What comes to your mind when you first hear the word Pinterest?
Colors, designs, aesthetics, right? A place that soothes the eyes and gives you tons of ideas about anything and everything?
What if you could use all these to grow your business? What if I say Pinterest is one of the best ways to make your brand identity and skyrocket your sales? You would probably be intrigued but still wonder how to make that happen.
Don’t worry! To save you the time of tedious research, we have come up today with 7 Effective Strategies To Use Pinterest For eCommerce Stores.
Before getting into the very core of this article, let me convince you why you must choose Pinterest as one of your marketing channels.
But first, let’s clear up some general misconceptions regarding Pinterest marketing.
Some Misconceptions Regarding Pinterest Marketing
Some people have some misconceptions when it comes to Pinterest marketing, and we have identified some widespread ones. Let’s check them out:
1. No or limited active shoppers
This is probably the biggest misconception. Until April 2022, there were 433 million monthly active users of Pinterest. And a majority of this population is open to the idea of shopping from Pinterest. You can see how it is a false notion that you will struggle to find buyers from Pinterest.
2. Fewer chances to understand viewers’ intentions and choices
Some believe that it is not possible to understand customers’ choices and intentions from Pinterest, which is also wrong. People love to save pins and make boards according to their preferences, and this can be a concrete way to understand what a specific buyer wants.
3. Pinterest is only for females
This might be the most common conception about Pinterest, which is definitely a false one. Although the popularity of Pinterest was indeed noticeably higher among females in the preceding years, the scenario has changed drastically over the years.
Pinterest has become a fascinating social media platform to spend time for both males and females. The key is to understand which content needs to be created for which part of the audience.
Now that the misconceptions are cleared let’s learn about some of the significant perks of using Pinterest for eCommerce stores.
Benefits Of Using Pinterest For An eCommerce Store
Pinterest is a visual search platform where people share and get ideas about literally anything. eCommerce stores are already favorites for most people these days, but as they cannot get to see the products upfront, visuals of those bear a great significance in making a sale for the owners.
Let’s delve deeper and understand the significant benefits of using Pinterest for eCommerce stores.
- A massive audience: Pinterest users increase with every passing minute. If you can make a strong marketing plan and use it to attract this vast audience, it can benefit your business.
- Growing marketplace: Pinterest is no longer a place where people only come to look at beautiful pins or boards. It has grown to become an active marketplace over time. Brands showcase their products here, and people can also purchase products from this platform.
- Engagement with customers: Like other social media platforms, Pinterest is also a place where you can engage with your customers. You can do that through your boards and pins. Allowing them to save your product pins as inspirations and ideas can give you fantastic exposure.
- Creating a brand: You cannot shine and prosper with your business if you confine yourself to merely selling your products. You need to create your brand identity, and to do that, using social media platforms such as Pinterest can be one of the vital steps you need to take.
- Sustaining in the competitive run: The competition is immense in the eCommerce sector. Thousands of stores compete with each other to make their mark in the industry. Using Pinterest as one of the marketing channels can help you be ahead in the run.
Now, I believe I have convinced you enough to get into Pinterest marketing if you have not already. Let’s discuss 7 very effective ways to use Pinterest for eCommerce stores.
7 Effective Ways To Use Pinterest For eCommerce Store
Although there are endless ways to make proper use of a social media platform for marketing, here are 7 ways to use Pinterest that proved to be really effective for eCommerce business owners-
1. Strategize To Make Your Brand Identity
You need a solid plan to achieve any success in business. In order to make the best use of Pinterest, you need to create your brand identity. There are some basic steps to create and strengthen your brand identity on Pinterest-
- Identify your audience: First of all, you have to understand who your target audience is. Then you have to acknowledge their likes, dislikes, and the ongoing trends in the industry. Only then can you curate the right kind of content for the prospective buyers.
- Increase your engagement: You need to be very regular and active in engaging with people. The more engagement you have, the more people will notice you, and this is one of the most important ways to create your brand identity.
- Be relevant and updated: Understand what you need to post and what you are posting. Be relevant and updated when you choose content for your Pinterest profile. A responsible brand talks about updated and important issues rather than only marketing its products and services.
- Create outstanding visuals: The visuals of your profile are what the viewers will see at first glance. Make an attractive logo and design your profile in the most beautiful way possible. Try to opt for designs that can easily create a spot on people’s minds.
- Monitor your performance: Even when you have adopted all these techniques, you still need to monitor your brand performance on a regular basis and find out what is lagging you behind if the outcome is not satisfactory.
2. Maintain A Search Engine Optimized Profile
Search engine optimization is something you must have done regularly for your eCommerce store. After all, your products will only be sold if they appear in front of the right customers at the right time, and it is the same if you are marketing your business on Pinterest.
You need to make your descriptions SEO-friendly and use relevant keywords wherever necessary if you want to use Pinterest to grow your eCommerce business.
That being said, Pinterest comes with a bonus perk in this regard. This social media platform has a keyword tool of its own, and you can avail of it when you have a business profile.
The process of finding keywords on Pinterest is pretty simple. You have to go for the option of creating an ad where there is an option to find new customers and an option to identify their interests and keywords related to those interests.
A list of available keywords searched by people will show up, and you can choose the ones you would like to consider for your posts. As these keywords are specifically helpful for Pinterest, these can make your content search engine optimized for Pinterest exclusively.
You will also have the option to add keywords on your own. Research on this and find out which of the keywords are relevant specifically for your business and make a list of those. You have to use these keywords on your product titles and descriptions in order to increase traffic to your profile.
On the other hand, there is something else you need to take care of. You have created your Pinterest business profile so that you can sell your products from here. So, you need to be strategic when you upload your products on your profile.
And in order to do that, you will have to generate a product feed containing all the information related to your products and upload it to Pinterest. An ideal Pinterest product feed containing all the requirements will help your profile and products appear more frequently on Pinterest search results, which can help you make more sales.
3. Choose Striking Photos For Your Profile
It is no secret that photos are extremely important for marketing, and it is even more accurate when you are using Pinterest for your business. The photos you use on your profile must be unique and of good quality- there is no alternative to that. A good-looking board with striking photos can grab people’s attention instantly.
The text or message that you will provide on your product details will not even be visible to the pinners at the first go if they do not click on your pin. And they are only going to click on the pin if it catches their eyes and attention.
So, surely you understand how extremely crucial it is to use captivating photos.
Other than choosing a stunning picture, you also need to take care of the size of the images. Your photos need to fit nicely on the users’ screen; otherwise, it can make their eyes feel discomfort, and the purpose of attracting the viewers will not be fulfilled. Vertical images are more preferred for Pinterest.
It is not mandatory to put your product images only on your profile, and you can post any picture that you might feel attracts the viewers or can hold value to your business. This is a valuable technique to increase engagement.
[See related article: How To Use Stock Photos Without Getting In Legal Trouble]
4. Remain Very Active And Post Regularly
As I keep saying, engagement is very vital when it comes to online marketing. Maintaining regular communication and connection with the viewers will make you a familiar face in the Pinterest community. And to do that, you need to regularly maintain regular engagement with Pinterest users.
Your eCommerce store must have numerous products. You can post about all those products, and at the same time, you can also post about other related matters.
For example, if yours is a beauty products store, you can share different beauty-related posts besides posting about your products. That could be tutorials, beauty tips, pros-cons of a product, or anything like that.
When you remain active and post regularly on your profile, it will be easy for you to create a place in people’s minds. Meaningful and helpful content will make people want to visit your profile frequently and look out for your posts, and relevant posting will make your brand a responsible and interactive one.
However, you must not bombard your viewers with these posts. Know what to post and how frequently. If you continue posting anything and everything just to maintain engagement, it will backfire. The more critical posts for your business will get lost amid the lesser important ones.
So, you need to choose your content very wisely so that using Pinterest to grow your eCommerce store can add value to your business.
5. Take Help Of The Rich Pins
If you are considering Pinterest marketing for eCommerce, Rich pins are something you just HAVE to consider for your eCommerce store profile on Pinterest.
These are the pins where you showcase your products along with every necessary information related to the products. The information of the products is seen right on the pins if you go for a rich pin.
You can let your buyers know about the availability of the products, prices, categories, sizes, etc., through the rich pins. Getting to know all this information about the products makes the shopping experience very neat and pleasant for your customers.
By now, Pinterest is offering four different types of rich pins. These are –
- App pins
- Recipe pins
- Product pins and
- Article pins
By the way, you have to validate those rich pins before publishing them on your profile.
In addition to these, rich pins are also valuable in case of bringing more traffic to your store. I will tell you how. The rich pins contain the name of your store’s name and your brand logo. So, if someone likes any of your products, they will know where to go, which can definitely increase your conversion rates.
If you promote your products through rich pins, people will likely get to see your products when they look out for and search for a specific item to buy. So, you can say rich pins can help your brand get more exposure than ordinary product pins.
Besides allowing viewers to get a complete picture of your products, rich pins have other perquisites, like you do not need to edit all the changes on the pins manually.
The time and energy you will invest in making a rich pin will be totally worth it because a lot of care and consideration has been given to these specific pins to help your business grow and evolve.
6. Use Shop The Look Pins
A comparatively new introduction to Pinterest, the Shop the Look pins can be one of the best ways for you to promote your store on Pinterest. With the help of this specific kind of pin, you can add multiple products in one single pin. White dots appear on your pin, indicating other products that people can buy from your store.
If your eCommerce store is a clothing line, or anything related to fashion, this technique is especially for you. This is because adding multiple similar products in a single pin can help your customers get a clear picture of what they want.
They can see the options and select their desired products. Moreover, Shop the Look pins can also prove to be useful for other niches like interior decoration, recipes, home decor, etc.
You can put a button of “Shop Similar” with these pins, making it very easy for the buyers to look into similar options that you are offering. This is a matter of comfort for many buyers who would like to explore different options before deciding on a specific product.
Before this pin was introduced, buying anything from Pinterest was a bit of trouble, as people had to leave their Pinterest profiles when they saw something and liked to buy it. Shop the Look pins enable buyers to buy the products directly from Pinterest, making the overall shopping experience more comfortable and satisfying.
7. Add Call-To-Action Buttons
This is an obvious step to follow if you want to make a sale and if you want to turn a visitor of your page into a customer. A clear and easily visible call-to-action or CTA button is a MUST for your Pinterest profile when you are running a business.
This button leaves your prospective buyers with no confusion about their next step, should they like a product and want to continue with the purchase. The core goal of your Pinterest business profile is to help you make more sales, and without a call-to-action button right in front of the eyes of the viewers, you will lose many buyers.
People are impatient these days, and they will not try and find ways to reach you if you do not put an obvious step just in front of them. Instead, they will switch to the next seller who already has this option of easy shopping.
So, put a CTA button on your posts that will allow your customers to get your products with a few clicks.
Wrapping Up
The popularity of Pinterest is increasing with a steady rhythm as we speak. It is only a matter of time before it will be obligatory for a business to make its presence on Pinterest to sustain itself in the competitive business industry.
You are ahead in this game, though. You are already aware of how crucial Pinterest can be for your eCommerce business. After reading this article, you also know some killer ways on how to use Pinterest for business.
So, what are you waiting for?
Use these, and let us know which one works the best for your store!
[Recommended reading: 16 Ways Pinterest Can Make Your Business More Brilliant]
[Image credits – Main Photo by Jopwell; other images, videos, infographics or screen prints are from their respective websites and/or social platforms]
Md Mamunur Rahsid is an SEO Specialist at WebAppick. With 8+ years of experience in the Digital Marketing sector, he loves talking about SEO, SEM, Content Marketing, Video Marketing, Media Buying and eCommerce.