Pinterest E-commerce Guide Demandware

©2012 Demandware, Inc. | www.demandware.com

A Retailer’s Guide to Pinterest 9 Steps to Get You Started

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Introduction

Pinterest offers a powerful way to engage consumers and is quickly becoming an important part of a retailer’s social commerce strategy. This guide will provide you with the information you need to get started with Pinterest and make it an effective part of your social commerce strategy – keeping you at the leading edge of emerg-ing Commerce trends.

Pinterest Defined Pinterest is a virtual pinboard, where consumers can curate and categorize prod-ucts, activities and brands based on their lifestyle. Lifestyle categories (otherwise known as pinboards) can vary from Fashion, Fitness, Do it Yourself Projects, Home Décor, Recipes or just about any other category imaginable. Consumers follow brands as well as other consumers on Pinterest and then create pinboards that resonate with their interests and lifestyles.

The Popularity of Pinterest

Pinterest, with 10 million total users, is the 38th most popular site in the world ac-cording to Alexa (as of June 2012). Some other facts about Pinterest include:

• Pinterestreached12millionmonthlyUSuniquevisitorsfasterthananyinde-pendent site in history and is now hitting 17 million uniques a week

• Theuserbasehasgrown145%sincethestartof2012

• PinterestusersarespendingmoretimedailyonPinterestthantheyareonFacebook(15.8minutesvs.12.1minutes).

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In addition, a recent analysis by Modea states that:

• 28.1%ofPinterestusershaveanannualincomeof+$100,000

• 68.2%ofusersarewomen

• 50%ofusershavechildren

Benefits of Pinterest

Pinterest,similartoothersocialmedia,canprovideavarietyofbenefitstoretailers.WhilemetricsonPinterestarehardtofindgiventherelativenewnessofthesiteandusagebyretailers,somepotentialbenefitsinclude:

• Increased referral traffic–Pinterestcandrivetraffictotheretailer’ssite,helping to bring potential new customers on-site where retailers can then drive deeper brand engagement.

• Wider brand reach – Pinterest provides retailers access to the large consum-er base using the site, increasing brand reach.

• Increased sales–withadditionalreferraltrafficandawiderbrandreach,comes the opportunity to grow product sales. In a recent survey conducted by PriceGrabber about 21 percent of those who had Pinterest accounts pur-chased a product after seeing it on Pinterest.

• Improved SEO – More inbound links from Pinterest coupled with consumers linking to the pinned content on other sites, can improve the search engine optimization results for the retailer’s site.

A Compelling Opportunity

ThepopularityofPinterestanditspotentialbenefits,presentacompellingoppor-tunity for retailers. By investing time now in Pinterest while it’s still early, you could take advantage of this opportunity.

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The popularity of

Pinterest and its

potential benefits,

present a compelling

opportunity for retail-

ers. By investing time

now in Pinterest while

it’s still early, you could

take advantage of

this opportunity.


©2012 Demandware, Inc. | www.demandware.com 4

Getting Started with Pinterest

There are 9 key things to get started with Pinterest:

Understand if Pinterest is a Good Fit for Your Brand

Pinterestisnotrightforallbrands.Makesureyouidentifyifthesiteisagoodfitfor your brand by asking the following questions:

1. DoyouhavetheAUDIENCEthatwillbeengagedinthePinterestuniverse?2. DoesPinterestCOMPLIMENTtheothercomponentsofyoursocialcommerce

strategy?3. DoyouhavetheRESOURCESandcontenttosupportit?

Ifyouanswered“YES”toallthreeofthesequestions,thanPinterestmaybeare-allygoodfitandopportunityforyourbrand.

Set Up Your Brand on Pinterest

You will want to create boards on Pinterest that will engage the Pinterest com-munity.Ultimately,youwantyourspacetobuildbrandidentityandhelpfostercustomer relationships while simultaneously helping drive sales and acquire new customers. Just like on other social media sites, be sure your company name and logo are clearly represented, as well as a short description of who you are and what consumers can expect from your brand on Pinterest. Michael’s, Boot Barn and Fredericks of Hollywood are great examples:

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You will want to create

boards on Pinterest

that will engage the

Pinterest community.

Ultimately, you want

your space to build

brand identity and

help foster customer

relationships while

simultaneously helping

drvie sales and acquire

new customers.



Create Boards

Next,youwillneedtodetermineasabrandwhattypeofboardsyouwanttocre-ate and what the right mix of content should be. As a best practice, a Pinterest brand space requires a balance of product content (recent collections, best sellers, etc.) and then also boards that help build customer relationships by allowing cus-tomers feel closer to a brand. A few examples:

Some other ways that brands have found a nice mix between product content and other content is to create boards based off of inspiration, vintage ads, fashion weeks, favorite places to wear certain products, and other targeted suggestions.

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Sephora – Makeup tutorials & videos

Brooks Running – Inspiration & Fan Photos boards



Communicate Your Pinterest Intentions with Your Customers

Customers aren’t mind readers so be sure to share the exciting news with your customers by leveraging other digital channels! A few ideas on how to do this:

• Leverage social channels like Facebook and Twitter to announce that your brand is now on Pinterest.

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Frederick’s of Hollywood – Words to Live By & Vintage Ads

Frederick’s of Hollywood – Reaching out on Twitter



• Create a promotional email campaign and share the exciting Pinterest news with your marketing database. The email channel can also be leveraged to help acquire new followers.

Add a Pinit Button to your Product Detail Page’s

By adding the Pinterest Pinit button to your product details page, you will enable customers to easily share product images on Pinterest along with product detail page links. Once a product is shared by a customer someone else in the Pinterest community can click on the product image and they will be immediately redirected to the product detail page on your site.

Tory Burch – Using Facebook to Promote Pinterest

Bootbarn – Raising awareness through banner imagery

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Columbia Sportswear – Pinterest Pinit Button on Product Detail Page



Update Your Home Page & Other Templates with a Pinit Button

Updateyoursite(header&footer)aswellasanyotherexistingtemplateslikeyouremail&blogwiththePinterestbutton.Ensureit’splacedprominentlyonthepagesoconsumerswillclickonit,whichwillhelpdriveadditionalreferraltraffic.

Engage Your consumer Base

UsePinterestincreativewaystoengageyourcustomers.Someexamplesinclude:

• Promote a Lifestyle – Pinterest gives you a great way to let consumers know what your brand is all about. In addition to featuring your products, focus on what inspires you and what fits your customer’s interests and lifestyles. Nordstrom’s is a great example as they have over 33 boards that feature trends, fashion photography, etc:

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Bootbarn – Pinterest Pinit Button on header and footer pages

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Nordstrom- Promoting a lifestyle



• Conduct Contests on Pinterest are a great way to engage your custom-ers by allowing them to share their creativity and love for your brand while also using it as a channel to create brand buzz and acquire new customers. Brooks Running does a great job at this:

• Crowdsource ideas – Enlist your followers to share pictures of themselves or top wishlist items. This information is useful in understanding how consumers use your products, what they find most interesting about your brand—all of which is useful information. You could run a contest or tie in a promotion to encourage this type of research. Keep in mind that you will need to moderate any user-generated content (UGC) of this type.

Manage & Keep Your Pinterest Content Current

Invest the time in keeping content fresh on Pinterest, which will ensure brand consistency as well as drive further engagement with customers. The content you should focus on is:

• Product Content – If you do have boards in your space that feature new product lines, best sellers, staff picks, and other categories, invest in quality product imagery that your consumers can access on Pinterest. Similar, to your ecommerce site, you should merchandise and manage the inventory of products and only feature products that are available for purchase.

Brooks Running – Contests on Pinterest

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Invest the time in

keeping content fresh

on Pinterest, which will

ensure brand consis-

tency as well as drive

further engagement

with customers.



• Other Content – Be sure to add new content to other boards that are not directly promoting products, such as inspiration, fan photos, brand news, fashion show images, and other categories. Not only does it continue to build existing customer relationships when you add new content it will show up in your followers feeds and gain exposure.

Stay on top of what’s happening with Pinterest

ThelandscapearoundPinterestischangingrapidly.Ensureyoustayontopofchanges at the site so that you can optimize your social commerce efforts focused on Pinterest. For instance, two recent changes occurred recently, which are worth noting:

• New terms of service. Recently, Pinterest released new terms of service, which clarified ownership of content posted by retailers or consumers on Pinterest. A recent post by Junction Marketing does a good job clarify-ing what the recent changes mean. This will not be the last change, so it’s important to stay posted on what additional changes may occur, and what they mean for your business.

• Pinterest APIs. Pinterest also recently announced new APIs are on the way, which will allow anyone (include retailers) to build applications using Pinter-est as a platform. This will allow retailers, for instance, to show consumer pins on third party sites outside of Pinterest, such as the retailer’s website or third party sites. This could mean reaching a wider audience which would further increase the benefits of Pinterest.

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The landscape around

Pinterest is changing

rapidly. Ensure you

stay on top of the

changes at the site so

that you can optimize

your social commerce

efforts on Pinterest.



Pin Onward!

Once you’ve gotten started with Pinterest, continue to invest in your efforts, spend-ing the time to create a memorable and engaging brand space. Pinterest should become an integral part of your social commerce strategy, right alongside other socialmediachannels,suchasTwitter,FacebookandGoogle+.Don’tmissoutonthe power of Pinterest. Pin onward!

As you develop and optimize your strategy on Pinterest, be sure to let us know how we canhelp.Contactusat+1(888)[email protected].

Let Us Know How We Can Help



5 Wall Street, 2nd floor, Burlington, MA 01803Demandware, Inc. 1-781-425-1400 www.demandware.com

About Demandware, Inc.Demandware is a leading provider of software-as-a-service (SaaS) ecommerce solutions that enable companies to easily design, implement and manage their own customized ecommerce sites, including websites, mobile applications and other digital storefronts. Customers use our highly scalable and integrated Demandware Commerce platform to more easily launch and manage multiple ecommerce sites, initiate marketing campaigns more quickly, and improve ecommercetraffic.DemandwareclientsincludeBareEscentuals,BarneysNewYork,ColumbiaSportswear, Crocs, Frederick’s of Hollywood, Hanover Direct, Jewelry Television, Jones Group, Lifetime Brands, L’Oreal, Panasonic, Playmobil, s.Oliver and Reitmans.

This document contains archival information which should not be considered current and may no longer be accurate.

© 2012 Demandware, Inc.


Pinterest E-commerce Guide Demandware

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