Digital marketing is an innovative and ever-changing industry where businesses strategize how they will gain valuable opportunities, and the potential to reach new customers. However, the fashion industry is also changing with consumers’ shopping trends. With this change, social media will play a huge role in the field of fashion marketing. Many brands are already using popular platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to promote their fashion brands, but they should also consider looking into marketing on Pinterest.
Why Should More Fashion Brands Use Pinterest?
Pinterest is a visual social media platform for finding ideas and inspiration. These usually include recipes, fashion, home, and style inspiration, where Pinterest users could save to their specific board, pin it (where they find their ideas) to their feed, or share it amongst other users. Pinterest has around 460 million users that engage on the platform monthly. Women make up 77% of users and men 14.5%, with 60% of users aged between 18-49. Fashion is also a popular topic on Pinterest.
Users go to Pinterest for style inspiration and to discover new brands. Also, 90% of users look to content on the platform to make purchase decisions, which is why both well-known fashion brands and smaller fashion e-Commerce brands should consider Pinterest marketing – to help improve brand awareness and conversions. Fashion brands should build a Pinterest marketing strategy that will work for their business. Fashion brands can use different strategies on Pinterest for excellent marketing efforts that I will list below.
5 Marketing Strategies Fashion Brands Should Use on Pinterest
1. Create How-to Pins
Numerous clothing brands use Pinterest to showcase their product(s) in eye-catching images while sharing their content. In 2021, 80% of Pinners have discovered a new brand or product on Pinterest. Fashion brands could market their products by creating fashionable how-to content. Businesses could also show Pinners how to style their clothing, accessories, and shoes in a video form, a picture, or a blog post.
Also, one key advantage Pinterest has is the ability to add links – your website – to your visual content. This feature allows brands to share written and visual content that will then direct users back to your business website in the process. It is a powerful marketing strategy to build brand awareness and boost online sales.
An example of a brand’s success in this regard is the fashion publisher Who What Wear, with its accessible pins on fashion content, which has established a dominant position on Pinterest.
Source: Pinterest
Who What Wear gained a lot of engagement from their target audience who is open to buying and browsing new products and clicking through websites. Who What Wear also organizes their Pinterest boards based on different things their target audience might be looking for at the moment under the Create section. Who What Wear Outfit Ideas and Summer Style boards spotlight various established and upcoming fashion brands, which show videos on how to style different clothing items such as pink, plaid blazers, high-waisted boyfriend jeans, or a flowy, Bohemian ruffle dress.
2. Pinning User-generated content
User-generated content (UGC) can also be beneficial when using Pinterest as a fashion brand. UGC is content by the brand followers, fans, or customers, which makes it an organic form of marketing on social media. UGC is real because people will share their candid impressions of the brand.
Here are different types of UGC:
- Customer reviews, testimonials, feedback
- Photos with your branded hashtag
- Pics where your official account is tagged or mentioned
- Re-post Pinterest Pins where customers blogged about your brand
Pinterest is known for community-building and re-sharing top-quality content from creators, so brands should re-share content from their brand ambassadors as long as it is consistent with their branding. However, running a user-generated content campaign can also be an incredible way to attract new followers and drive product sales. You also get marketing content for free!
3. Pinterest Shopping tab
Pinterest users who love to shop spend most of their time on Pinterest pinning products they would like to purchase. On average, people on the platform outspend non-Pinners by 40% every month. In addition, the shop tab is an excellent marketing strategy for fashion companies looking to expand their marketing strategy to reach a new target audience or their current loyal customers.
Pinterest Shopping ads make it easier for users to shop from the comfort of their own home from a board, search toolbar, style guides, and Pins! Pinterest Business launched the Verified Merchant program to create a shopping experience that feels real. However, consumers shopping trends and people coming to the platform for shopping inspiration pushed Pinterest decided to introduce the new feature for retailers of all sizes.
The Shop tab allows customers to find and purchase products directly from your pins!
4. Video and Cross-Promotion
As we know, Pinterest is highly visual. People love to watch videos because videos are a perfect way for brands to show products or services in action. Video Pins allow brands to be creative and stand out from the crowd. Fashion brands could show behind-the-scenes footage of photoshoots, how-to-style videos, or trade shows within the business. In 2020, video content was the best engaging marketing approach for brands and creators.
5. Optimizing your content with SEO
Lastly, optimize your content for searchers who are looking for products that your brand offers. With 97% of searches on the platform being unbranded, it gives all brands a chance to be noticed. However, to make your brand stand out you must do the following:
- Conduct extensive keyword research using SEMrush and/or Answer The Public
- Apply google SEO techniques to your Pinterest images and videos
- Link all pins to your website to the proper pages so that it’ll convert those prospectors to buyers.
- Your brand’s Pins should be related to your company so that the content could be cohesive. Also, your brand should be recognizable.
With more consumers shifting to shopping online, your brand should follow suit. Pinterest marketing could be a marketing tactic to reach new consumers, increase brand awareness, and showcase your product. Also, Pinterest could be beneficial for your brand in various ways. Hopefully more fashion brands will consider using Pinterest as a tool for their marketing strategy and see where that could potentially lead them!
About the author
Cayla Matthews is currently a Brand Marketing Analyst Intern at The International Institute of Digital Marketing ™.