What if I told you the perfect marketing channel for your Shopify store isn’t necessarily the one with the largest number of users? After all, marketing is about reaching the right niche audience—those who will actively consume your content, thoughtfully engage your posts, and ultimately buy whatever it is you’re selling.
Well, the research is in, and it turns out that Pinterest is a phenomenal eCommerce marketing channel. That’s why Shopify built a Pinterest integration, allowing Shopify store owners to target Pinterest’s 400+ million users.
This blog post will tell you how to start marketing your Shopify store through Pinterest, and it will highlight some powerful tips for boosting sales through the platform.
But… first things first!
What’s so Special about Pinterest?
To begin with, those 400+ million monthly users are nothing to scoff at. Yes, Pinterest is smaller than other social media giants, but if all those Pinterest users decided to form their own country, it would replace the United States as the third most populous nation on earth.
What’s more important than sheer numbers, of course, is the quality of traffic that scrolls through those boards and pins. Here are a few facts about Pinterest’s user base:
- 98% of Pinterest users say they’ve tried new things they discovered on Pinterest, while only 71% of users on other platforms can say the same
- 93% of Pinterest users have used Pinterest to research products and make purchases
- 41% of pinners have a household income greater than $75,000 USD
In other words, you’ve got a solid user-base with a healthy disposable income that is ready, willing, and able to shop. What more could you want?
How about a visually-focused platform that’s designed for users and retailers to organize posts according to topics of interest?
That’s exactly what you can do with Pinterest. Plus, you can showcase your products and enable the system to automatically update product information (such as pricing) when you change it on your website. Then prospective customers can click on a product they like and go directly to the product page on your website, where they can make the purchase.
Ready to dive into the details? Here’s how you can set your Shopify store up for Pinterest success.
1. Claim Your Shopify Website on Pinterest
Claiming your Shopify website on Pinterest will give you access to comprehensive analytics, that way you can figure out how people respond to your pins and what leads to engagement and conversions. It also helps you get the most of your “rich pins,” which you’ll learn all about in the next section.
Before you do anything, of course, you’ll need a business account for Pinterest. You can either create a new account from scratch, or you can convert a personal account to a business one. Either way, you’ll need to follow these instructions to make that happen.
Once you’ve got your business account set up, click here and follow the instructions to claim your shopify website on pinterest so you can take advantage of everything the Shopify Pinterest integration has to offer when you link Pinterest to Shopify.
2. Create Rich Pins (formerly known as buyable pins) for Shopify
Rich pins allow you to sync information from your website with whatever you post on Pinterest. For example, let’s say you’re selling jewelery from your Shopify store. When you’ve got rich pins set up, you can change the price, product description, and other information on your Shopify website. When you do, the rich pin connected to each product will update automatically.
That’s an example of a product rich pin. In addition to being easy to update, product rich pins let potential customers know your product is buyable.
You can also use rich pins to update blog posts using article rich pins, making it easier to manage marketing content posted to Pinterest and drive traffic to your store. We’ll go into more detail about blogs and other content below.
Pinterest requires you to apply for rich pins before using them, that way your information will sync properly. Click here to apply for rich pins and start using them.
3. Post a Variety of Valuable Content
Once you’ve got your product rich pins up and running, it’s time to create a range of content that will drive traffic to your Pinterest page (and ultimately to your Shopify store). Pinterest provides a unique opportunity to connect with your target audience using a variety of formats, and you can group that content on Pinterest boards (which you’ll learn about in the next tip).
What type of content can you post on Pinterest?
You can use pins to promote all sorts of content in a variety of formats, including the following.
- Products—using product rich pins that contain the current price, product description, and a direct link to the product’s page on your Shopify store
- Infographics can be effective marketing tools because they’re easy to digest and people love to share them
- Videos are becoming more and more popular on Pinterest, and you can directly import them from Youtube.
- Blog posts are easy to promote on Pinterest, bringing additional traffic to your website and helping you win new followers.
- E-books and other lead magnets can be quite pin-worthy
What kind of topics should your content cover?
It’s absolutely vital to figure out what your target audience wants to learn about and generate content they’re likely to click on, engage, and share. For example, if your Shopify store sells festival clothing, you can share everything from ecologically friendly festival fashion tips to, say, surviving your first Burning Man.
Some of the most popular content for videos, blog posts, and e-books include tutorials, do-it-yourself guides, trick and tips, etc.
Pro Tip: Pinterest only allows you to pin the same image four times per month, but that doesn’t mean you can’t promote the same blog post, video, or any other form of content more often than that. All you need to do is create a different image for each pin, since there’s no problem with linking a pin to the same URL multiple times.
Here’s how MeetEdgar promoted the same blog post about optimizing your website for Pinterest using different pins.
Use multiple pins to promote the same blog post as many times as you’d like.
How many pins should you post? Check out our guide to pin frequency and limits to learn more.
4. Create Eye-catching, Visually Appealing Pins
As a visual platform, it’s vital to create pins that look great. After all, if you don’t stop them in their tracks, its far less likely that they’ll click through to your blog or video, even if you feature stellar content.
Use a tool like Canva to create beautiful pins, and follow Pinterest’s best practices for high-performing pins. You can also click here for more detailed specs about ideal image proportions, ideal formats, and other fine points. You can also purchase gorgeous pinterest templates at a super-affordable price.
Want to really up your visual game? Check out our post that covers 10 best practices for eye-catching social media images.
5. Use Pinterest Boards to Organize Your Content
Pinterest boards allow you to group your pins according to themes or types of pins. For example, MeetEdgar’s Pinterest page has boards for things like:
- Blogs
- Videos
- Business quotes
- Email marketing
- SEO
- E-Commerce
- Octopi (because… why not?)
Users can browse your content on the boards they like, and they can even follow specific boards by clicking on the ellipsis icon next to the board title and selecting the “follow” option.
Pro Tip: You can also add your content to group boards—collaborative boards that pinners use to share ideas with each other. We even wrote a post on how to find high-performing group boards that will spread your content far and wide.
6. Nail Your Copy
It’s important to think of Pinterest as a search engine—one that scans the platform for relevant images. With this in mind, you’ll want to include titles and descriptions that speak to whatever it is your audience is searching for. With this in mind, be sure to…
- Accurately describe your post
- Use relevant hashtags
- Use mentions to tag other accounts (with the @ symbol) when appropriate
- Link to your Shopify store
- Include a call-to-action (e.g., read our post, download our e-book)
- Conduct keyword research to figure to figure out what people are searching for, and use those terms in the your pins
7. Study the Data
Your business account offers you a wealth of data on Pinterest users who interact with your pins, click through to your blog posts, watch your videos, and buy your products. Just click on the Analytics tab to discover insights about:
- Your audience and what interests them
- Conversion data
- Video stats
- Market trends
- And more!
Read our post to take a deeper dive and learn how to use Pinterest analytics to make more sales.
8. Automate Your Posts
Use a social media scheduling tool like MeetEdgar to automate your posting process, making it easier to schedule posts across various platforms. MeetEdgar connects to Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and of course, Pinterest.
The software has a whole host of features, including a vast content library, a continuous posting schedule that regularly updates your posts with your own evergreen content, and natural language processing that pulls content from you posts and writes status updates for you. And that just scratches the surface!
Ready to Dominate Pinterest? Sign up for This Free Course.
Hopefully this post gives you a sense of what you can do with Pinterest as a Shopify store owner.
