The Power of Pinterest in Lead Generation

by Lisa Devereaux | May 6, 2015 | Uncategorized

Any goals for a business is to generate leads to convert into customers, clients and ultimately sales. The majority of Pinterest users are women and one in five women are on it. Women are the biggest decision makers in making consumer decisions. With an ever-growing fan following, Pinterest is no longer a network solely for Thanksgiving recipes, pet pictures and makeup tutorials. The rocketing popularity of this social media power house has gained it a sprawling reputation of being a lead generation machine and an important conversion tool in the eyes of marketing gurus. More users are in a buying mood and they’re browsing for the next “it” item. Why is that important? Simply, if you can make social profitable and influence commerce you are going to win the popularity race.

Pinterest is ultimately a Search Engine. Thing Google but the results are all images bookmarked to the latest and most popular information. People love images. On Google it is becoming more difficult and challenging to rank for priority keywords for typical business websites. However on Pinterest, savvy marketers can get heaps more traffic leveraging the social network of Pinterest with a few additional tips using the right keywords so users can find them.

Let us walk you through some basic steps that can be instrumental in paving up your lead generation endeavors on Pinterest and convert your Pinterest followers into potential customers for your business.

Pin your main Blog Images

Pinterest is all about images, so use it effectively to lead prospects to your words. If your business website maintains a blog, develop a habit of pinning each of your blog’s main images to your brand network on Pinterest and link them back to the corresponding blog post in addition to including CTAs and links to landing pages to detain lead data. You can further increase your leads by creating premium offer on your landing page, offering a free vide tutorial on a business-related topic or advertising a free eBook in return for their contact information.

Make use of Info-Graphics

Put your creativity to test, and convert boring company data or text-based promotional content into attractive info-graphics. Pinterest followers love tall images with concise content and vibrant colors. By assimilating a lot of information in an appealing manner, Info-graphics can really become an effective player on your lead generation team.

Get new leads through a contact capture form

Have you explored the power of Pinterest to breed more e-mail sign ups? Well, here’s how to. Simply pin the clip of a contact capture form to one of your brand boards, and instruct the audience to fill it out and register with your website to win a free trial (or a discount voucher) of your product/service. By linking the image to your full website, or landing page, you will be able to generate more leads and acquire new contacts to expand your digital marketing campaigns.

Pin your company’s eBook and Whitepaper Covers

While re-pinning is not always the most idyllic way to generate leads, creating unique content for your brand page every time you sit to pin is also a tall order. Make use of front covers form your company’s eBooks, brochures, published blogs or whitepapers and pin them to your Pinterest network. However, make sure the pins include links to the corresponding document, and include CTAs as well as backlinks to the landing page.

Pinners love DIY resources and instructive content

We all love the DIY Hacks and Top Tips on Pinterest, so why not use them to our advantage? As a B2B company, you can create boards that provide checklists, free templates, and DIY instructions to incentivize your target audience to follow your boards.

Start trending by using Hashtags

Like Google+, Twitter and Instagram, Pinterest also supports hashtags to establish trends and make the pinned content search-friendly. If you aim to generate leads for a new business campaign or a recently launched product or service, start by creating an exclusive board around it, and tag your pins with the same hashtags as the ones you’re using on other social media websites for a synched promotion.

Give a human feel to your Pinterest boards by creating a Video Gallery

While a picture is worth a thousand words, never underestimate the power of motion, music and human voice in engaging your audience. Many new pinners are not aware of the fact that they can actually pin videos and create a video gallery on Pinterest. Well, if you are one such novice, then make sure you use this revelation to the best of your business interests! Start pinning your brand-centric or promotional videos to your Pinterest brand page, but remember to add links to your full website and appealing call-to-actions to direct your prospects down the sales funnel.

Measure the effectiveness of your Pins through Analytics

Your social media marketing efforts may go in vain if you don’t track your progress. If you are using Pinterest’s business account, the dashboard provides a very useful analytics tool to measure your lead generation performance and the impact of your pinning activities in driving web traffic. Evaluate the kind of images that are working, establish success and failure patterns and devise a future pinning strategy accordingly. A different approach to track the number of leads is to use a ‘bit.ly’ link in the description box that tracks the volume of people who actually click and follow the pin description.

Use coupon codes and exclusive offers to promote your whitepapers

Customers love freebies, exclusive coupon codes and limited offers, so make the most of these to promote your company’s whitepapers (or even e-books and brochures) and generate more leads. You can do this by pinning info-graphics, visual data, charts and images from such promotional documents, and linking them to the contact form on your landing page. Once a prospect submits a filled form, you can send them a time-constrained code or a limited offer to ensure quick conversion.

Post photos of Satisfied Customers to earn a positive foothold

Your happy campers can be your biggest marketing asset to inspire prospects! Pin photos of satisfied customers and link them back to customer reviews and case studies on your company’s website. However, it is vital that to seek permission from your respective clients to avoid any trouble!

While the above-mentioned tactics focus on strategies and game plans that augment lead generation, here are a few quick tips on enhancing the quality of your pinned content and in turn boost the traffic on your boards, and ultimately your business website.

Evaluate the effectiveness of your old pins and create new ones to replace the older pins. For example, you may earn more traffic as spring approaches by replacing your Christmas recipes with ones aimed at Easters.
Make your pins appealing to different age groups, genders, classes and ethnicities.
It is imperative that you use high resolution pictures on your boards with vivid colors, and attractive outlook. Use descriptive captions that describe your pins and make them easy to locate.
Follow popular boards and take inspiration from their pins to create your own. This would help you determine what resonates within your target audience and plan your pins accordingly.

Don’t forget to Pin and Follow!

Use Pinterest to Promote Your Etsy Business

by Lisa Devereaux | May 5, 2015 | Uncategorized

From exploring their interests and finding desired products to connecting with people with similar passions, millions of users use Pinterest every day to benefit from its interesting content. Owing to its fan base, Pinterest could be an ideal launching and marketing platform for your Etsy business. Have a look at a handful of our tips to effectively promote your Etsy Shop on Pinterest.

Start by using the ‘Etsy Attribution Icon’ on Pinterest and the ‘Pin It’ button on Etsy!

Confused much? It’s okay, read on!

Copyright infringement has previously been a cause of concern for artists on Pinterest. In their attempt to address the issue, Pinterest has introduced attribution icons to pins from various retail and blog sites, including Etsy. As these attributions occur automatically, once you generate a pin from your Etsy shop, it will instantly include the icon, regardless of a specified source. Etsy Attribution Icons have been really instrumental for Etsy sellers as they acknowledge their potential customers that their re-pinned items can be easily purchased from Etsy.

In conjunction with the Etsy attribution icon, the Pin It button on Etsy’s products allows pinners to easily pin products from the site with direct backlinks. This further allows Etsy shop-owners to provide an automatically generated caption for the product pins.

Think your shop is really cool? Make Your Boards Cooler!

Make your range of boards reflect your Etsy shop’s personality, taste and ideology. Also, make sure each of your boards includes enough pinned content to make it worthy of following.
People are more likely to not follow a board titled with a Shakespearean phrase, so make it a point to label your boards clearly using an easy vocabulary. However, being creative won’t really harm your Pinterest presence so feel free to use your creative flair.

Pinterest users do judge a book by its cover so for each board, choose a compelling cover picture that instantly attracts users to follow that board. Using a pin with most re-pins may work well for this purpose.

Grab some attention for your unbeatable offers

Over time, Pinterest has introduced some really business-friendly features like Rich Pins and Pinterest Messenger. Another great feature that is particularly helpful to Etsy sellers, and generally to all brands, is the option to add a price tag to a promotional or salesy pin. For example, if an Etsy seller lists a product for $55, he can simply type in “$55″ in the caption field and Pinterest will automatically add a banner across the pin with the price. This not only provides instant price information to potential buyers, but also categorizes the pin as a “Gift” on Pinterest which ultimately gains it more exposure.

Pin Professionally, Responsibly, and Consistently

What could be more fatal for your Etsy business than letting your potential customers forget you? You need to pin at least once daily so your followers wake up to find a fresh image of your latest product in their home feeds. Instead of indulging in a pinning frenzy, it is more sensible to spread your pins throughout the day to avoid overwhelming your followers.

Pinning can be your visual way of telling your brand’s story to your customers. Use attractive images to capture their imagination and aim to establish a deeper connection with your pinners. For example, if your shop sells women’s coats, experiment with pinning a product photo in conjunction with some images of breathtaking winter scenery, or even winter escapes, to inspire your pinners’ imagination of the season. That being said, remember that most pinners usually discover pins individually so make sure to add a logo, signature, backlink or other branding elements to all your images.

As with boards, careful and well-thought-out descriptions make pins more understandable, inspiring and easy to find. So, invest some time and energy to write descriptions for your pinned products. Descriptions from your Etsy product listings may come in handy as they are automatically included in the description field once a pinner uses the ‘Pin It’ button on Etsy to pin them.

Pinterest can surely be instrumental in promoting your Etsy business, but remember the ‘No Pain No Gain’ expression? Mark these tips as holy commandments to use the power of Pinterest to its full potential:

Pin several images daily, but at different times.
Do your homework on the what’s trending on Pinterest and plan your content accordingly
Add your latest Etsy items, especially those that genuinely contribute to the community, such as environment- friendly products.

Don’t Be Shy of Repinning

As long as you don’t come across as nosy or extra chummy, get into a habit of following other pinners’ boards and like, repin, and comment on the pins that relate to your shop or inspire your product ideas.

One of the best ways to get your followers to re-pin your stuff is to actively pin yourself and let your presence be felt. If you are still wondering what kind of pins to like and repin, or what to say in the comments, take mom’s advice: “Just Be Yourself!”

Take a hint or two from other pinners

Stay a step ahead of what’s resonating with your target market by keeping an eye out for other pinners’ activities and content. You can do this by searching for similar products being offered by competitor brands on Pinterest to find which boards they appear on, what keywords and hashtags they use, and most importantly, what followers pin along with those products. These insights will not only help you in evolving your pinning and re-pinning strategies, but also direct your decisions on what to manufacture and sell.

Remember that Pinterest communicates through pictures

As a final point, remember that Pinterest is a graphic medium that communicates with pictures, and therefore, you need to make sure that your Etsy items undergo high-quality product photography before they are featured on Pinterest.

You will definitely need more than plain products set against a white background, which is a norm on Etsy, to make a perfect attractive pin. Experiment with different lighting, close ups, lifestyle images, and filters to make your offering visually appealing.