How To Succeed In Pinterest For Business – By Head of Pinterest UK (Via The Ink Gardener)

Posted: 25th May 2016

By: WiRE Team

inkgardener-copywriter-WiREMany thanks to Helen Reynolds from The Ink Gardener for letting us feature this great blog about Pinterest for Business

Last week I was lucky enough to attend Buy Yorkshire conference in Leeds. The highlight was a seminar by Adele Cooper, the enthusiastic and friendly head of Pinterest UK. Despite being beset by video gremlins, she gave some amazing insights into how Pinterest can work for your business. Here are some of my notes:

What is Pinterest?

It’s a place where people can save images on virtual online pinboards. The images can be from websites or from other Pinterest boards. People can catalogue ideas. It’s especially popular for fashion, travel, food and interior design.

Who uses it?

In the UK there are 10 million UK visitors a month. 80% access Pinterest from a mobile and 70% are female.

The largest group is 25 – 34 age group. 21% of Pinterest users are from this age group. As the UK population for this age range is 13%, it goes to show Pinterest is grabbing their attention.

Why do they use it?

Pinterest is used to plan big life events and smaller everyday moments. Many of the biggest life events such as getting married, buying a house and having children happen in the 25 – 34 year age range. For example 80% of brides are using Pinterest.

Pinterest is for people planning ahead. It’s something personal, so often isn’t widely shared.

Why should businesses bother with Pinterest?

  • 75% of content on Pinterest is generated by business.
  • 70% of people on Pinterest take action on their Pins.
  • 52% make a purchase online. – I suppose if you’ve been staring at the ideal duvet cover for a week, then it’s going to keep it at the forefront of your mind.
  • It’s easy for people to link back to your website for more details or to purchase – I believe linking back to the ‘mother ship’ of your website is essential. So this is a huge plus compared to other platforms.

These statistics were a real eye-opener though:

Reach customers when they want to buy

When shopping in-store, people are looking at Pinterest to help them decide what to buy. 57% are looking at food products and 42% are looking at fashion. This is definitely food for thought. What could be better than reaching people when they’re in active buying mode?

Reach people who are planning in advance

Adele shared these statistics about the majority of searches for Christmas on digital platforms:

  • Facebook: people start searching a few days before
  • Web search: two weeks before
  • Pinterest: a whopping four months in advance

How can you make your business Pinterest-friendly?

You can install Pinit on your website for free. Adding small line of Java code is all it takes for customers to pin content from your website to their Pinterest board. Ask your web developer if you’re unsure.

80% of brides use Pinterest

Another free addition is setting up Rich Pins. These pull images automatically from your website and the supporting information. So if your price changes, this feeds through to Pinterest without your having to change it. Made.com increased their revenue by 173% by introducing Rich Pins.

Promoted Pins have to be paid for. However the promotion angle is subtle, with just a ‘Promoted by’ under the image. This means the Hide rate (as in people clicking X to hide them) is 90% lower than other platforms. There are also Cost Per Engagement and Cost Per Click options, based on an auction model similar to Google.

What makes a good Pin?

Pins should be helpful. Think about people actively planning something.

“The image pulls you, but text drives sales.” – Adele Cooper, head of Pinterest UK

As you can imagine, as a copywriter I was more than a little delighted to hear this.

11 top tips

  1. Instructions and how-tos work well
  2. Lists are popular
  3. Use text overlays when the picture itself doesn’t fully explain what an image is.
  4. Tasteful branding. If it looks like an ad, people are turned off and less likely to engage. But keep your colours and setting. Tiffany jewellery is very clever at this.
  5. Colour doesn’t make a difference but be consistent and use your branded colours.
  6. Use vertical images, not landscape – I can almost hear the gritted teeth from the Twitterati…
  7. Don’t use amateur or user-generated content
  8. Avoid borders
  9. Don’t use hashtags
  10. Remember to promote your Pinterest channel in your other marketing channels
  11. Videos can be included but need to be hosted on YouTube or Vine

Beautiful or helpful

Adele said your images should be beautiful or helpful. This made me think of the quote by the artist and designer William Morris:

William Morris quote

The same seems to go for Pinterest images.

Should you go ahead with Pinterest?

This all depends on what type of business you are. But it seems to work best for:

  • B2C businesses
  • With a visual product or service
  • That have professional photos already online
  • Targeting 34 year olds and under
  • And if you’re targeting the wedding market, it’s a definite yes.

The curtain manufacturer sat next to me was planning to embed Pinit onto his website that very day…