Retailers often overlook Pinterest as a revenue-generating social platform. But Pinterest users are active buyers. A total of 75% of Pinterest users say they’re always shopping, and 44% of millennial Pinners purchased a product they saw on Pinterest. Now, take this hotbed of sales and add a sprinkle of seasonal magic and you’ve got a winter wonderland for retailers.
So how do top retailers use Pinterest to drive sales in the holiday season? Let’s unwrap some tips. (Or try Agorapulse for free and see how it helps with your Pinterest goals.)
No More Holiday Marketing Headaches
The holiday season is crazy busy for retailers. So, pinning to Pinterest might seem like a marketing headache. Fortunately, there’s the Agorapulse Pinterest scheduler tool. It’s used by top retailers and marketers who need to streamline and simplify their Pinterest marketing. You can schedule pins across different boards, create Rich Pins and add automated UTM tracking codes. That way you know which Pins are driving real sales and conversions. Get your Pinterest integration here.
A Pinterest Retailer’s Toy Story
Last year, Toys“R”Us got a head start reaching holiday shoppers on Pinterest. The result: An uptick in sales online and in-store visits.
In October, Toys“R”Us created assets for every stage of the sales funnel, to highlight the season’s “best gifts” and “top toys.” This helped them to stand out among the holiday marketing noise during the peak shopping season.
And the results jingled all the way for Toys“R”Us. The highest converters were mature gifters, like grandparents, shortly followed by parents with a +4.6pt lift. Toys“R”Us also saw a 17% lift for in-store visits following their Pinterest activities. Remember, shoppers start early for holidays like Christmas. So, if you’re a retailer, October is the time to start promoting.
Pinterest as the Go-To Retailer Platform
Pinterest is a retailer’s dream. Pinterest is more than just a social network. It’s a visual discovery engine where users find inspiration and plan purchases.
Pinterest for searches
Also, Pinterest is a very powerful search engine too. As a searchable platform, Pinterest has as much SEO power as Google. 522 million people use Pinterest each month, with 46% of weekly users discovering a new brand or product on the site.
- Pinterest has a user growth rate of 23% year on year, according to Statista. It’s the second fastest-growing platform right now, behind Instagram.
- Gen Z is Pinterest’s fastest growing audience, making up 42% of their global user base.
- If you run a USA based business, Pinterest might be “the one.” The US audience is Pinterest’s largest, with 17% of users based in the USA. This makes it easier for retailers to offer free or fast shipping within the country.
Pinterest for trend predictions
As a marketer, I’m a huge fan of the “Pinterest Predicts” report. This free and invaluable report shares upcoming trend predictions based on user searches and behavior. Because the platform’s data is so reliable, this report has had an 80% success rate for four years in a row. This data helps retailers to promote the products people are searching for, therefore boosting sales in key shopping periods.
Pinterest for luxuries
Pinterest reaches 28% of high-income earners. In fact, 1 in 3 Pinterest shoppers have an income of over $100k. That’s why you will find luxury brands on Pinterest.
The global revenue for luxury goods is anticipated to reach US$368.90 billion this year, marking an annual growth rate of 3.22%. And the luxury goods market is surging, with predictions showing that it’s likely to double in size by 2030!
A Pinterest Retailer’s Luxury Tale
Luxury retail brand YSL Beauty used Pinterest to leverage its Mother’s Day sales with beauty shoppers on Pinterest, the brand’s target audience. Amazingly, research shows that Pinterest users have a 50% larger basket size on average than on other platforms in the beauty category.
YSL Beauty saw a 10% lift of brand awareness on their LIBRE perfume and increased sales on their brand site by 23%. The creative assets used Pinterest best practices, such as utilizing a clear CTA and keeping videos under 10 seconds.
How Retailers Can Prepare For the Holiday Season
Have you met the Cyber Five? The Cyber Five is:
- Thanksgiving
- Black Friday
- Small Business Saturday
- Cyber Sunday
- Cyber Monday
In 2023, these days made up 16.2% of total US holiday retail ecommerce sales. And to understand just how huge this is, Cyber Monday sales totalled $13.23 billion!
The holiday season is no longer just November and December. As retailers like Amazon hold October sales events, the traditional holiday season is expanding.
Pinterest users actively search for holiday gifts, decorations, and ideas, making it a prime platform for retailers to drive more sales. And retailers need to capitalize on this surge by optimizing their online marketing strategies.
Here are some quick and easy ways to do that:
1. Update your images
- Retailers should update their profile images and cover photos to reflect a festive, seasonal theme. I love Canva’s seasonal templates, which are automatically sized for different aspects of Pinterest marketing.
- Feature any holiday gift sets, festive wrapping and Christmas boxes in your cover photo. This will catch the eye of shoppers looking for easy and beautiful gifts.
- Profile descriptions should highlight your festive offering with keywords and enticing gift descriptions.
2. Create holiday-focused boards
Build tailored boards with a retail sales focus. We’re not talking lots of random seasonal images. We’re talking about seasonal products that you want to sell. For example, Gucci’s 2023 gift guide featured everything from sparkly earrings to purses and shoes.
You can make multiple holiday boards to capture different retail offerings and segments of the market. For example, “Christmas Gift Ideas,” “Diwali Outfit Ideas”, “Hanukkah Celebrations” “Festive Gifts Under $20”. Approaching Christmas you can then add “Boxing Day Sales” and “New Year Sales” boards.
Tip for retailers using Pinterest during the holiday season
You can do all this on your Agorapulse platform! Let’s say I was the marketing manager for Gucci (sighs in glittery lilac purse). I could upload my image, choose a Pin title, write my description, add a shopping link and then select which Board I want to pin to.
Agorapulse is synched with Pinterest, so it’s easy to create a new board, too. Then you just hit schedule, and your Pin will go live on the day and time you want!
- Use holiday keywords in board titles and descriptions to optimize for Pinterest SEO. Don’t try to be too fancy or you will miss out on search traffic. Keep it simple with board titles like “2024 Gifts for Dad” or “Easy Recipes for Thanksgiving”.
- Embed holiday boards into your holiday blogs to really boost Pin traffic.
- Create shoppable holiday gift guides. Using a Canva Pinterest template you can upload photos of your products and design them into a gorgeous holiday Pin!
- Include clear calls-to-action, such as “Shop for the perfect holiday gift.” Remember to include a good description, pricing and link your products to make it easy for users to shop. Anyone with a business account can tag products and create product Pins. To access additional features and ads, your business needs to go through a merchant review process. I highly recommend retailers do this. Learn how right here.
- Nothing catches the eye of holiday shoppers like a short and sparkly video. The possibilities are endless for retailers and might include a gift-wrapping hack, quick gift guides or a stunning unboxing of your top gift item. Tip: Viewers love to watch unboxing videos on social media. Be sure to use hashtags for your video and include #unboxing .
A Retailer’s Christmas Pinterest Video
Your Pinterest Christmas video doesn’t have to be a blockbuster production with a jaw-dropping budget. It can be a simple short animation.
Example of a retail video for the holiday season
I love this pretty animation from Ralph Lauren which features a snow globe containing different Ralph Lauren products. The upbeat vintage music, whimsical snow and choice of festive red products make this an absolute win.
Ralph Lauren also uses ads to promote their product range.
- Using Premiere Spotlight Ralph Lauren ensures their video ads achieve 100% share of voice on Pinterest’s search and home pages.
- They employ a precise targeting strategy that works on the home page (interest-based) and search page (keyword-based) to match users’ current interests.
Leveraging Pinterest Ads for Holiday Promotions
If you have a Pinterest Business account, you can advertise on the platform. And the barrier to entry is low for retailers who can set daily or lifetime spend limits with just $10 per day.
- Promoted Pins: These ads appear in users’ feeds or search results and drive traffic to product pages or websites.
- Shopping Ads: These pull product details directly from your e-commerce site, displaying pricing and availability automatically. They are perfect for boosting retail sales during the holidays.
- Carousel and Video Ads: We love carousels for showcasing multiple products or a gift box containing different items. Carousels are ideal for holiday gift guides, stocking fillers and holiday discount sales.
Setting up your ad is easy, simply log into your business profile and follow the instructions below.
Pinterest Festive Advertising Tips
- Take the time to give your ad the best chance of success. You can do this with strong content, eye popping images and videos, festive music (be careful on copyright here), strong text overlays, and consistent calls to action.
- Use large fonts. 80% of Pinterest’s traffic comes from mobile devices. So, don’t be writing tiny text on images; people can’t read it.
- In addition to checking in on your Pinterest analytics panel, you should also check your Agorapulse dashboard for engagement. If something isn’t getting engagement it’s important to save your ad spend and divert it elsewhere or edit your ad.
- Start promoting holiday products in October to capture early planners and continue campaigns through December to catch last-minute shoppers.
- Partner with Pinterest influencers who have a large, engaged following to create sponsored content featuring your holiday products. This can significantly increase your brand’s reach and credibility.
- Team up with fans. Ads featuring UGC achieve 4x higher click-through rates and a 50% drop in cost-per-click compared to average ads. If you don’t have the budget for big influencers, consider teaming up with your biggest fans for some user-generated content (UGC). Brand ambassadors will often be happy to team up in return for some merch which they can use in their videos. You can identify your brand ambassadors in the Agorapulse platform too!
- If you haven’t yet set up your Pinterest Shop, then it’s time to check this off your Pinterest marketing list. A Pinterest Shop allows retailers to create a storefront directly on Pinterest, showcasing products in a visually appealing, shoppable feed. During the holiday season, featuring best-sellers or holiday gift collections can drive more sales.
- Create a Retail Catalog so your stock and pricing can easily be updated ensuring users always have access to accurate product information. If you can create a holiday catalog then this will really help to drive sales.
Did You Know … Monday is the day that online sales tend to be the highest. This is perhaps because people are in a “buying mood” after the weekend or want to cheer themselves up at the office! As a result, if you can successfully target consumers on Mondays, you are likely to see an increase in sales and revenue.
Final Tips for Retailers to Stand Out During the Holiday Season
The online retail space can get cluttered between October and January with merchants fighting hard to win those shopping dollars. But you can stand out from the crowd even without spending a dime. Here are some quick tips.
SchedYULE
Be consistent by regularly posting new pins and responding to comments. You can do all this in your Agorapulse platform. You can even schedule yule pins (love how this typo panned out) ahead of time to allow yourself time for a rest!
Run a contest
People are spending a lot during the festive period. But with many overstretched, an opportunity to win or save can work wonders. You might also want to consider bulk buy discounts or bundles.
Stand out
Stand out with free shipping or free gift wrapping. Offering these services will help you to stand out from the crowd for buyers.
Think about colors
Color schemes matter on Pinterest and especially during the holidays. Aim to tie collections together with festive colors and matching themes.
Watch trends
Pinterest provides regular trend updates, so you can see what people are searching for. Pay attention to the audience sentiment too. For example, by Boxing Day the desire to eat Christmas treats fades, and we begin thinking about healthy eating and starting the year fresh.
Top retailers are using Pinterest to drive holiday sales this year. Pinterest retailers, what’s your best tip for the holiday season? Comment below and remember to grab a free trial of Agorapulse to check out its holiday friendly Pinterest integration.
