Pinterest 102: Effective Marketing Strategies

MarketingMotivator.com Effective Marketing Strategies for Pinterest | Data as of March 2012

Greetings!
I hope you find Pinterest Introduction – Part 2 helpful. Pinterest is a great tool
for your business.
If you need help with understanding social media, be sure to contact me. I can
help you expand your reach, build relationships, generate more leads, and
increase your sales. Most importantly, I can help you to save time with your
marketing, leaving you with more time to do what you do best.
I also offer a great Do-it-yourself Pinterest Video Training Series here:
www.ProfitonPinterest.com
Let me know if you have any questions. I look forward to chatting with you
soon.
Jennifer Henczel
Marketing Motivator
www.MarketingMotivator.com

Why Care About Pinterest?
Pinterest is one of the fastest growing websites in history. With all the attention
it's gotten, it left businesses and marketers drooling to get in on all the action. There's
good reason for their desires, too. Pinterest has become a top traffic driver for brands.
So businesses are wise to want to learn what they can about Pinterest early in the
game so they are ready as the site experiences even more growth.
It's important to know that the growth of Pinterest isn't just a mirage.
Pinterest is the fastest growing standalone website in history. It passed the 10
million mark in January 2012. It's expected to crack into Alexa's top 50 soon. So how
can your business tap into this tidal of a social media for bigger profits? There are
many strategies you can take, none of which are wrong. Some may be more right for
your company than others. But, first, you need to understand what Pinterest is and
some of the philosophies that drive it. Then you can figure out how to get your
business on board. That's when the real fun begins!
What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is a social network that allows its users to share what's important to
them. The hook of the website is what they share must have a picture somewhere on

the webpage. This will be what's displayed or "pinned" on Pinterest. You can have
"pinboards" that are a collection of "pins" that revolve around a common theme.
Pinterest uses a visual emphasis and is very much focused on a person's
lifestyle. Users can share their tastes and interests with others and discover likeminded
people. The social network's goal is to "connect everyone in the world through the
things they find interesting." Users can either use images they find online or ones they
take themselves.
Just like any other social network, users can follow the boards of friends, like
things others post, comment on each others' pins, and re-pin things they find
interesting. They can even share things they like on Facebook, on Twitter, in email,
and they can even embed individual pins on their blog.
The Magic of Pinterest
While an entire book could be written on exactly how to use Pinterest, for the
sake of this report, we will focus on 2 of the most important elements when it comes
to marketing on Pinterest:
 Make Your Content Pinnable
 Make Your Content Eye-Catching

Make Your Content Pinnable
If you have a Wordpress hosted website, you're in luck because making your
website pinnable is a piece of cake! There are a number of plug-ins available you can
use so pinning is just a mouse click away for visitors. There's the Pinterest “Pin It”
Button Plugin and Slick Social Media Share Buttons, to name just a few.
If you aren't on a Wordpress hosted website, don't worry, there's hope for you,
too. While visitors to your website will have to take a little more initiative to pin
something, chances are good they will if they like what they see. Pinterest is visual so
they need to see pictures they like first and foremost.
It's a good idea for any website owner to do a practice run and pin some of
your webpages just to see how they show up on Pinterest. Are the images high
quality? If not, get some new ones pronto! This small little exercise will give you a
general idea of what you need to work on to get your website "Pin Ready."
You can also use the online pin board to see the type of images that other
brands in your niche are sharing. Remember: Pinterest is a visual platform, so users
will look for the largest and most appealing photo available. In other words, make
sure to pin the best image that your website has. This can't be stressed enough!!

Make Your Content Eye-Catching
Much of the information about creating pinnable content applies here, as well.
You MUST have photos that are eye-catching or Pinterest marketing won't work no
matter how much work you put into it. Pinterest is like a scrapbook sans the scissors
and glue. You wouldn't put an old ugly photo in a scrapbook, you would put
something in it that was memorable and meaningful.
The most commonly shared photos on Pinterest are emotional ones, the ones
that make you either want to laugh or cry. Keep that in mind when you select your
photos. That's not to say if you sell lawn equipment you're going to find a photo that
makes someone want to cry. But, if you try hard enough, you can probably find one
that makes people want to laugh. If you can't find one, take one yourself.
Marketers who are able to leverage great visual content on Pinterest can weave
their boards into a cohesive social experience within their social community. Granted,
some brands translate better to a “visual bulletin board” social experience than others.
But most brand need to be on Pinterest marketing themselves to the masses.
Clothing retailers, shoes stores, jewelry, and the like certainly benefit from a site
like Pinterest. But what about a website that specializes in something like home
improvement…can they benefit? They just have paint brushes and ladders. This takes
some creative "out of the box" thinking, but most goods and services can. For those

DIYers business people who think Pinterest isn't for them….think again! What about
before and after shots of room designs for that home improvement site? Remodeling
ideas, furniture, patio designs, the list could go on and on. Don't let yourself be
limited to thinking there's nothing eye-catching about your business.
People Love Sharing Images and Photos
The real attraction and viral capability of Pinterest is that people will “share”
images and photos much more readily than a boring piece of text. The web is moving
in the direction of being a more visual medium. Facebook is trying to keep up and
recently increased the size of images in its new Timeline user interface. This visual
phenomenon is why Pinterest has gone viral.
If your company has products to sell or services to provide that require photos
it's more important than ever to have quality photos displaying these. Paying extra for
a quality photographer is worth it because your company will benefit tenfold in the
long run. Funny, cute, and emotional photos are best on Pinterest. So even if you sell
shoes, throw in a few quirky photos of your shoes that are more likely to get pinned.
In fact, they don't even have to be shoes. You can add some artistic flair to your
website with a few random eye-catching photos. This is where your business will

benefit greatly from Pinterest. Taking advantage of an increasingly visual online world
in your business that now consumes and shares rich media images on a social web is
now vital and essential.
8 reasons Why Marketers Should Use Pinterest
Pinterest and business together may be a hard concept to wrap your mind
around. It was at first when Facebook came out but most businesses caught the
phenomenon that social media was creating eventually. If they didn't, they were surely
influenced by products that did, even if they didn't know it.
So why should marketers jump on bandwagon of Pinterest now? Here are 8
reasons you should be using Pinterest as a part of your marketing plan. Or, if you're a
pessimist, 8 reasons you'll regret not using Pinterest in your marketing campaign.
1. Shift in Consumer Behavior from Search to Discovery
The Internet has been all about searching for answers. Pinterest is different. It's
about discovery. Discovery is about finding inspiration and that is something
the Internet community as a whole has been lacking and Pinterest has filled this
hole. It could change how we purchase items. Right now we are trained to

search for items we need or want. Pinterest starts before the search. Before we
even realize we need or want something. This is where the heart of marketing is
anyway. A user might go to Pinterest to browse recipes and then land on a
piece of interesting bakeware and end up purchasing it. The search was for a
recipe but the discovery and purchase was the bakeware.
2. Little Interaction Needed From Brands
Any time a new way of marketing comes up a legitimate concern arises: Do we
have the manpower to make this happen? The nice thing about Pinterest is
there is very little overhead. Besides the occasional pinning, categorizing,
tagging images, you don't have to worry about managing comments or playing
the follower game. You do Pinterest at your own pace.
3. Connect with a New Segment of Your Audience: The Visual Segment
Pinterest is visual. It attracts visual people. These may be people who prefer
images over the written word. These may be people who have missed your other
marketing campaigns. You can open the doors to a new segment of buyers who
may be interested in your product but may not even know about it by building

a community around the images you pin. These images can draw others in and
inspire them and, in the end, lead to referrals.
4. Inspires the Introvert Content Creator
There is a term online for people who don't build blogs, don't speak up on
forums, in blog comments or really anywhere else online. They're called
"lurkers." Chances are they're shy and don't really want to put themselves "out
there." But they need to be marketed to, too. Pinterest is great for them
because it doesn't require them to write, it just requires them to find things they
like and pin them on their boards. They don't have to do anything original.
These people shouldn't be ignored in a marketing campaign and that's why
Pinterest is valuable for this market.
5. Magnifies the Content of the Original Creators
The average Tumblr blog post is shared 9 times. That means it is reaching far
more people than just those who visit the site it was originally on. While there
aren't firm numbers on "re-pins" for Pinterest, you can assume the same thing:
content is re-pinned and shared across a broad audience. So if you create

content on Pinterest and it is shared on Pinterest, chances are good it will reach
far more than just those who like it at your original pinning of the content from
your website.
6. "Re-Pinning" is the new "Re-tweet" or "Facebook Share"
Online social media is all about community. It's almost like high school when
there was an elite group that all the others paid attention to. Social media is no
different. There are those who have a mass following. Pinterest is just like
Twitter or Facebook where you can build a following simply by "re-pinning"
just like you can by "re-tweeting" or the "Facebook share."
7. Tap Into Niches
You can build a board on anything in Pinterest. This means you can have boards
on many different niches. If you're a business, this is great because you can
reach different groups of people based on your different boards.

8. Build Your Expertise
Even if your brand isn't a perfect fit for Pinterest, you can still share your
experiences and build your expertise in a particular location, industry or
through relationships. Don't allow yourself to be limited just because your
business isn't that perfect fit. Find a way to engage with customers in whatever
way possible on Pinterest. By developing relationships, you develop trust and
that can lead to an excellent way to promote your business.
Effective Marketing Strategies to Use on Pinterest
So where should you start when it comes to marketing on Pinterest? That
depends on the type of business you have, of course. The one way not to do it is make
your Pinterest boards look like ads for your business and nothing else. That will get
you nowhere. Remember, Pinterest is a community. You need to treat it as such. Even
if you're a business trying to promote your products, you still need to interact with
others and provide something meaningful. Create some boards that have nothing to
do with your business but are inspiring to others, such as quotes, photos, or anything
else that might get someone's attention.

Once you understand that Pinterest is a community, you also can know it's OK
to market. That's what you're there for after all! Here a few strategies to help.
 Online Catalog: This is the most likely way for a business with physical
products to sell on Pinterest. Just make sure you separate things by boards so it
doesn't get overwhelming for the viewer. For example, if you own a pet store,
you might have a board for cat toys, one for dog toys, one for pet cages, one
for bird products, etc. Don't forget to add the price tag to each image. Make
sure the image links back to the product description page of your website, too.
 Grow Your Pins and Boards: In order to successfully market on Pinterest,
you must pin your boards regularly so the Pinterest community knows your
presence is alive and well. You might consider keeping a schedule to keep
yourself on track. You also want to keep your eye on popular pins or re-pins so
you know what's trending. That can give you an idea of what to pin or re-pin.
This will help people flock to your boards to see what you have to offer.
 Show the Human Side of Your Brand: Surprise, surprise! Pinterest doesn't
have to be all about hard core marketing your brand. Social networking is about
real people and people love seeing the human side of things. Show your
followers behind the scenes of your brand. Show a silly side of something of
your brand. Show something emotional. These are the things that get shared the

most on Pinterest. This is what will initially draw in your audience. Only then
will they start to pay attention to your other pins. But being real and honest is
vital in the social medium.
 Pin About Your Event: If your brand or business hosts events, create a board
dedicated solely to each event. You can pin content leading up to the event to
create interest. You could pin profiles of the speakers. You could highlight any
special events that might happen during the event. You could highlight
workshops that might be there. After the event, post pictures of the event, a
synopsis (you could have more than one, each highlighting one aspect), and so
on. This is a great way to keep your board alive and generate interest in an
event. It's sort of a "two for one" deal.
 Create a Board for a New Product Launch: Similar to creating buzz for an
event, you can also create a lot of buzz about an upcoming product launch on
Pinterest. Create a board devoted to the new product. Don't wait until it's
released, create a board a few months before it's released to start building
anticipation. You can pin pictures, features, or anything else about the product
you think consumer will get out of your product. When it's released, don't stop
using your board. Keep posting pictures, customers' reactions, and anything
else you think might benefit your product. You might even set up a board for

customers to leave feedback. This can be a bit tricky if you think there might be
some negative feedback but it can also payoff in the long run because people
love honest reviews.
 Offer Exclusive Discounts Only Good for Pinterest Followers: The most
direct way to promote your product is to offer exclusive deals to Pinterest
followers. While this might seem boring and done by the masses, it works! A
more "out of the box" way to do it might be to pin a QR code with interesting
content that makes visitors immediately want to click through to a description
of the product. This could work for local businesses, too. They could offer QR
codes for iPhone users to bring to their stores for special discounts.
 Create a Video Gallery: Videos have their home on Pinterest. They also have
a lot of capabilities for anyone who wants to create a tutorial or record
segments of a webinar, conference, or anything else. A great way to draw
attention to your videos is to add annotations. This is basically a call to action
for you audience to pin videos they find appealing. These annotations should
tell the visitor to “pin this video to Pinterest” or provide a link to your
Pinterest profile. The annotation also serves as an invitation to users to engage
with you in another way in a different community.

 Welcome and Encourage Comments: Popular pins on Pinterest have three
things going for them: likes, comments, and repins. You have the power to
invite users to do one of those things, rather than leaving it up to them to
maybe remember they can or should. It's easy to engage your audience to get
them to leave a comment. For example, you might post an interesting beach
picture and say, "Guess where this was taken." Use your new pins and boards
as opportunities to converse with users on Pinterest.
 Add Watermarks to Your Images: It's important to remember that most of
the pins on Pinterest are re-pins. So the pin of the pair of shoes you're selling
may eventually be from an unknown source to someone. Then you start to lose
the marketing impact you initially set out for. To keep that from happening,
add a watermark to each image you post on Pinterest. It can be your website
address or your brand but it needs to be something that reminds the viewer
where the picture is from.
 Use Pinterest as a Focus Group: Focus groups are an excellent way to find
out what your target market is thinking. You can create a new board on a new
product you're developing and see how your followers react. This gets into the
mind of your target audience to really see what they're thinking. This may be
some of the most important marketing you will do. Invite feedback from

followers. Ask them what they like or don't like. Ask them what they wish the
product had or didn't have. The only way you're going to know what your
audience wants is to ask them.
Top 20 Websites Shared on Pinterest
It's important to remember anything goes with social media. So just because one
company does well doesn't mean everyone else should give up. But it's nice to know
who the "heavy weights" are when it comes to any sort of business so you have a
successful model to follow.
Pinterest is pretty quiet about who does well on their site. This silence has left a
lot of people wondering why they are so quiet and exactly who is performing well on
this earth shaking social media website. Businesses want to know for the sake of
marketing and the general public would like to know for nothing more than mere
curiosity.
RJ Metrics decided to take matters into their own hands. They wrote a script
and analyzed random Pinterest user data. The end result was that about 1 million pins
were examined. So this data is not from Pinterest itself, but is probably a pretty good

indicator of what Pinterest would offer if they were offering anything in terms of
statistics.
Keep in mind, most pins are re-pins so most people aren't necessarily even
visiting the site that is pinned. They're just pinning something they like and may or
may not come back to later. There is also a very large spread of websites that are
pinned on Pinterest. The top website pinned only made up 3% of the total pins.
1. Etsy
2. Google
3. Flickr
4. Tumblr
5. WeHeartIt.com
6. MarthaStewart.com
7. Polyvore.com
8. BHG.com
9. Houzz.com
10.Pinterest's iphone app
11.Imgfav.com
12.StyleMePretty.com
13.ApartmentTherapy.com

14.Amazon
15.SunSurfer.Tumblr.com
16.Anthropologie.com
17.Ffffound.com
18.Blogs.babble.com
19.Piccsy.com
20.RealSimple.com
What do most of these have in common? For one thing, they have great
pictures. As has already been said, Pinterest is a visual community. If you want to do
well on Pinterest with your marketing efforts, your top priority needs to be great
images. This is the first thing that draws consumers in to re-pin and re-pinning is the
only way something will go viral. The websites above also show the site's largely
female demographic. In recent months more men have started to join Pinterest but
for now females still dominate.
The takeaway? You must adapt to this visual community or you won't survive.
And, for now, market to women. Keep your eye out for changing trends though,
because men may begin to creep up there and change those top websites.

Top Brands on Pinterest
Want to know what brands do well? Remember, this doesn't mean if your brand isn't
like any of these you won't do well. But it's worth taking a look at jut to see what is
successful. Many of these brads were "early adopters" and have been on Pinterest for
a while. They've built their following and their Pinterest site up to what it is today.
Follow the early adopters to get a sense of how they're using it. Whether they're big
companies or individuals with a big following, pay attention to them so you can learn
what they're doing so you can follow their success. Even if they're a brand that is the
complete opposite of what you sell, you can still learn something from them. It's not
the brand you're trying to emulate, but the way they use Pinterest. These molds can fit
any business.
 Whole Foods
 Martha Stewart
 Better Homes and Gardens
 Real Simple
 West Elm
 Bergdorf Goodman
 The Today Show
 Travel Channel

What Are You Waiting On…Get Started!
The only limitations on how you can use Pinterest for marketing is your
imagination. That's an old cliché saying, but it's true. There are countless ways to
market on a social website like Pinterest. The great thing about the ever changing
nature of the Internet is that it allows for so many creative ways to market. But, this
does mean you need to keep up on trends and know how to market to the ever
changing marketplace.
You can't ignore Pinterest if you have a business, particularly if it's a business
that offers goods or services to the public. Some of the methods mentioned in this
book might be out of your "comfort zone," but there should be at least a handful that
resonate with you and your business.
So marketing today involves "pinning," "repining," "liking" someone's picture
and even commenting on some else's pin. Sure, it sounds funny but there is a LOT of
power in that last sentence.
So what are you waiting for??….Get started!!
If you need help with this stuff, take a look at this
helpful video training series…

It’s an easy to follow, step-by-step video training series that will show you how
to use Pinterest to build relationships, build your exposure, build your
branding, and build your business:
www.ProfitonPinterest.com

Pinterest 102: Effective Marketing Strategies

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