As a young business, you may be inclined to spend a lot of time on Facebook and Instagram promotion because these are seen as sites that generate the most amount of sales and customers. And while this is true, you would be remiss if you didn’t come up with a marketing strategy for Pinterest as well.
Pinterest allows you to connect with your target audience on a more personal level. Here you can share original content, including blog posts, images, videos, and banners that help build your brand more holistically.
But remember, marketing on Pinterest is very different from that on other social sites. You’ll need to revisit your strategies for posting content and engaging with your audience. Read on to see what strategies you should use to promote your e-commerce business on Pinterest.
1. Introduce “shop the look” pins
“Shop the Look” is a feature that is unique to Pinterest, and it’s part of why promotion on Pinterest is so important. The idea behind it is that your audience should be able to immediately buy the things it likes through the images you put up. When you integrate “Shop the Look” into your profile, tiny white dots appear on all the objects in your images that are for sale.
If you’re a small business, use Pinterest’s tagging guide for step-by-step instructions on how to introduce “Shop the Look” pins. Bigger businesses or e-commerce businesses that are more established should also use third-party websites such as Curalate to add their “Shop the Look” tags.
“Shop the Look” pins allow viewers to spend money at your business as soon as they find a product they like, thereby maintaining their interest long enough for it to be beneficial to your company. Consumers love convenience and this is the perfect way to get them to engage with you. Plus, it’s a marketing technique that makes you money without any cost – a win-win for everyone!
2. Share unique visual content
Pinterest is all about beautiful, high-quality visual content that catches your consumer’s eye. Therefore, you need to spend some time crafting unique images and videos that do two things – (a) attract your target audiences long enough for them to click on it, and (b) relay important information about offers, discounts, and promotions that would further increase engagement.
Creating this content doesn’t have to be costly either. Sites like PosterMyWall have a range of Pinterest graphic templates that you should browse through. Find a template that fits your aesthetic and use it to create striking visual content for your Pinterest boards.
On this site, you can streamline your marketing content by resizing (for free) and repurposing your images and videos to post them on your Instagram story or Facebook feed. It’s incredibly simple and it will save you the time you would have to spend on manually resizing or re-creating the same content.
3. Know your audience
As with all other types of social media marketing, knowing who your audience is, is crucial on Pinterest. According to one study, 75% of customers prefer to buy from brands that share the same values as them and act accordingly. Your audience will determine whether or not your business flourishes, so it’s important to satisfy them.
Firstly, tailor your content according to their needs. A lot of brands on Pinterest don’t just create and share their own original boards. Instead, they routinely share content from other creators that they know will interest their own customers. If you do this, it will increase traffic to and engagement with your site, and help you build your brand.
Secondly, when you add captions to your pins, make sure to use keywords that are searched most often. Know exactly what your audience is looking for. Your pins should be at the very top of the search results. It’s the best way to increase audience engagement, and it’ll help you bring in a wider customer base as well.
The best way to go about both these things is to do your research. After you create your content, look up similar content on the website, and share whatever is relevant. Also, see what words are used the most and what comes up first in the search results. Then, make a list of relevant keywords and add most, if not all, to your captions.
4. Automate your posts
Automation allows you to schedule your pins days, weeks, or months in advance. This is extremely useful for businesses that run seasonal marketing campaigns, and need certain pins to go out at certain times.
There are a number of third-party sites you can use to automate your Pinterest content. For instance, Tailwind allows you to schedule your content and then track it in a smooth, streamlined fashion. The site also has a feature called “Smartloop” that automatically re-pins your most popular posts at specific times during the day, for example when traffic to the site is highest.
Automating your content not only saves you time but also makes your marketing campaign more holistic because it ensures you’re not missing anything out. This makes it key to any social media marketing strategy, not just on Pinterest but on other sites as well.
5. Add promoted pins
Promoted pins are a great way to ensure that your products gain a wider reach and a higher number of interactions. They work the same way as promoted posts on Facebook and Instagram do.
Ultimately, they boost your content and help it become noticeable, which is important especially during the early stages of your promotion when people may not be familiar with your platform.
You do need a small marketing budget if you’re looking to promote your pins. However, this particular strategy is still very cost-effective because the returns on it are extremely high. And if you add “Shop the Look” tags to your promoted pins, you should see a significant rise in sales and engagement.
To promote your pins, you will need to ensure that you have a business account. Once you do that, the process of pin promotion is incredibly straightforward.
And there you have it – easy and cost-friendly ways for you to promote your e-commerce business on Pinterest. Not only can you use these strategies to increase engagement and sales, but they should also help you familiarize yourself with what your consumers like so you can tailor your products or introduce new ones according to their preferences.
Laila Azzahra is a professional writer and blogger that loves to write about technology, business, entertainment, science, and health.