The ultimate guide to pinterest for fashion and beauty brands. how retailers can write a pinterest strategy for content, community and sales. The best guide to Pinterest in 2015. View the interactive part here: https://readymag.com/whythisway/pinterest-marketing-strategy/ Subscribe to the newsletters: http://information.advanstar.com/rs/advanstarcommunicationsinc/images/master-newsletter-optin.html?aliId=36472151

2. FOR RETAIL,
PINTEREST IS
POWERFUL
First we tweeted, then we tumbled; now we pin our
interests and desires into digital collections. When it
comes to fashion, there is no social technology based on
imagery that brands do not utilize to delight their
audiences.
In recent years, Pinterest, alongside Facebook, Twitter
and Instagram, has become a staple in a retail brand's
social media and e-commerce strategies. Pinterest
continues its rapid growth and maturation. In its current
state, Pinterest is a platform retail brands should be
exploring.
Instagram Photos from
@ F N P L A T F O R M , @ W W D M A G I C
@ M A G I C M A R K E T W E E K
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3. PINTEREST BY THE NUMBERS
Pinterest is growing up and positioning itself as a major player in search, social and e-commerce.
In four short years, Pinterest has grown to 70+ million users (one third of which are
male)(1). Pinterest is a powerful force in fashion. In fact:
ONE: Fashion is the third most popular category. It
accounts (2) for 45% of the activity (search,
favorites and pins) on Pinterest.
TWO: There are 30 billion pins in the system
across 750 million boards, 4.5 billion are fashion
related, it's
a number that grows (3) by 25% every quarter.
75% of traffic comes from mobile. Of those pins.
THREE: Users spend (4) an average of 15.8
minutes on the site, compared to the 15 second
average that 55% of the global population spends
on most sites (5).
FOUR: The average order value (6) per session for
a Pinterest user is $199.16, far outstripping
Facebook's $92.27 and Twitter's $58.02.
Pinterest users are 10% more likely to purchase
than others that come to e-commerce sites from
social networks.
FIVE: Pinterest accounted (7) for 23% of global

4. ↪ Simply put, Pinterest members use the platform to make visually-motivated
purchasing decisions.
↪ Once users land on Pinterest, they stay there looking for inspiration on
what to buy. This is actually the second reason users say they use the site

5. HOW TO CREATE +
ESTABLISH YOUR
STRATEGY
Before opening a Pinterest account for your brand, you
should:
1. Define your goals.
2. Align your goals to your social media strategy.
3. Align your goals to your SEO and sales goals.
4. Organize assets (images, gifs, videos).
5. Construct a platform-specific plan.
Due to the visual and mobile natural of the platform, a
brand's Pinterest strategy is a specific part of their
overall social media strategy that connects to many
other areas of its marketing.
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7. HOW TO BUILD PINTEREST
BOARDS
After goals are established, the first component to
success on Pinterest is BOARD STRATEGY.
Brands need to consider reasons people pin things
before they launch their initial boards and then continue
to build them out.
THINK ABOUT IT: When a pinner adds
something to one of their boards, it is
grouped into things like activities,
projects, interests and inspiration.
This will have an immediate impact on your pin board
strategy since organization is key. Once your brand has
decided on a board structure, it is time to get creative.
Pinterest's platform offers the chance to extend your
reach through promotions, collaborations and calls to
action. You will even want to include pins from other
uses that do not depict your products, as this helps with
reach and engagement.
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8. ↪ The best way to think about Pinterest pins are as inbound links (to you product or
e-commerce site) and outbound links (to Pinterest in the interest of gaining more
followers and telling your brand's story).
↪ When you post a pin that does not link directly to your product the goal is to convert
repins and favorites into new followers; and to tell the brand story, of course.

10. HOW TO LEVERAGE
ORGANIC PLATFORM
GROWTH
Because Pinterest is still in its development phase and their
paid placements have not become the central business
model, brands and marketers are not facing "pay for play"
yet.
Joan Bradford, Pinterest's head of partnerships, reminds (9)
brands:
"There's intent in a pin. It says, I'm
organizing this into a place in my life."
So if a brand has developed an excellent board strategy, the
ability to develop followers organically is still a brand's best
recipe for success. It is how they leverage the intent that will
drive growth that can eventually lead to the sales many are
currently seeing.
For example, Michael Kors (152,360 followers across 14
boards) posts travel boards while Tory Burch (139,971
followers across 34 boards) posts boards dedicated (10) to
moms. Kate Spade (223,000) focuses on color and a vibrant
living. These are must follows.
Kate Spade on Pinterest
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11. COMMUNITY
COLLABORATION
WITH GROUP BOARDS
As brands and marketers, we are becoming familiar with
the shifts in consumer behavior related to the sharing
economy. We are also beginning to understand more
than ever that community collaboration and giving
customers value are critical to the future success of any
company.
These things trickle over into Pinterest in the form of
group board collaborations based on certain
interests. Group boards and guest pinners offer
additional ways to create engagement, increase follower
base and repins.
Group boards are created by inviting selected pinners to
pin to the board. Inviting pinners to collaborate with your
brand leads to them repinning and exposing your
content to their followers while giving them a feeling of
content ownership. It will also elevate them to the role of
brand ambassadors (11).
Apartment Therapy on Pinterest
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12. PROMOTIONS AND
PINTEREST CONTESTS
Brands have always leveraged contests as a way to boost
awareness, drive follower acquisition and boost engagement
on any social network. Pinterest is no exception.
The most popular contest on Pinterest is the "Pin to Win"
approach. A pin to win can involve entrants repinning an
image from your website or social channel.
A common approach is to post an image on a social platform
that can be repinned to Pinterest. This route may require a
third-party administrator, such as Woobox. Another approach
is to ask pinners to pin a certain theme and tag your
account.
Pinterest recently published guidelines for brands (12)
running contests on the site. Important takeaways include:
not running contests where a pin counts as an entry, make
the contest easy and the rules clear and don't overdo it.
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13. PINTEREST AUDIENCES
ARE VALUABLE
The value of social media influencers across all channels,
and particularly Pinterest, cannot be overstated. According to
TapInfluence, "Influencers have some distinct advantages
that brands do not, including large communities of followers,
trust from consumers, authentic personal experience, and
expertise on a variety of social networks."
The definition of influence and who brands consider
influencers is rapidly shifting. Pinterest has many influential
pinners that a brand can leverage in their marketing efforts.
Relying on an influencer to speak for your brand is like a
trusted friend recommending your brand, an incredibly
valuable asset when you consider that 70% of consumers
trust recommendations (13) from friends.
Services like Piqora have made the task of finding influencers
easy and intuitive. Piqora offers clients a dashboard that lists
top users across categories. They can also show you who
repins your content most, making the conversion (14) from
fan and influencer into brand ambassador seamless. Both
RewardStyle and Hello Society offer influencer programs
through Pinterest, but it's important to note Pinterest's
2012 ban on affiliate links and review its current terms of
service (15).
Apartment Therapy on Pinterest
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14. ESTABLISH PINTEREST'S
MARKETING VALUE
Pinterest is still growing and developing beneficial tools for
brands. Pinterest launched an analytics platform in August of
2014. Metrics like top pins (repins and favorites) will help
you understand what content is connecting with your
audience.
Analytics also illustrate which boards are most effective and
those that could use some retooling. The system provides
audience insight as well, with demographic and activity data.
Outside of Pinterest's business analytics, both Curalate and
TailWind offer products to help retail brands optimize their
Pinterest strategy via image data.
Promoted pins are still in beta testing that rolled out in May
of 2014. Advertisers who take advantage of promoted pins
will be charged on a cost per click basis without having to lay
out a minimum bid ahead of time. Criteria such as keyword,
gender, language and location can be used to target the pins.
Pinterest has not released a firm timeline on a full rollout of
promoted pins, but brands and businesses can apply now to
be included in the beta test.
Benefit Cosmetics on Pinterest
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15. WHAT THE FUTURE
OF PINTEREST LOOKS
LIKE FOR RETAIL
Pinterest is a rich platform with an
engaged user base that is growing
daily. Brands that are not taking
advantage of this image-driven
format to drive traffic and sales
while the site continues to grow and
expand tools for business users will
be playing catch up.
With dynamic images, discovery and
leveraging the intent in a follower,
brands may have an unprecedented
opportunity to connect with
consumers early on in the product
purchase journey and convert them
to sale.
How do visually driven
dollars and revenue sound
to you?

17. RESOURCES 1. GigaOm: https://gigaom.com/2014/11/12/pinterest-says-it-has-doubled-its-male-user-base-yet-men-are-still-just-one-third-of-new-signups/
2. Business To Community: http://www.business2community.com/infographics/30-reasons-market-business-pinterest-2014-infographic-076372
3. BusinessInsider: http://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-grand-plan-discovery-problem-2014-1
4. BusinessInsider: http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-and-pinterest-in-social-commerce-2013-9#ixzz3J3dzzb48
5. Business2 Community: http://www.business2community.com/infographics/30-reasons-market-business-pinterest-2014-infographic-076372
6. Time:http://time.com/12933/what-you-think-you-know-about-the-web-is-wrong/
7. RichRelevance: http://www.richrelevance.com/insights/shopping-insights-social-shopping-112013/
8. Business2 Community:http://www.business2community.com/infographics/30-reasons-market-business-pinterest-2014-infographic-0763727
9. Forbes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/10/15/inside-pinterest-the-coming-ad-colossus-that-could-dwarf-twitter-and-facebook/
10. UMetric: http://blog.unmetric.com/2013/10/time-for-a-content-makeover-3-lessons-from-top-fashion-brands-on-pinterest
11. Jeff Bullas: http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/03/04/how-to-use-pinterests-group-boards-to-get-more-exposure-for-your-business/
12. Pinterest: https://business.pinterest.com/en/brand-guidelines
13. Mashable:http://mashable.com/2013/03/21/70-percent-brand-recommendations-friends/
14. Piquora:http://blog.piqora.com/pinterest-marketing-how-to-engage-influencers-just-like-target-does/
15. Pinterest:https://business.pinterest.com/en/promoted-pins