What is Pinterest Marketing?
The new Pinterest social media marketing platform may be ideally suited to benefit your relationship marketing strategies. It is a relatively new visually-based site that is quickly becoming a traffic-driving powerhouse. Check out Techcrunch.com’s Pinterest Monthly Uniques for stats.
If you are not familiar with Pinterest, find out the basics. Mashable’s Pinterest Beginners Guide and Quicksprout’s Marketers Guide to Pinterest are helpful.
The visual design of Pinterest favors businesses and industries that lend themselves to visual presentation. Photography, travel, architecture and design are a few that come to mind. There are lifestyle segments too, like fashion, hair style, all kinds of DIY tips, and plenty about pets.
Although the audience is predominantly female, the explosive growth is starting to increase the male population.
Build Community Through Social Media Marketing
Pinterest’s topical board structure is ideally suited for customer relationship marketing because it allows a brand to provide an interesting array of content that can keep customers engaged at just about every point in the marketing life cycle. Just as you can create a board with content aimed at hot leads, you can also start a board with pins targeted for prospects at the top of your sales funnel.
By providing resources and ideas, brands can create trust and position themselves as thought leaders. Customers buy from brands they trust, and content from thought leaders usually is shared by consumers.
The Bailey Apartments case study illustrates how a property management company utilizes Pinterest: “Touching upon things that we – consumers, businesses, neighbors, people – like, not messages that sell are the things that give value to a Pinterest board. Selling is overdone. Telling a story and sharing experiences isn’t. It is contextual content. And it is proving to be the king of showing the human element in digital relationships.”
Showcase for Brand Personality
Brands have an opportunity to demonstrate their values by the kind of content and interests they display. When creating and pinning, marketers need to carefully consider the image of the brand; just like any social platform, consistency and personality must fit the core values of the brand. Brands do have the ability to connect emotionally with consumers, there are opportunities to comment and like, similar to Facebook.
Pinterest Marketing Allows Brand to Deliver Different Kind of Content
Brands are able to provide experiential content, even if it isn’t directly related to the product or service you provide. This is particularly relevant for brands with a lifestyle connection. For instance, travel and fashion brands have a wide variety of possibilities. Other brands might be able to provide ideas and tips for do-it-yourself enthusiasts.
Interest groups can create and share content; for example, there is a great deal of content for teachers and those who home school. By creating complementary boards and linking to group content, marketers can join in the activity as a member of the group.
Promotes Sharing New Social Media Content
The Pinterest platform is conducive to sharing and distribution of content. It’s easy to share content and for many, the value of being on the platform is finding and sharing new content. This is why Pinterest is now referring more traffic than Linked In, Reddit and Google +.
Pinterest is an Excellent Resource Platform for Customer Relationships
There are almost endless possibilities for offering valuable tips, recipes, and creative ideas for consumers. As a bonus, there are opportunities for insights and feedback that customers can generate through likes and comment features on items pinned to the boards. Data shows that consumers are engaged, spending more than an hour on the platform, more than Twitter, Linked in and Google + combined. (Source)
The ideas and resources could motivate customers and prospects to use your products and services.
Pinterest offers relationship marketing benefits for brands with products and services that lend themselves to visual presentation. If your product or service fits into this category, then you really should investigate this platform. Other brands may find ways to use the platform; however, it may take more imagination. What other benefits can you think of?
photo credit: DigitalTrends.com
