Price Alerts Coming to Pinterest

For some reason, it doesn't seem that Pinterest gets the respect it deserves. Many people thought it was just a fad and would bring little to no benefit to their business. With 70 million users and growing, it looks like Pinterest is here to stay. Retailers have the most to benefit from Pinterest, and with their new price alerts feature being released, they have even more to gain. In the near future, when a user pins a product, they will get an email alert whenever that product goes on sale. According to Pinterest, it will look much like this:

Since many people use Pinterest as a type of "dream board", posting items they would like but most likely couldn't afford, this is a fantastic feature. A user may never consider buying that $500 pair of shoes they pinned a few weeks ago, but once they get that email alert letting them know they are now 50% off, the chances of that user buying those shoes just went up exponentially.

Don't forget that benefits this new feature will bring to your business's email marketing. This new feature basically supplies you with personalized, targeted emails to your most engaged users, without you doing any of the work! If you haven't already, get your business on Pinterest, it is here to stay and only getting bigger.

-Mike & Samantha

Nordstrom Utilizes Pinterest to Increase Sales

Although initially reported last week, more details have emerged on Nordstrom's plan to leverage Pinterest in 13 of their retail locations across the country. Items being displayed, which for now will only consist of  dresses, shoes and handbags, will contain signage reading, "Top Pinned Items" and the Pinterest logo.

Along with these new merchandising displays, Nordstrom will also have iPad stations to showcase what is currently the most popular items on Pinterest. One can only imagine the logistical nightmare of such a huge store trying to tailor their displays to the ever changing whims of social media. To deal with this dilemma, Nordstrom is taking each store's inventory into consideration.  “We wanted to have alignment with what we show in that store and that department with what we have available to sell to the customer,” said Nordstrom spokesperson, Colin Johnson.

Not only will Nordstrom be pushing Pinterest in their brick and mortar locations, but they will also be adding  a "Top Pinned" link in the women's section on their website. With Pinterest accounting for Nordstrom's largest social following at 4.5 million followers as reported by Geekwire.com (2x the number of Facebook fans), it's great to see them giving their customers what they want.

Although the measuring stick for this new program will be Nordstrom's Anniversary Sale, which is scheduled to run from July 19 to August 4, it's clear that Pinterest is one social platform that's here to stay. We've seen companies take inspiration from the highly visual website over the past years through various marketing campaigns, contests and more, but a full translation into retail locations in an effort to draw attention to (and sell) the most 'popular' items is an innovative concept that many are trying to perfect.

We believe that this attempt to bring online behavior into the offline space is a natural next step in any integrated social media marketing strategy. Similar to written testimonials on many retail websites, Nordstrom is essentially adding a level of "social credibility" to their displays in hopes that customers who know and love Pinterest will be more attracted to the highlighted products and therefore, one step closer to purchase.

As the summer continues, we look forward to hearing the results of this marketing experiment and wonder if a simple reference to social media can truly alter a shopper's buying pattern.

Mike & Samantha

Pinterest Too Girly?

According to a recent Pew study of social media users, 25% of woman use Pinterest, while only 5% of men. A common complaint of Pinterest has been that the content is heavily weighted for female interests. Sure if you dig around you can find some manlier topics, but hey, this is social media and everything should be quick and easy. Since the realization that Pinterest is better off left to our female counterparts, a few new manlier versions have surfaced. Dartitup

President of Dartitup, Brandon Harris, was driven to create a manlier pinboard site after failing to get as engaged in Pinterest as his fiancee. This platform seems to be very similar to how Pinterest works, just with manlier topics.

Gentlemint

Started in late 2011, this is another very similar pinboard site, geared for only things manly. From bacon, to power tool, to barbecuing, the manlier the better for Gentlemint. What makes this platform different than others, is its goal to stay safe-for-work. Gentlemint doesn't allow questionable content that may get you in trouble when the boss walks by. We feel this could be a huge selling point for all those guys with hours a day to kill at work.

Dudepins

While very similar to the previous 2 services we mentioned, Dudepins like to think of itself as a place to find "cool stuff". According to co-founder, Kamil Szybalski, people need a place to discover, share and buy manly things. We have always liked a website that can show you something new, and if Dudepins can live up to that claim, it seems like a very promising alternative.

Now these are not the only 3 "manly Pinterests" on the internet, but this is a good place to start. If you are sick of watching your girlfriend pin images of wedding dresses and cupcakes all day, get on one of these sites and start perusing golf clubs and cars to your hearts content.

-Mike

Pinterest Gets an Upgrade

As we have mentioned in a previous post, many major brands are still not leveraging Pinterest to its full marketing potential. This may have gotten a little easier with the recent update to Pinterest, which allows brands to display information in the pin, ranging from recipes to product prices, etc. This service is only available to a few brands that have partnered with Pinterest so far, including eBay, Target, ModCloth, Sony and Netflix. The idea behind this new enhancement is to get more information in front of users, without them having to click through links to the original poster. Traditionally, if a user came across a particularly delicious looking picture, they would have to dig their way through the post to try and find the link to the recipe. Now the brand posting this picture can simply post the recipe along with the picture itself, like below:

This is a win-win for both the brands associated, and Pinterest itself. With more comprehensive pins, brands will be able to gain an edge over traditional pins, gaining more followers. On the Pinterest side, having all this information available directly on the news feed, users will be less likely to navigate away from the feed to try and find the information they want. We think this new option creates a huge opportunity for brands who are willing to take advantage of it. It will be interesting to see what brands decide to partner with Pinterest and jump on this new way to reach their fans.

-Mike