Why marketers shouldn’t ignore Pinterest
Of all the social media platforms that now exist in the world, from Facebook to Instagram to Snapchat and back through LinkedIn, one that is consistently missing from the discussion is Pinterest. This is particularly true of marketers, the vast majority of whom tend to stick to the social media giants they are familiar with and feel comfortable using. But, Pinterest marketing is a fantastic opportunity you can’t afford to miss!
Pinterest could actually be a better tool for your brand to reach its target audience. What if Pinterest could generate higher engagement levels with your campaigns than its competitors? What if Pinterest could drive sales? All this may well be reality, and marketers should fully explore its potential to reap the rewards.
It’s perfect for visual-focused brands
Image and video content is taking over. For example, Instagram has become ever more powerful for selling a lifestyle since the launch of Instagram shoppable. Yet if your brand is visual-focused, Instagram is not your only option. Indeed, it might not be the one to drive engagement.
According to Marketing Week, Pinterest boasts ‘more than 200 million active “pinners” worldwide’. It is ‘home to 100 billion pinned images and two billion boards.’ In addition, ‘30 million visual searches are made on the site every month.’
Pinterest has proved a popular choice for home décor, furniture and style brands. Ikea and Made.com have already tapped into the fact that these themes remain the most-searched on Pinterest.
However, Pinterest’s potential is not limited only to this industry. Marketing Week argues that ‘Pinterest is mainly useful for companies that are able to create boards with content that champions both visual appeal and consumer value,’ with promoted pins able to boost engagement with content put out on the platform.
Like Instagram, Pinterest has sought to tap into the demand for shoppable images. It further expands its potential for brands to reach customers who have already pinned an item they like. You can reach potential customers in the so-called consideration stage, when they are making plans and are open to influence. Marketing on Pinterest can be a useful tool for driving conversion and sales.
Pinterest provides tools to get you started
In a bid to get marketers engaged with its platform, Pinterest provides a number of tools to help brands craft their campaigns and feed this into their wider strategy.
According to MarTech Series, Pinterest recently announced a program which ‘will enable businesses to scale how they create Pinterest content.’ The program allows brands to work with seven marketing partners who have already built Pinterest solutions. These resources give ‘access to creative development tools that make it easy to build, manage and launch engaging Pins.’
Perhaps the greatest benefit to this program is that the partners are already trained by the Pinterest Creative strategy team on best practice. They have insider knowledge on how to build pins that deliver results. This means that marketing teams will not need to undergo additional training or spend time trialling alternative strategies. You can jump right into a campaign that works.
Pinterest claim that 90% of weekly pinners use the platform for purchasing decisions. Marketers could be looking at a goldmine of potential customers, data acquisition and sales. While it is fair to say that it won’t work for every brand, as the drive towards visual content continues, more and more could find that Pinterest represents a valuable tool in their marketing arsenal. Getting to grips with the platform now could get you ahead of the curve.
