Pin Your Way to Better Holiday Sales

November marks the start of the retail holiday season. With Black Friday and Cyber Monday just around the corner, you want to capture as many sales as possible. Pinterest has evolved from a fun Social Media platform to a useful site to market your business. Last year, 47.7% of surveyed shoppers said they would use Pinterest for inspiration and ideas for gifts (media bistro.com). Tap into that market by setting up a holiday Pinterest board of gift ideas.

If you are not currently using Pinterest, you will want to set up a Business Account. Setting up a Business Account requires just two simple steps: filling out a form with information about your business and agreeing to the terms of service for Pinterest, and verifying you website. This shows the Pinterest community you are trustworthy and you will increase your visibility. You will want to have a nice, presentable profile image and set up boards that will represent your business and brand.

Once your Pinterest profile has been set up, you should enable the Pinterest widget.  By adding the Pinterest Widget to your product pages, a ‘pin it’ button will appear below the product image. An interested customer can then click the button, which prompts the widget to pull the product image and description automatically, then pin it to the customer’s board. The product data and link to the product’s page will remain with the image even if it is repined, which gives you even greater visibility. It is important to have at least one image of each product that is 735 pixels wide, so that it is optimized for Pinterest. Even though the image will be scaled down for the board view, offering an enlarged image gives customers a great visual representation.

Finally, you will want to set up a festive holiday board with a fun and creative title, and pin it with great gift ideas. Have fun with it! Pinterest acts as a virtual wish list, so think about gifts you would be happy to send and receive and use that as your “pinspiration.” The more you put into your board, the more likely it is that you will attract customers. If you pin gift wrapped images along with the actual product, you can give potential customers an idea of the full gift, which could further prompt a sale.  Feel free to include a favorite holiday recipe or craft idea. These small touches add personality to your site and are a great way to reinforce your brand and company identity.

Utilizing Pinterest for the holidays makes gift-giving easy for customers. With the Pinterest widget, customers using Pinterest for gift ideas and inspiration can be prompted to place an order by clicking on a products image. Utilizing Pinterest is also good to increase your company’s visibility. The eCommerce ecosystem is constantly growing and evolving, and to keep up it is important to utilize as many resources as possible.  With 2013 Holiday eCommerce sales expected to be $61.8 billion between November and December (internetretailer.com), you will want to attract as many of those shoppers as possible. Implementing a holiday-themed Pinterest board is a great way to deck your online store for the holidays., and in turn, gain more sales.