their eCommerce marketing features. Don’t let your brand fall into the other category. Pinterest has been a great place to increase new customers being aware of the brands. It has acted as a gateway for users to explore brands they would have never found elsewhere.
Future of Pinterest eCommerce Marketing
Pinterest might seem like a platform that no one uses anymore, but the numbers say otherwise. You don’t always need a platform with billions of users with less conversion rate. With an approximate monthly user rate at 500 million users worldwide looking for inspirations for their new project, Pinterest is brimming with consumers. Unlike other search engines, Pinterest actively showcases search results in the form of well crafted visuals, making it easier for users to find the right stuff.
eCommerce stores can utilize the visual aspect of Pinterest to showcase their products in a stunning way to grab the attention of the viewers. Studies have shown that 85% of weekly visitors on Pinterest have made purchases via the pins they came across on Pinterest. The user-friendly aspect of Pinterest has made it easier to access for people of all age groups. As the eCommerce marketing landscape is in a constant state of evolution, Pinterest is also developing along with it.
eCommerce marketing has changed drastically in the past decade. With about ¾ of the world population now with access to the internet, and the ease in starting an online store has made more eCommerce business owners pop up across the world. Among the active users, pretty much everyone has a profile in one or the other social media platform.
Conclusion
One side of running a successful eCommerce business is an effective marketing strategy, the other side is to have a robust payment processing solution to handle the increased sales that you generate from a successful advertising campaign. RapidCents is your answer when it comes to the question of a seamless payment processing solution. By promoting your brand and building a strong backend framework, your business is in the right direction to become a successful one.
As mentioned in the blog, don’t disregard any digital marketing medium just because your competitors are not using them. See it as an advantage and find various platforms where you can find your own target audience. Pinterest is one of those platforms that is overlooked because all the brands are spending all their marketing budget on the popular ones with billions of users.
Even though Pinterest users only amount to an approximate of 500 million users per month worldwide, they provide a considerably higher conversion rate than the other social media platforms. By creating content that reflects on the ideas and inspirations of your target audience, you will earn more brand recognition that will eventually convert to sales. And when that sales happens, be sure to equip yourself with a tailored online payment solution from RapidCents. Sign up today to learn more.
