Power of Pinterest - IKEA
IKEA is a Swedish home furnishing brand that delivers affordability, comfort and design. It boasts a simplistic and minimalist style while still practical. It is famous for its ready-to-assemble furniture and an endless maze within its stores. Traditionally, IKEA’s advertising has always been very witty yet simplistic (see image below).
Image text:
We heard Amazon is sold out of puzzles. You’re welcome.
One of the main features of IKEA’s success was its catalogue and displays, which gave people ideas and inspiration as they imagined their newly acquired residences decked out in all the furniture and decor. The IKEA catalogue ran for over 70 years before it was retired. It has now been turned into digital brochures along with a balanced mix of digital inspiration feeds and tips. However, one of the crucial things that came out of its retirement was IKEA’s shift towards Pinterest Marketing.
Pinterest is often regarded as one of the last ‘positive’ social media apps as it is where people go to find inspiration and new ideas without feeling like they’re missing out. Users can curate ‘boards’ (think vision boards) and they ‘pin’ pictures onto these boards. The majority of users use Pinterest to find inspiration for their daily lives. This creates the perfect platform for business to target their marketing. The only downside is that its monthly active users (433 million as of July 2022) are significantly less than TikTok or Instagram which have 1 billion and 1.44 billion monthly active users, respectively. However, that doesn’t mean much because on average, businesses are seeing 2x higher return on ad spend using Pinterest than other social media. Pinterest has an affordable Cost-Per-Click (CPC) rate as well, sitting at $0.10-$1.50 depending on your campaign.
In 2018, IKEA ventured into the business of Pinterest, uploading a digital catalogue of photos aimed at college students. IKEA had previously exclusively used print catalogues however as their audience moved online, they realized that they needed to as well. The intention behind picking Pinterest was that not only were 50% of millennials (their target age group) spending time on Pinterest but the boards/pins feature allowed IKEA to have an easily accessible digital catalogue all while it advertised itself. Since people are looking for inspiration, the audience is a lot more receptive to advertisements than in other places. It is estimated that 85 percent of female “pinners” are planning a major life event (weddings, home renovation, college, etc) and IKEA’s product perfectly targets these needs. Their in-store demos can also be professionally photographed and uploaded, creating more pins that people will want to save. Pinterest also allows IKEA to directly link their shop both on their profile and on all of their posts, making the customer acquisition process a lot simpler.
Ways that Pinterest Can Boost Your Campaign
Drive traffic to your business
Anything you do can be turned into a pin. Blog post? Pinned. New product? Pinned. FAQs? Pinned. AND all of these pins are linked to your site so all users have to do is click on the image.
If you have a catalogue, menu, etc. ADD IT. You can upload images and create them as separate pins which you then place into a convenient catalogue for any potential customer. However, because each image is a separate pin, a larger audience will be able to connect with them separately if the image shows up on their home feed/search, driving more traffic to your site.
SEO
Pin descriptions are essentially gold mines when it comes to SEO marketing. You should be using it to naturally (and concisely) insert keywords and phrases in order to boost your SEO/visibility.
Utilize your profile section just like any other social media. Fill out your ‘about’ section with keywords and don’t forget about consistent branding and color themes throughout your page.
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