By Sofie Kerremans, 25 March 2021
Pinterest is a visual social network and online search engine, where people can find inspiration and ideas about several topics. You can compare it to an online mood board for your business. Pins can link back to websites, which is why Pinterest is great for boosting traffic and sales. And with over 400 million active users worldwide, creating Pinterest for your business is an opportunity you don’t want to miss.
Pinterest works the same way as a search engine does. A user can register on the website and then search for different things. Users searching on Pinterest are qualified traffic. Meaning that they are people who already know what they’re looking for and are ready to engage with the content they find. When a user searches for something, your website content is showed via pictures. When the user clicks on that image, they are redirected to your website. This improves the organic traffic to your website.
The search function on Pinterest is so strong that it ensures that your content is always easy to discover. When you optimize your pints with keywords. It will help Pinterest’s algorithm to understand what your pins are about and rank them highly on users’ feeds.
Pinterest users are generally speaking quite young (45 and under). 71% of them are females looking for inspiration. According to Panel Inzicht - a leading online research panel - the traditional role pattern, where women are responsible for the main purchases of a household, is still relevant today. * This means that the people who visit your website and show interest in your products, have the deciding authority in most of the purchases.
One of the biggest advantages of using Pinterest for business is the visibility of your pins. When you share a pin, other users can share it again and increase your reach. The more appealing your pin looks and the more value it provides, the better your visibility.
Some pins remain visible to users for years. This is much longer than on other platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. It is also recommended to create multiple pins per URL you want to share. Different styles appeal to different people, which in return contribute to the longevity of your pins. The right approach on Pinterest can increase the searchability and visibility of your products and services. 77% of weekly pinners say they have discovered new brands, products or services through the platform.
You can see statistics for everything from audience interests to their location and what device they were using. This can be incredibly valuable when shaping your content or deciding how to further use Pinterest to reach more people. This also allows you to improve and analyze your website continuously. And by combining the statistics from Pinterest and Google Analytics, you can learn a lot about the interests of your audience.
When you analyze this data properly, you can adjust your pins based on that data. This allows you to better adapt your products and services to your target group. Pinterest enables you to segment not only by gender but by category, too. That translates into targeted content that’s likely to generate buzz, create a community—and generate sales.
Like we stated in the beginning, Pinterest is a visually driven social network. According to Pinterest: 87% of pinners have purchased a product after seeing it on the platform. And 93% of active pinners said they use it to plan for purchases. Based on all this data, we could safely conclude that Pinterest is a catalyst for online purchases.
One tool that Pinterest offers to make this process even better are Promoted Pins. Pinterest has found that 70% of sales that happen thanks to Promoted Pins, come from new customers. What this means for you as an e-commerce manager, is that you can attract new customers that are ready and willing to spend money on your products.
If you have an e-commerce store and want a channel that targets young affluent millennials, then you need to start using Pinterest.
Pinterest has proven to be a productive network for brands as it validates the aphorism that a picture is worth a thousand words. And visual communication has found to be more effective than non-visual communication. Even though Pinterest tilts to the B2C direction, that doesn’t mean it is not useful for B2B marketers.
Pinterest does offer some opportunities for B2B businesses. Brands can seize those opportunities if they divide the visual aspects of their campaigns from other aspects. Two such aspects (Infographics and webinars) have already been acknowledged. Others include pictures of happy customers and employees, slides, PPT presentations, case studies and so on.
Pinterest is not a leverage for B2Bs per se, but the platform can aid them in highlighting some of the aspects related to branding. For B2C brands, Pinterest can easily become a goldmine. It’s their loss if they are not implementing it.
Pinterest can be worthwhile for both B2B and B2C companies, depending on how they organize their marketing strategies. If you start using the platform to the strategic use of it, then you can easily achieve success.
We hope that this article gave you some insights into why Pinterest can be an important tool for your business. If you still have any questions, feel free to get in touch!
* The results of this research concern Belgium and the Netherlands