How To Successfully Market to Latinos on Pinterest

If you are interested in discovering how to market to Latinos on Pinterest, read on. I am sharing some of my tips on successfully doing so.

How to Market to Latinos on Pinterest. Step 2: Understanding User's Intent. A guide to successfully market to Latinos on Pinterest. Don't miss out!

How to Market to Latinos on Pinterest. Step 2: Understanding User’s Intent.

One thing is to Pin in Spanish. Another one is to achieve your marketing goals for the Hispanic market. To successfully market to Latinos on Pinterest, this is what you need to understand. First and foremost, the platform’s nature, your audience and their needs, and your business/marketing goal. Finally, you need to be intentional, measure your efforts, learn from them, and adjust your Pinterest strategy accordingly. Let’s go over each of these items one by one.

Why Pinterest: Understanding the platform’s nature

Pinterest has created a platform that presents you with an outstanding opportunity: engage consumers who are actively looking to learn more, buy, try or use your product or service.

I am not saying Pinterest is for you. But I am definitely stating that you have to consider it, particularly if you are in ecommerce. Although, as I have already made clear on “Reverse Showrooming to the Power of Pinterest,” brick and mortar stores are not exempt from leveraging Pinterest’s tremendous traffic and sales driving power.

“64% of Active Pinners—and 85% of Daily Pinners—indicate they look at items they’ve pinned while they’re at a brick and mortar store, which is up significantly from 2014 (30%).“ – Ahalogy 2015 Pinterest Study

Since its launch, Pinterest has been a visual search engine and the first social commerce platform. On today’s online search and image-oriented world, disregarding a platform that enables you to visually engage with your audience and sell your products right on the spot, is a big mistake.

“Pinterest is more “search” than “social”. The Pinner experience is more geared towards personal content discovery than outward social expression.” – Ahalogy

Since January 2012, you have heard me rant and rave about Pinterest. I believe that Pinterest is NOT a social platform. It never was. I will recap now the reasons why I am such a believer in the Pinterest phenomena. At the same time, this will also help depict the platform’s true nature.

How To Successfully Market to Latinos on Pinterest

How To Successfully Market to Latinos on Pinterest

1User’s Intent

Why is user’s intent so important? You will spend less time converting a prospect into a client when their intent is to purchase what you offer. Therefore, people with an intent to buy have a higher likelihood of contributing to your bottom line sooner.

It’s easy to discern intent on potential customers who walk into your store. Maybe he wants to browse, maybe she wants to buy. You can observe behavior and body language to tell these intentions apart.

Understanding the platform’s nature means understanding what people do on Pinterest and why. We are aware that people don’t go to Facebook to shop. Facebook users want to interact with their friends making this platform a great place to generate awareness and/or feedback and reviews. Meanwhile, people go to Pinterest to search for what interests them. Their intent to is take action. Be this action to do or to buy now, to research to purchase later, or to save it for a rainy day.

2Platform “freebies”

Unlike other platforms where brands have to pay for play, one of the freebies Pinterest provides brands with, are Product Pins (Buyable Pins are also free.)  Not only because they pull the information directly from your website markup for its creation, but because when the product price drops by 15% or more, Pinterest will notify the interested pinners via email of the drop in price. For free. Allowing you to reach people you didn’t even know were interested in your products. Not bad, huh?

Pinterest is more "search" than "social." I would say, Pinterest is search and NOT social.

Pinterest is more “search” than “social.” I would say, Pinterest is search and NOT social.

3Platform paid tools

Pinterest promoted Pins have gotten even more targeted. In addition to targeting Promoted Pins based on Pinners’ interests, search keywords, device, and location, among other variables, brands can also target their Promoted Pins using their own business data. Brands can merge what they know about their customers with what Pinterest knows about their audience. So the next time the customer who bought the brand’s fashionable red lipstick browses Pinterest, brands can show them another lipstick or gloss from their latest product line.

4Pinterest user’s actions by the numbers

Pinners’ actions run the gamut. They go from trying a new recipe or craft of any kind to purchasing a product at a retail store. From planning an event to planning their next vacation. And because of this, they tend not to follow celebrities but brands!

Yes, you heard me right, 83% of active pinners would rather follow their favorite brand than their favorite celebrity. Furthermore, 70% of them would rather get tips and ideas directly from their favorite brand of hair care products than from their favorite celeb hair stylist. And the list goes on.

“87% of Pinners have bought a product after seeing it on the platform.” – Ahalogy

But don’t go a’pinning a’crazy yet. To achieve its goals, brands must be smart about what and how they Pin. And, of course, understand its audience.

Latinos on Pinterest: The Market Opportunity

Just like IRL, Hispanics are everywhere. Pinterest is no exception. According to Ahalogy’s research: “Hispanic [audience] is also growing—now at 9%, up about 6 percentage points from 2014. More than half of all Hispanic Pinners have joined Pinterest in the past year, and 11% of Active Pinners and 14% of Daily Pinners are Hispanic.“

Hispanics look at Pinterest for guidance on trends, styles, and new things to try, especially if related to Hair & Beauty, Women’s Fashion, Gifts and Photography. Read How to Successfully Market to Latinos on Pinterest.

Hispanics look at Pinterest for guidance on trends, styles, and new things to try, especially if related to Hair & Beauty, Women’s Fashion, Gifts and Photography.

And just like IRL, there is always an undercount. Why? Because Hispanics – and millennials in particular, who may be calling themselves monikers such as, “China Latinas” or “Blaxicans” – may not identify so clearly as Latinos. By the same token, the number Pinners with large families (5 or more people) has grown on Pinterest. This correlates with the typically larger Hispanic household. Also, active pinners are early adopters, trend-setters and significantly more likely than regular consumers to own and use mobile devices. All of these statistics correlate with the profile of Latinos online.

So let’s say that 11% of active pinners are Hispanic. By 2017, the visual sharing platform is projected to reach 58.5 million monthly active users in the United States. If we do the math, 6.5 million monthly users is a pretty attractive piece of the Pinterest pie, as you would be reaching around 12% of the total U.S. Hispanic population.

Did you know that Pinterest has more self-identified Hispanics than African Americans? And that 20% of active pinners live alone, a slightly higher percentage than the previous year? More millennials anyone? 😉

Furthermore, Millennials and Gen-Z being the most racially diverse generations as of yet, and with 79% of millennials saying that “Pinterest is a guide to life and a place to teach me how to do things,” the Pinterest market opportunity just became even larger.

Hispanics on Pinterest Behavior Analysis

  • According to Ahalogy’s study, Hispanics who are extremely active on Pinterest are also extremely active on Facebook and spend an average of 36 minutes per visit on each platform. They also log into Instagram but spend less time on it.
  • Hispanics look at Pinterest for guidance on trends, styles, and new things to try, especially if related to Hair & Beauty, Women’s Fashion, Gifts and Photography.
  • Did you think could reach these Hispanic pinners via magazines and newspapers? Think again. Only 39% of them read magazines, 32% read newspapers versus 48% and 41% for non-Hispanic pinners, respectively. They do check email and search online more frequently than their non-Hispanic counterpart.
  • About half of Hispanics surveyed, indicated that their Pinterest usage has increased in the past year and more than 50% of Hispanics shared that they had purchased something because they saw it on Pinterest. As a matter of fact, active Hispanic pinners are more likely than Active Female pinners to pin content from other sites and make purchases related to pins.
  • 56% of Hispanic pinners shop online while only 43% of non-Hispanic pinners do so. Therefore, if you thought non-Hispanic pinners were a prime candidate for your Buyable Pins, how about increasing your conversion rates and revenues by targeting Hispanics on Pinterest?
  • Only 21% of Hispanic Active Pinners don’t like seeing Promoted Pins, down from 25% in 2014. This is a trend that will more than likely continue.
  • After seeing Promoted Pins, Hispanic Pinners are more likely than non-Hispanic pinners to make purchases in the following categories: Make-up and skin care products, Hair care products, Baby/children’s care products/toys, Nail products/nail art, Household cleaning and maintenance products, and Recipes.

From personal observation and my own professional experience, Promoted Pins fare better amongst the Hispanic community on Pinterest than Buyable Pins. This could be probably due to the fact that Promoted Pins provide with a less pushy or sales-y experience than Buyable Pins.

 

How to Market to Latinos on Pinterest. Are you taking advantage of this opportunity. to grow your brand?

How to Market to Latinos on Pinterest: the opportunity.

How to Successfully Market To Latinos on Pinterest

1First, develop a Pinterest strategy that is in alignment with your business and marketing strategy and define your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you will use to measure success. Every company has to have their own (and not copycat somebody else’s) Pinterest strategy before starting to execute it.

2Leverage intent. Hispanics are on Facebook but so is everybody else. The importance of marketing on Pinterest is to leverage intent. While on Facebook, people’s intent is to socialize, on Pinterest, the intent is to take action. This action could be to research, to do or to buy. Notice the similarities with search?

3Leverage platform’s behavior. If you Pin without understanding the platform or your audience needs, and believe that it’s just about uploading images, your Pinterest strategy will fail. Think about Pinterest more as a search engine because it actually IS a visual search platform, and not a social network.

“About half of the Active Pinners who have noticed Promoted Pins on Pinterest have clicked on them to get more information. More than 40% have made a purchase, suggesting Promoted Pins inspire future action.” – Ahalogy

4Make it aspirational. Remember the aspirational aspect of Pinterest when creating images. The Litmus test: does it make YOU want it so badly your knees are shaking just by looking at the photo?

5Apply SEO and content marketing principles to your Pins. A pin has staying power, just like evergreen content, because it is evergreen content. On Twitter, if you didn’t see right away it is lost forever in a matter of hours. The same applies to Facebook with a longer timespan. Snapchat shortens these times to the max and you only have a few seconds to see the content. Pins are indexed by Pinterest and by Search Engines alike. I can assure you, you will continue to receive traffic from Pinterest years after it has been added to your boards. Therefore, optimize your boards and your Pins for search. And please, no #hashtags unless you want to be seen as a spammer.

6Collaborate and Repin. It’s not just about your brand. Allow others to collaborate on Group boards. Humanize your brand. Show that your brand has other interests. Reap the rewards.

What aspects of the Latino culture need to be taken into account?

What aspects of the Latino culture need to be taken into account?

What aspects of the Latino culture need to be taken into account?

A large percentage of U.S.-born Latinos, just by the mere fact that they were born in the USA, are English-dominant. Another large percentage of the U.S. Hispanic population is bilingual and bicultural through the process of acculturation and retro-acculturation. Therefore, it’s not about the language (especially with such a highly visual platform) but about the culture.

Proof of this, is the success I had on Pinterest (measured by the targeted traffic drawn to the site) with quotes in English on the image and a Spanish description of the quote and vice-versa. Analyzing the people who pinned these images one quickly notices that the majority are U.S. Hispanics.

Definition of culture: a mental roadmap that guides people’s behaviors and responses.

It is also important to understand all the various cultural aspects that make up the Hispanic market – it’s not monolithic, for example Cuban-Americans have different interests and values than do Mexican-Americans. You cannot go after the Hispanic market with pictures of Latino cuisine and believe that it will appeal to all Latinos. Think about it, you don’t go after the general market with pictures of apple pie and hamburgers. That’s stereotyping.

Here is an example of cultural differences and how to make them play to your favor. I have noticed a strong correlation between culture research and Pin success in attracting the desired segment of the Latino market when Pinning for one of my clients, a publisher on the wedding industry. Less acculturated Hispanics will demonstrate more interest on banquet halls and their decor as well as on evening weddings. Meanwhile, more acculturated Hispanics find daytime weddings more appealing. Culture research findings and their pinning behavior match.

Use insights to guide your content and your Pinterest strategy just like you do with your Search Engine Optimization (SEO.)

How to Market to Latinos on Pinterest: Measuring success

First define what you consider to be your Pinterest success metrics. Pick from metrics such as, revenue increase, traffic to your website, traffic to retail stores and engagement.

The next step is to know where to obtain these numbers. Pinterest analytics is a great source of information on your audience and engagement metrics. They will also help you identify those pins that have the highest conversion rates.

Measuring strategy success: Pinterest Analytics. How to successfully market to Latinos on Pinterest.

Measuring strategy success: Pinterest Analytics.

Google Analytics is my next source of information. It allows me to look into my pinners demographics by analyzing language, geo, interests and behavior of these Pinners on my client sites.

A Few Words of Thanks

I’d like to profusely thank both Ahalogy and ViralTag for being so supportive of Target Latino and me.

Thank you Ahalogy for sharing your study with us, I hope I did honor your effort and your tremendous interest in helping brands market to Latinos on Pinterest.

Thank you to the ViralTag team because they asked me to podcast my knowledge of how to successfully market to Latinos on Pinterest. And here is the link to the podcast, if you’d like to listen to it. Thank you, Jilly Badanes.

Do not wait to market to Latinos on Pinterest!

Last but not least, one additional tip on interpreting Pinterest results: Always consider the whole story and not just one Pin who did or did not go viral.

And finally, Pinterest actually leads all other information sources (search, social media, other websites, magazines, or word of mouth) in the following categories: Design, DIY & Crafts, Food & Drink, Gardening, Gifts, Hair & Beauty, Home Décor, Photography, Tattoos, Weddings, and Women’s Fashion. Don’t miss out!! 🙂

I sincerely hope this helps your brand successfully market to Latinos on Pinterest. Feel free to leave me a comment with your thoughts and/or questions and you can rest assured I will personally reply.

 

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. -Bertrand Russel Quote on following your own path.

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. -Bertrand Russel Quote on following your own path.

6 essential Pinterest SEO tips to develop natural backlinks to your site

Read these 6 essential tips for Pinterest SEO to develop more backlinks to your site naturally.

In this article I will explore the importance of backlinks and give you practical tips on how Pinterest SEO can assist in building them that you can put to work right away. If you would like to begin using Pinterest for Business, you can download my free beginner’s guide to Pinterest right here.

So you just bought 10,000 links. And your page isn’t ranking?

So you just bought 10,000 links. And your page isn’t ranking?

The only way to avoid a spam penalty from Google is not by trying to hack your way onto relevancy through magic formulas or schemes. Natural link building has been proven to be the way to develop links since 2014 and earlier. Link earning is the way to go and it’s fundamental to your SEO efforts.

If your content is worth it, people will link to it. If your content is relevant and easy to share, your target market will share it. This has always been the case. Don’t worry if a piece of content fails to be shared. Learn from the experience and improve your aim next time.

Of course, content needs exposure for people to find it and share it. People are visually oriented and we all know the difference a good image with compelling copy can make.

You may continue paying for play on Facebook to have your content be seen or appeal to the newsy nature of Twitter, but for staying power and evergreen content there’s almost nothing that beats Pinterest.

Your images will remain there forever gaining exposure with every new Pin shared. And because of the very nature of the platform, Pinterest users shop more often, in greater quantities, and more frequently than in any other network. Making it a very sought after platform by brand marketers.

If you are already using Pinterest, your analytics report will show you which pieces of Pinterest content earned a referral click. And for every referral click, there’s a backlink.

Here’s 6 essential Pinterest SEO tips for increasing your search rankings

1Identify good and relevant blogs to comment on. Finding relevant blogs with interesting information to add your comments to may take you quite some time via search but by using Pinterest search you can uncover some real gems. Search for particular keywords or search by categories on pins, pinners or boards, it really doesn’t matter. Add a valuable insight as a comment to the selected blogs.

What are the benefits? First, it builds your credibility on the subject.

Second, when commenting on a blog you usually have a chance to add a link back to your site.

Third, it helps search engines build an association between your website topics and the topic selected. The higher the association the better you rank on search engines.

Fourth, your leaving great comments on other relevant blogs could lead to genuine opportunities as a guest blogger. Some blog owners, take me for example, like to see some engagement with my content and have the chance to evaluate their knowledge and ideology before allowing somebody to guest post on my blog. Don’t worry about back links with no follows and keep building association and relevancy on the topic of your interest on your field of interest or your industry.

2Spy on your competitor’s content, fans and links. On Pinterest it’s very simple to discover what content is being re-pinned from or promoted by your competitors. You can also discover who repins their content directly from their websites.

Those particular Pinterest users will be more likely to share your content as they have shown an inclination for it. Generating more likes, more shares which grows your authority and the likelihood that your content will pop up on Pinterest search results higher than the rest.

All you have to do is go to this Pinterest source url: http://pinterest.com/source/domain.com (remember, this is not their Pinterest URL. They may not even have a Pinterest account but you can see what people have pinned from their website or domain)

For example, when I look up http://pinterest.com/source/generalmills.com I can see what they are currently promoting and can also evaluate how well this content is faring on Pinterest by the number of repins and likes.

Spy on your competitor content fans and links - Pinterest SEO tips

For example, when I look up http://pinterest.com/source/generalmills.com I can see what they are currently promoting and can also evaluate how well this content is faring on Pinterest by the number of repins and likes.

Make it a point to evaluate the content that pinners have shared from their website directly because that’s the most enticing content for them to share on Pinterest.

3Get links from Pinterest shares. Pinterest backlinks. If you have a verified account, Pinterest will give you a follow link. Having a back link from Pinterest is a bonus to traffic generation. And a nice one!  When content is interesting to your Pinterest audience it will get repinned and the more repins it has, the more traffic and backlinks it will gain. Here’s some examples:

When content is interesting to your Pinterest audience it will get repinned and the more repins it has, the more traffic and backlinks it will gain | Pinterest SEO Tips

When content is interesting to your Pinterest audience it will get repinned and the more repins it has, the more traffic and backlinks it will gain

4Rank your pins and boards on search engines with keyword targeting. High-ranking Pinterest pages with relevant keywords increase the value of the back links and consequently gives you a Pinterest SEO boost.

Write good descriptions for your images with searchable keywords and try to avoid hashtags. Pinterest does not use them and you too many hashtags on your description will make you a Pinterest spammer. Use them to highlight certain words to make them more visible, but remember not go overboard.

5Social Seo. If you create good content that does well in social media, it is probably being linked in other places, and therefore will rank well. But it’s not as simple as just sharing on social media, or is it? Jennita Lopez, Director of Community at Moz explains it in full detail on her slideshare presentation.

6Local SEO. Search Engine Marketing on its article “Best and Worst Ways to Influence Local SEO Rankings” where it shared and analyzed Moz research results, showed that external location signals provide 16% influence on local seo efforts.

“External Location Signals: Participants said that factors such as the availability and consistency of NAP in third-party local business directories including Yelp, Zagat and Internet Yellow Pages (YP, DexMedia, hibu etc.) provided 16% influence in determining performance.”  Search Engine Land – Best and Worst Ways to Influence Local SEO Rankings

Therefore, it’s a good idea to develop Pinterest boards related to the area you serve, including images of your storefront, local points of reference among others as this will generate backlinks with geo signals back to your site.

I hope these tips have been useful to you and if you are interested in starting your Pinterest for Business strategy go ahead and download our free beginner’s guide to Pinterest for Business right here. It will give you all of the basic information you need to start on your own.

How to Market to Latinos on Pinterest. Step 2: Understanding User's Intent. A guide to successfully market to Latinos on Pinterest. Don't miss out!
30% of Pinners prefers to be on Pinterest rather than watch TV
What makes for an effective Pinterest strategy
Reverse Showrooming: how to leverage the power of Pinterest
Steve Jobs quote: Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice | Found on mediawebapps.com

Steve Jobs quote: Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice | Found on mediawebapps.com

17 Pinterest Statistics For Business You Need To Know

Still haven’t made up your mind about being on Pinterest or not? New year, New Platform! And to help wipe away all doubts, I leave you with these 17 Pinterest statistics for business to begin planning your 2015 Pinterest strategy now!

17 Pinterest Statistics For Business You Need To Know. Infographic

17 Pinterest Statistics For Business You Need To Know

1. In the U.S. alone, Pinterest has 53 million active users – or, 22% of the population of 16 years of age and older and according to the last Census the number was 243.3 million. Twitter has 57 million, but this number includes users from the U.S. and Canada.

2. 66% increase in yearly visits, year after year. More than any other social network.

3. Are women your main audience? While Instagram moves each day closer to equilibrium between its visitors’ genders, 80% of Pinterest users are women. Although lately, more men have been jumping into the visual search engine platform. In fact, 33% of the new users in the last 3 months are men.

4. $123.50 is the average amount of a sale originated in Pinterest. $54.64 is the average amount of a sale originated in Facebook. This accounts for a 126% difference. Not bad, huh?

5. You’d better have a responsive site (one that provides an optimal viewing experience across a wide range of devices like desktops, smartphones, tablets, etc.) because the majority of Pinterest users access the platform via their smartphone

6. If you are in the food industry then, you are in luck! Food is the most shared topic on Pinterest! 57% of Pinterest visitors or Pinners share or Pin about food. This is followed by Home (40%), DIY (34%), Fashion (30%), Products (26%), Vacations (25%) Humor (25%), Tourism (22%), Education/Inspiration (20%), Children (14%) Weddings, Gardening, Health and others.

7. Together with Snapchat, Pinterest is one of the favorite social platforms of Millennials (18-32 years old) Snapchat attracts an even younger audience, one that starts at 13 years of age. As far as Pinterest statistics for business go, this one is great news for brands trying to capture the attention of this young audience.

8. 15% of Pinterest users do not use any other social platform.

 

9. Pinterest statistics for business would not be complete without a look at the generations on Pinterest: 33% Gen Y, 27% Gen Z, 14% young Boomers and 10% older Boomers. The silent generation does not fall behind with a 6% And even though these are estimates, they paint a very powerful picture.

Pinterest brings an average of 300% more referral traffic to your site than the traffic generated by Facebook with a lower investment in budget, time and effort. | 17 Pinterest Statistics for Business You Need to Know

Pinterest brings an average of 300% more referral traffic to your site than the traffic generated by Facebook with a lower investment in budget, time and effort.

10. 27% of Pinterest users follow brands.

 

11. 52% of Pinners check Pinterest while shopping at a store.

 

12. Moms on Pinterest share 3 times more than the rest of the users on Pinterest.

13. 47% of U.S. online shoppers bought something as a result of a Pinterest recommendation – Yup! Pinterest recommends.

14. 30% of Pinners prefers to be on Pinterest rather than watch TV and 64% has been inspired by an activity discovered on Pinterest and gives it a try.

15. 31% of Pinterest users are not bothered by Pins Promoted by brands.

 

16. In 2013, 45% of the Fortune 500 companies had a corporate Pinterest account.

 

17. Pinterest brings an average of 300% more referral traffic to your site than the traffic generated by Facebook with a lower investment in budget, time and effort.

Do you believe these are strong enough Pinterest statistics to have you start working on your Pinterest business strategy?

Now check out “How To Successfully Market To Latinos on Pinterest

Pinterest Statistics for Business Sources: Ahalogy, Pinterest reports, RJ Metrics, Target Latino

30% of Pinners prefers to be on Pinterest rather than watch TV | 17 Pinterest Statistics For Business You Need To Know

30% of Pinners prefers to be on Pinterest rather than watch TV

Pin Away!! We added this photo mixing pets, food, family and humor. Let's see how far it goes on your board!!!

Pin Away!! We added this photo mixing pets, food, family and humor. Let’s see how far it goes on your board!!!

Next Quote? funny inspirational quotes on every post! >> Next on What everybody ought to know about the Latino Market

 

How to Market to Latinos on Pinterest. Step 2: Understanding User's Intent. A guide to successfully market to Latinos on Pinterest. Don't miss out!
30% of Pinners prefers to be on Pinterest rather than watch TV
What makes for an effective Pinterest strategy
Reverse Showrooming: how to leverage the power of Pinterest

Effective Pinterest Strategy: the Whole Foods Success Story

What makes for an effective Pinterest strategy? How to take advantage of this visual discovery engine to increase sales? Read about Whole Foods Market success.

Effective Pinterest strategy Whole Foods Market

Effective Pinterest strategy Whole Foods Market

Many see Pinterest as a community online to share images. Others, the visionaries, take advantage of all that this tool gives them and they grow with her. They understand that, in reality, it is a visual search engine and the first true platform for social commerce.

One of these visionaries is Whole Foods Market. The large supermarket chain is present in all of the social platforms, but none of them brought them the results that they achieved via Pinterest. Whole Foods launched its Pinterest boards in July 2011. By December 2013, Whole Foods had 155,000 followers and, only a few months later, in May 2014, this number had increased to 190,000 followers.

What makes for an effective Pinterest strategy?

We know that the number of followers does not necessarily move the needle when you aim to increase sales. Whole Foods Market ultra effective Pinterest strategy consists in presenting its products in a very attractive way to groups with different interests. Fully understanding who these groups are and the reason they are on Pinterest. For example, the “Go, go gadgets” board talks to a consumer interested in the latest on food-related artifacts or gadgetry and Whole Foods shares with them products like different ingenious and novel kitchen tools and how-to infographics on how to evaluate the quality of a blender. When these visitors click-through and arrive to the pages of Whole Foods site they discover additional ideas, recipes, products for which they already have a predilection for. This traffic coverts itself very easily into sales.

Here’s a great example of this effective Pinterest Strategy. A single image from this brand was shared 68,000 times generating therefore 44,000 visits to their website.

In a very short time, Pinterest ended up being the channel that contributes the most to the generation of sales for Whole Foods Market. More than Facebook, more than Twitter. In fact, Pinterest surpassed Twitter in referred traffic to the Whole Foods’ website. Their success was so big that they were invited to share content on one of Julia Child’s boards, therefore Increasing exposure for their products to the hordes of fans of Julia.

Pinterest is a visual discovery engine with great advantages for business

Of course, increasing traffic to a company’s website is only one of the benefits of Pinterest and only one of its ways to help increase sales. But maybe you are concerned about the increased level of effort of adding a new platform to your strategy. There’s great news regarding this point when you venture into the Pinterest world as 70% of the activity of promotion is executed by the community itself. The very opposite of what happens with the majority of social media channels and platforms.

Hispanic consumers tend to buy the products they share on social media twice as much as non-Hispanics and that Hispanic millennials are more likely to use Pinterest and Twitter (source: Mindshare and Unilever research)

Hispanic consumers tend to buy the products they share on social media twice as much as non-Hispanics and that Hispanic millennials are more likely to use Pinterest and Twitter

As of April 2013 Pinterest had 30 million visitors from across the globe. In March 2014 it surpasses the 70 million users mark and hosts more than 750 million boards with 30 billion pins. Besides the sizable audience, comScore reported an average of permanence on Pinterest of 12,1 minutes per visitor and food is one of the categories most shared on Pinterest, we can clearly see that Whole Foods decisions made for an effective Pinterest strategy and a very profitable one.

Now add the  fact that Hispanic consumers tend to buy the products they share on social media twice as much as non-Hispanics and that Hispanic millennials are more likely to use Pinterest and Twitter (source: Mindshare and Unilever research)

I guess it’s time to ask ourselves: Pinterest, simple online community to share images or an incredible platform to grow your business sales?

How to Market to Latinos on Pinterest. Step 2: Understanding User's Intent. A guide to successfully market to Latinos on Pinterest. Don't miss out!
30% of Pinners prefers to be on Pinterest rather than watch TV
What makes for an effective Pinterest strategy
Reverse Showrooming: how to leverage the power of Pinterest

Quotes of the Day

quote of the day

quote of the day

never get jealous ;)

never get jealous 😉

Next Quote? funny inspirational quotes on every post!

Reverse Showrooming to the Power of Pinterest

41% of customers do reverse show rooming. Read on to find out how to leverage the power of Pinterest to drive more traffic to stores with intent to buy.

What is Showrooming?

Showrooming is a relatively new way of buying products where customers first visit a physical store to examine and/or evaluate the product that is then purchased online.

The consequent loss of sales due to showrooming worries brick and mortar store owners and with good reason. Not only do they lose sales to online stores but they have to face infrastructure and maintenance costs, salaries and inventory costs, among others.

Truth is, only 26% of customers do showrooming while 41% does reverse showrooming. That is, they search and evaluate products online and then make the purchase at a physical store.

How can we take advantage of reverse showrooming, then, to drive more traffic to the  stores with intent to buy?

Leverage reverse showrooming with chocolate images on Pinterest instead of a Chocolate ad - Who can resist?

Leverage reverse showrooming with chocolate images on Pinterest instead of a Chocolate ad – Who can resist?

Fighting Showrooming

We know that images on Pinterest are able to sell ideas like an ideal lifestyle, the perfect garden decor, the fantastic recipe for Monday dinners, all without the need to add heavy and burdensome advertising messages that may sometimes backfire. Therefore, consumers, free from these external influences, feel more at ease and feel free to choose what they most desire. Implicitly then, the communication barriers are low and the consumer’s attention is at its peak. Ideal, right?

According to a Harvard Business Review (HBR) study, one out of five or 21% of Pinterest users has bought a product at a store after pinning or repinning or marked it as favorite on their boards. Furthermore, when a Pinterest user is younger than 35 years old, this percentage increases to 36%.

One out of three users buys at a physical store after having added the product or idea to his Pinterest boards.

For more on taking advantage of Pinterest for your business:

Pinterest Search by Interests, a Google contender?

Discover Your Brand’s Best Times to Post to Pinterest

Kellogg’s Pinterest marketing strategy analysis

Reverse Showrooming to the power of Pinterest

Another interesting Pinterest advantage is that 70% of the sharing and adding activity on this Visual Search Engine is carried by the users and not by the brands, as reported by Digitas. This makes Pinterest stand out in a very positive way against all other social networks.

The HBR study corroborates this data. Moreover reports that 19% of the Pinterest generated purchases were originally discovered by something shared by a friend, 24% of them by something shared by a stranger, 10% by a search performed on Pinterest and 7% by something found on the brand’s Pinterest boards.

Another piece of the equation that tends not to be considered by these studies is that Pinterest boards get indexed by Search Engines and usually show up amongst the first results thus generating additional exposure to the pins.

Of course, one cannot expect to just add a few pretty pictures on Pinterest and then forget about them. Timely follow-through is key, especially when there is a sizable purchase amount, as is the case with electronics and cars, given that these users make the purchase between the first and third weeks after selecting the Pin.

I suggest initiating a conversation with these possible buyers during that crucial period by reaching out and asking them if they need more information or just by thanking them for sharing your Pin.

Let’s take advantage of Pinterest to fight show rooming. So, why not begin these efforts by creating a board inspired on Hispanic Heritage Month?

Is the image pinned on Pinterest enticing enough to generate Reverse Showrooming?

Is the image pinned on Pinterest enticing enough to generate Reverse Showrooming?

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Reverse Showrooming: how to leverage the power of Pinterest
to be kind #quote

to be kind #quote

Next Quote? funny inspirational quotes on every post!

The version in Spanish of this article can be read at Abasto Magazine Page 42 of the Printed Edition. Havi Goffan is a contributor on the topic of Pinterest for Abasto Magazine.