Secrets you have to know about…
Pinterest Expert shares how businesses are riding high on Pinterest
PART 1 of 3
In social media marketing, there are still some marketers, entrepreneurs and businesses that think Pinterest is only about women pinning a bunch of pretty pictures.
They also mistakenly think that Facebook and Twitter are the obvious choice for most businesses. Meanwhile Pinterest has gained huge momentum and is now the 2nd largest driver of traffic from social media sites (next only to Facebook). Bottom line; if you are a business or a blogger and you are not thinking about or using Pinterest you are probably missing sales as a result.
Furthermore, did you know that Pinterest buyers spend more money, more often, & on more items than any other top 5 social media sites according to Comscore? Now what’s not to like about that?
Bottom line:
Pinterest offers tremendous opportunity for most businesses; product & service, on line or off line because visual content rules social media. According to a study by Simply Measured, a social media analytics firm, 69 of the world’s top 100 brands are on Pinterest which is now encouraging more and more businesses to look at how they can benefit from it as well.
With that in mind let’s have a look at nine brands / businesses that have been on fire with Pinterest since December 2013.
1) Kahlua partnered with Allrecipes.com offering a holiday entertaining sweepstakes in which one fan won $5,000 to plan a dream holiday party. Entrants were asked to pin a Kahlua-inspired images representing their idea of “the ultimate holiday party” to a Pinterest board (either by creating a new board or pinning existing or self-generated images to an existing board); and filling out an entry form.
Jaw-dropping results:
More than 8,000 consumers entered the sweeps, generating 10,400 contest-related pins and 1.4 million total impressions
Kahlua’s new Pinterest page attracted more than 3,800 new followers
The brand saw nearly 8,800 Pinterest page interactions during the campaign; 1,700+ organic Kahlua-related pins; 7,800 re-pins; and 1,600+ organic re-pins. Repins from Kahlua’s site went up about 600%
25 days following the end of the sweeps Kahlua gained 400 new Pinterest followers
Kahlua collected more than 16,000 new unique, opt-in email addresses through the sweeps
Okay so you’re thinking c’mon we don’t have $5,000 for a contest! You’re right most small businesses won’t have that kind of budget but here’s what I want you to take away from this.
1. Pinterest contests help to build more followers! Start with a prize that won’t make or break your bank account. Start small and control what people will expect in the future. A prize like a $25 gift card that you’re target audience will love is something I’m sure you can do comfortably.
2. When you create contests make sure that you collect their email addresses. That means you’ll need to have an opt-in box on your landing page on your website. The beautiful thing about this is now you have an opportunity to reach out to your customers in a meaningful way. Take a lesson from Pinterest – they are about inspiration and not selling.
3. What I love about what Kahlua did is that they asked the participants to pin images of their own idea of the ultimate holiday party. This idea builds further fan engagement and as a business you now have insight and market intelligence about what your target audience values. When you have information about what inspires your customers you naturally want to keep giving them more of what they want. This is how you build customer loyalty.
2) Caribou Coffee Co. installed a 64-foot-tall Pinterest board that will stretch to the fifth floor of Mall of America. They understand the power of images and shined a big bright light on their Pinterest users as the company launched its Real Inspiration coffee blend. The content was developed using feedback from Pinterest users.
Okay, you’re thinking again…so now you want us to create a monster size Pinterest board? Well of course not. First let me say that Caribou Coffee involved Pinterest users to create the content which saved them time. The focus was on the pinners which encouraged followers to engage with the brand. The coffee company can now take these inspirations use them to create new products or marketing strategies.
So what can you do similarly for your business?
If you have a physical store create a smaller version of the mega sized board Caribou Coffee created. You could start with a letter size document with images that inspire your customers. Do a monthly feature to get the buzz going and let people know how they can participate so their pins get featured on your Pinterest board. You can easily track the pins by creating a hashtag.
Jan. 21, 2014: Nordstrom is the number one brand followed on Pinterest.
This is part 1 of this blog series. You can easily follow this series by clicking this link.
YOUR TURN
Have you tried any of the tactics that these brands have used?. If not, which one would help your business grow? I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments.
If this is overwhelming for you and you feel like you are going around and around with Pinterest and not getting anywhere contact me to learn more about my Pinterest Marketing Course for Business.
The post Pinterest Expert Shares How Businesses Are Riding High On Pinterest appeared first on White Glove Social Media Marketing.
