Pinterest + Email = E-commerce’s Newest Secret Weapon

There’s a new kid in town, and she’s taking the social media world by storm. Pinterest, a virtual pinboard, has retailers and other marketers very excited about about the potential cross-channel marketing opportunities of this powerhouse of a social platform that’s already been ranked by Mashable as the third largest social network.

A Brief History

Pinterest emerged in early 2010, but it wasn’t until early 2012 – after its SXSW Interactive debut – that it started gaining traction among users –and rapidly. The social site operates on the basis of collecting, categorizing, and sharing images among users. But the most important aspect for marketers is the sheer amount of web traffic it drives to retailer websites.

No social site has been able to acquire users as quickly as Pinterest has in the past few months. With over 11 million current users, marketers have to take it seriously as a social platform, and for good reason: Pinterest’s users are highly engaged, prone to sharing content and information, and quick to track an image (or “pin”) back to its website origins.

Furthermore, Pinterest traffic is highly targeted. Since users can create multiple pin boards for separate topics, traffic from each board keeps driving additional traffic from other like-minded followers. For instance, a pin board that’s dedicated to shoes is going to get “liked” and “re-pinned” by other users who like shoes, and drive traffic back to the original website that’s selling – you’ve got it – shoes. Pretty awesome if you sell shoes, right?

A New Frontier for E-Commerce

Pinterest has impacted the e-commerce trade decisively and quickly, and it’s no surprise that fashion and retail marketers have embraced the platform aggressively. Pinterest is a simple, and ideal platform for e-commerce marketing for two reasons:

• Photography and Merchandising drives retail sales –and Pinterest offers a visual platform for sharing images.
• Targeted traffic increases conversions and conversion rates. Pinterest traffic is highly targeted to folks who like similar products –which is why it drives sales.

Pinterest + Email

Pinterest is already allowing users to upload mobile pins by emailing pins to a mobile pin board, but there are other creative ways that email marketers can tie their email marketing into Pinterest. These ideas are useful, interesting, and cool — but not a surprise given that every major social platform was built on the reach and connection that email offers.

1. Feature Pinterest along with other social links. Include links in emails encouraging subscribers to follow branded pinboards to encourage engagement and increase brand awareness.

2. Allow email recipients to pin images directly from their emails. Possibly one of the best uses for email marketers is integrating Pinterest directly into email creatives so that subscribers can pin images within an email creative directly from the email. A bit of creative coding is necessary, but the following code will allow you to have this functionality:

<a href=”http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=[a]&amp;media=[b]&amp;description=[c]“>Pin this on Pinterest</a>

1. The “pinned from” URL should have the link that Pinterest will link back to
2. This should contain the url of the shared image
3. This should contain a suggested description for the image

3. Feature branded pin boards as email content. Brands have run contests on Pinterest and are using Pinterest as a way to assess the potential of specific products. Feature more popular items within the content of your emails and link back to individual pins to gather product feedback.

4. Create Email Segments by Pinterest Board Usage. To further refine a Pinterest/Email marketing campaign, set up Pinterest boards that line up with email segments within your email database. This will drive more targeted Pins, and potentially help you fish new customers out of Pinterest that are following, liking, and re-pinning other Pinterest users.

Pinterest holds a lot of potential for e-commerce companies, and with the website’s continual increase in popularity, it’s likely to be around for a long time. While there’s sure to be an influx of new and interesting ways that marketers find to leverage the power of Pinterest, these tips are a good starting point for email marketers wanting to harness the social sharing capabilities that Pinterest has to offer.