Not just a catalog of eye-catching photos. It’s where your customers go to interact and purchase. Are you making the most of it?
Who doesn’t love Pinterest’s photos of food, hairstyles or crafty ideas? While is known for its DIY visual elements, it has all of the ingredients businesses need to make the perfect retention marketing strategy.
Ranked as the seventh most used social media platform, Pinterest holds the title as the fastest standalone site ever to reach 10 million monthly unique visits.
Here are just of couple of Pinterest’s numbers:
– 175 million active users;
– over 50 billion pins;
– 11 billion dollars market value;
– 81% of users are female;
– 67% of users are younger than 40 years old.
While Pinterest has fewer users overall than Instagram, millennials use Pinterest just as much as its fellow photo-sharing site. But even more important than who is on Pinterest is how they are using this social media channel.
Pinterest proves it has the power to turn interested shoppers into customers:
– 93% of active pinners use it to plan for a purchase;
– 87% of pinners have purchased a product because of Pinterest;
– 72% of pinners use the platform to decide what to buy.
You can start maximizing this potential as a retention tool by focusing on a couple of components:
Your profile
Before you start bringing in dozens of click-throughs with eye-catching pins, you need to set up a solid profile that fits your brand style. This is where you want to give them the who, what and why of your business. Every business profile should include three basic components:
– Profile photo: use your logo or a brand-identifying image;
– Website: so your customers can easily find your site;
– About section: this will be displayed below your website and should give a brief description about your business or you can also use this spot for the slogan.
Also, when setting up your page, be sure to “Join as a Business.” It allows you to view analytics like pins/repins from your website, your reach, number of visitors to your site from Pinterest, top pinned content and your most clicked content. The more you know about your customer’s habits, the better you can reach them.
And don’t forget to connect your Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and email accounts to Pinterest so you can share your pins on those channels.
Shareable pins
Your page isn’t complete unless you have some pins, and they’re essential for engaging and reaching customers. And don’t just pin a few times and stop. Posting on a regular basis is the key.
Your pins need to include the key factors to be successful: high quality picture, text overlays and description.
You can include additional information with those using the Pinterest’s Rich Pin feature. You’ll have to add this feature to your account, but it’s free and shows more than your traditional pin.
You can include real-time pricing and share where pinners can purchase the product. That helps the clients and improves your customer service.
You can also make it easier for customers to make purchases by adding a “Buy It” button, allowing them to buy straight from their mobile device.
On Pinterest, hashtags are not as effective as they are on other sites like Twitter, and they can actually affect your ranking if you use too many.
Boards as a marketing tool
Your Pinterest boards aren’t the place to get lazy. They may only consist of a few words, but that doesn’t make board names any less important.
Not only are boards how you group your pins, but they are also another way for you to showcase what you offer and that you know your audience, which is especially pivotal with retention.
You can also add a description for each board to give users a better idea of what to expect from the pins. This is your chance to share more information and further engage users.
Targeted audience
After setting up your Pinterest ads account, you can upload your customer list and save it with a name and description. Just remember: It takes 24 hours to process, and you’ll need at least 100 people in the group to target them.
When you’re ready to create a targeted campaign for those customers, choose a pin you want to promote with them. That pin will then show up in their home feed, “popular” section and “everything” feed.
To target a more niche customer group, you can include additional keywords, interests and categories in your promoted pin. You’re also able to exclude customers from promoted pins if they aren’t the intended audience.
Also, you can choose from actions like saves, clicks, closeups, likes and comments to narrow down who you want to reach with your promotion. Again, it takes about 24 hours to save your audience settings.