7 ways to reach holiday shoppers on Pinterest

Originally published on Pinterest for Business on November 6, 2014 By Kevin Knight.

The holidays are huge for Pinterest.
So huge, in fact, that in the months leading up to the holidays, we see a 25 percent increase in boards related to gifts and wish lists. “Christmas gifts” is already in our top 25 search terms.
While there’s clear consumer intent, there’s even more good news for businesses. A recent study published in the Harvard Business Review found that 21 percent of all Pinners have bought a product in-store that they discovered on Pinterest.
We know it’s already November, but there are still lots of ways you can ride the Pinterest holiday shopping wave:
1. Get Rich Pins
Rich Pins add extra details to your pins, including price, availability and where to buy. If someone Pins a product with this info, they’ll also receive email notifications if the item drops in price later. That extra notice could inspire someone to buy!
Our business partners are seeing a difference already. After adding Rich Pins, Target says Pinterest referral traffic to their website increased by 70 percent within the first six weeks. The results were so impressive that Target’s focused its entire 2013 holiday campaign on Pinterest.
2. Make it easy to Pin from your website
Many businesses see thousands of Pins coming from their website each day. When people Pin from your website, they make your products and services discoverable to millions of people on Pinterest. Make it easier for them to do so by adding a Pin It button to your site’s pages.
We have a standard Pin It button you can use, and we just introduced a On Hover Pin It button. This button appears when a visitor mouses over the image they might want to Pin, and it only takes one line of code to implement! And remember, a compelling default description will make your Pins more impactful on Pinterest, so be sure to add a great one-sentence description to each object.
3. Update your Pin and board descriptions
The study in the Harvard Business Review also found that 10 percent of items that caught Pinners’ attention came from Pinterest searches. This means it’s extra beneficial if each of your Pins and boards includes a thoughtful description with search-friendly words.
4. Get creative!
Boards can be more than just wishlists and gift guides. Take a creative spin on the holidays using Pinterest, and you just might see tons of new engagement.
Lowe’s created a Black Friday Deal Reveal campaign, which included posting black silhouettes of products and asking Pinners to guess the item before revealing the items later.
“There are a lot of messages bombarding customers during the holidays. We felt that doing a product reveal on Pinterest would be a unique way to leverage the platform and allow customers to discover our Black Friday sale items, without having to compete with the noise in many of the traditional media channels,” said Brad Walters, director of social media and emerging platforms at Lowe’s.
5. Include Pinterest in your email marketing
Adding Pin It buttons next to your products in emails can be a useful way for people to save the items they’re interested in for later.
Sony includes Pin It buttons next to products in their emails — even seeing 3,000 Pin creates from one recent email.
6. Curate inspiring gift lists and holiday guides for your customers
Curate your products into different gift list boards, which gives your stuff a more editorial spin.
Tory Burch and Tiffany and Co. have set up boards for holiday gift inspiration.
7. Create original content
Make sure Pinterest fits into your content creation around the holidays. If you’re creating special articles, videos and photography, make sure they’ll stand out on Pinterest as well.
Ziploc offers original holiday content on their website, and they’ve made it easy for Pinners save and share gorgeous-looking, multi-image Pins that have thoughtful, pre-filled descriptions. Check out this Pin for nut mixes, which links back to a longer recipe. Ziploc’s site even has a page dedicated to holiday content on Pinterest.
Happy holidays—and happy Pinning!
– Kevin Knight, currently Pinning to For Henry