Turning browsers into Buyers

 
As a business vying for attention in a sea of online content, there’s one huge advantage that you want to pursue: purchasing intent. It goes without saying that it’s much easier to drive home a sale if the customer is interested in your product and open to making a purchase. If there’s purchasing intent, half the battle is already won.

Pinterest Helps Shape Which Products People Buy

 
This is where Pinterest is highly underrated as a marketing tool. According to Pinterest for Business, 55 percent of pinners say they want to use the platform to find or shop for products, compared with just 12 percent on other social media sites. In addition, 93 percent of pinners admit they use the platform to help plan purchases and 87 percent say they have bought a product after seeing it on the site.

The Pinterest Gold Mine

 
With the platform so well set up for businesses, it’s well worth capitalising on the opportunities that Pinterest brings. Here are ten tips to help you build your Pinterest brand and translate interest into intent:

1. Show who you are

Like any other social media site, Pinterest is not only an opportunity to sell products – it’s also incredibly useful in constructing and conveying your business’ identity. Show a strong and consistent aesthetic style and create boards that are likely to interest your target audience to personalise your brand. For example, here is my Pinterest page. Notice how the account is optimised to help business owners with their online marketing.

2. Optimise images

When using Pinterest, it’s important to consider the platform’s unique layout. While wide images might look great on Instagram, on Pinterest they simply don’t stand out. Curate vertical images, ideally with an aspect ratio of 2:3 and with a minimum width of 600 pixels.

3. Enrich your content

When Pinterest introduced Rich Pins in 2013, it was nothing short of a commercial blessing. Rich Pins allow businesses to provide additional information and context to a pin, including real-time pricing, product descriptions and website links. As a further bonus, if users have pinned a Rich Pin product and the price drops, they’ll get an automatic alert, making it ideal for driving home sales.

If you haven’t already, take advantage of Rich Pins. While the most relevant form of these for businesses is likely to be product pins, Rich Pins are also available for recipes, app pins and article pins.

4. Keywords, keywords, keywords

By now, it should be pretty clear that keywords are a crucial part of your online marketing strategy, and their necessity for Pinterest is no exception. Use keywords not only in your description for the pin, but also in the filename when you upload an image (for example, you might call your image summer_bohemian_maxi_dress, for example). This simple trick gives you another avenue to boost your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

5. Use a Pinterest browser extension

If you’re in the business of engaging your customers through online marketing, you should always be on the lookout for great content to share. As active web users will know, however, sometimes you stumble upon the perfect material when you’re not even looking for it. Pinterest’s browser extensions allow you to pin content while you’re browsing, making it easy for you to pin on a regular basis.

6. Check what’s trending

Pinterest provides plenty of scope to explore different forms of content, providing fertile ground for new trends to develop. The recent introduction of promoted videos, for example, has helped fuel a trend towards video content. Data suggests this is one worth getting in on for businesses, with 61 percent of Pinterest users claiming they enjoy seeing videos from brands.

For a trend that’s unique to Pinterest, consider pin infographics. Infographics are ideal for Pinterest’s market of curious users that want quick, visually appealing sources of knowledge or inspiration.

7. Give credit

This one isn’t just out of courtesy – it’s also an avenue to get your business out there and gain new followers. When you pin other people’s content, make sure you tag the original pinner. They’ll notice- and hopefully return the favour by looking into or following your content.

8. Understand your audience

Pinterest analytics is a great tool to better understand your audience, providing rich data on the demographics and interests of the people you reach. To access the free service, simply verify your account as a business.

For an even more in-depth understanding of your audience, it’s also worth doing your own research. Visit the profiles of your followers to find out what design styles and kind of language they use, then use this information to perfect your Pinterest pitch

9. Get creative

If you’re not a design guru, you might have an inclination to shy away from creating your own images. While this apprehension is understandable, there are numerous programs that make designing images both easy and fun.

Canva is a great example of this. It has a stockpile of backgrounds and images to use, or you can upload your own. Add text and you have your own customised image ready to be pinned.

10. Provide inspiration

While people go to Facebook to catch up with their friends and news, Pinterest has a different focus. Part of what makes the platform so appealing is that it acts as a source of inspiration for its users. It’s great for scenarios where people are stuck for ideas – whether that be what to cook, what to buy as a gift, or where to travel to next.

The good news for businesses is that this is part of what makes it such a great platform for marketing. Users are explicitly looking for material that will capture their imagination and motivate them to try new things. Make your content their next big inspiration and watch the benefits for your business follow!