A recent statistic reveals that Etsy outranks almost every other social site by getting the maximum number of repins on Pinterest. With almost 35 million unique, handcrafted, delectable products on display, it is no wonder that Pinterest users cannot stop drooling over Etsy. According to Charles Huff, the author of the book, ‘How to sell on Etsy with Pinterest’, the products on Etsy match the exact requirements of Pinterest users. He goes on to add that Pinterest users are big spenders who spend almost double of what facebook users spend. For an Etsy store, that’s more business, more traffic, more customers, more sales and more money!
With the visual edge and a ready pool of customers waiting to be nosedived into, every Etsy store must consider starting their marketing quest from Pinterest.
That’s precisely where most stores owners struggle though.
Tips For Promoting Etsy on Pinterest in 2017
How do you effectively market your Etsy store on Pinterest?
How do you tap into the tremendous potential that Pinterest offers by driving traffic to your store?
The first step is to have a well defined strategy.
What’s your Pinterest strategy?
Why are you pinning on Pinterest? What is your goal?
If your primary objective is to build an audience for yourself, then your pins must be tailored to suit that goal. However, unless you are a large corporation or business, getting more followers or building a brand is very unlikely to lead to a sale.
So, have a primary goal, which would be to get a click through to your store that can potentially lead to a purchase. You can also have secondary goals like building followers which may contribute towards your primary goal.
But even if it doesn’t, your marketing strategy should be aimed to ensure that your primary goal is met.
According to a trends report released by Shopify, Pinterest users love to spend money. Also, the average amount that they spend on every order is much higher than any other social media platform. This means that you do not need to build thousands of followers to generate sales from Pinterest. Even a few hundred targeted followers can convert into sales.
Mastering Pinterest
Pinterest is all about images. And if you are using images that you clicked from your old rundown digital camera, then chances are that the number of likes and repins will be lackluster. You need to take good quality images. If you cannot take quality photographs yourself, hire someone who can do it for you.
It is not rocket science and there are enough tutorials on YouTube that teach you the basics of product photography. You will need to use lights, filters, close ups, creative angles to create a visually attractive profile of your products that you can use as pins.
Getting a business account
Technically, when you are promoting your Etsy store on Pinterest, you are using the site to promote your business. This calls for a business account. You may be an individual trying to run a store. But Pinterest is updating its terms and conditions and you do not want to get caught violating any of those in the future when your Etsy store is getting a steady stream or traffic and revenue from them.
Get a business account. It is easy. And you can use the same username as your Etsy store because it helps maintain coherence and consistency across platforms.
Using your profile
Your Pinterest profile is a critical part of your existence on the channel. Use it to maximize its potential. Use the same avatar as the one on Etsy, fill up the description section with a natural, short and concise paragraph of text that best describes your business. Never overstuff this with keywords. As long as you can naturally use a few, go ahead by all means. But the description should be readable by humans and not some meta crazy robot.
If you are unsure about how to do this, look at the profiles of other Etsy sellers on Pinterest.
Using your boards
The boards that you create on Pinterest will be a mirror of your Etsy store. The best part is that you can create as many as you want, each one with its own description and title. The recommended way of doing it is to make several boards with a bunch of pins. This makes it easy for your viewers and followers to browse through and repin.
You can also form group boards which let you invite people to pin on these boards. This is one of the best ways to gain new followers and tons of exposure for your products. However, it is important to not go overboard with the sales pins here. You need to add a lot of relevant pins too. If you are selling handmade necklaces, post about fashion trends occassionaly. If you are selling mittens for babies, mother care is a great topic to pin about.
If you can create a relevant group board that gains a few thousand followers, then the exposure that your products get can almost quadruple.
The art of pinning
Pinning is an art and I can go on and on about what works and what doesn’t. But we’ll leave that for another day. For now, all that you need to know are the basics.
- Use tall and slender images rather than using blunt and short ones.
- Add call-to-actions with every image
- Make a collage of your store banner and your store home page
- Use vibrant and dominant colors for your pins. Pink, green and crimson are excellent choices
- If one of your products have great reviews on your store, use a snapshot of the review and add it with your product image.
Make pinning a habit but do it judiciously. Space out your pins at different times of the day. But don’t forget to pin even a single day. Ensure that you pin different images all seven days of the week.
Every promotional activity for your Etsy store including Pinterest will demand some amount of dedication and time from you. If you are not able to dedicate a lot of time upfront, then start slow and build up slowly once you gain some expertise.
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