When you’re developing a marketing plan for your e-commerce business, social media marketing is an important part of any strategy, and most business owners should be using Facebook and Twitter to engage current customers and attract new ones. Still, Facebook and Twitter aren’t the only social media sites out there.
Pinterest is a thriving social media site used by millions of people and has proven to be a profitable way to advertise online stores. The website allows people to “pin” items to boards to come back and look at later. For example, my sister is getting married, and she has a board that she saves wedding ideas to. Other people can follow boards to view the pins and then re-pin them to their own boards.
Here are some important things that every e-commerce business should know about Pinterest:
- Pinterest is widely used by women. The majority of people using Pinterest are women, specifically women between the ages of 25 and 50. Any online business that caters to this demographic can do well advertising their e-commerce stores on the platform. Some types of stores that cater to men may also do well on Pinterest. Hair care, beard care grooming products and fashion are examples. Men’s gifts also do well on the site because women can see them and purchase them for their husbands and boyfriends.
- Pinterest is perfect for promoting products. The pin format lends itself nicely to showcasing products. Nearly all types of products can fit into the categories for boards on Pinterest.
- DIY products do especially well on Pinterest. Many people come to Pinterest looking for ideas for projects that they can do themselves. If you sell something that can be used for do-it-yourself projects like arts, crafts, cooking, home beauty treatments, sewing, home decorating or home improvements, Pinterest will be very lucrative for you.
- Pinterest is a great way to build your email marketing list. You can use Pinterest to gather emails by directing them to your sign-up list.
Best Practices for Pinterest
If you want to get the most out of your Pinterest marketing, follow these tips:
- Make Pins Long, Not Wide. Longer pins display nicely on the Pinterest platform, and large ones will stand out on the page to help people notice your products. Wide pins often get cutoff, making them less effective from a marketing standpoint.
- SEO Optimize Your Pins. People can actually search for pins related to a specific topic, and the site returns pins based on the descriptions on the pages. That’s why it’s important to right good, but brief descriptions for every pin. Be sure to use one or two top keywords for the product.
- Choose High Quality Images. Pinterest is incredibly visual. It doesn’t matter how good your product is; if the image you’re using to promote it doesn’t catch the eye and appeal to users, it won’t get pinned. You may need to take new photos of your products to ensure that your Pinterest boards look great.
An Example
My e-commerce site sells dancewear, so I created a board called “DIY Dance Costume How Tos.” The idea with the board is to show users different ways that they can use pieces that we carry to make their own dance costumes. Each image provides a visual tutorial, and the pins are in the long format as I described.
At the top, I have a photo of the final DIY dance costume with photos of each step below. Then, at the very bottom of the pin it says “Click here if you want to see the full video.” Users who click the video reach a landing page with the video in the middle of the page. At the top is a box for capturing e-mail addresses. They can also browse the site to buy the products that are featured in the video as well.
1010To learn more about marketing on Pinterest and find out about rich pins and other ways to advertise, watch my full video.