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Pinterest: The email marketer’s new opportunity

August 20, 2012 | Online Marketing

Pinterest intersects email marketing in three ways: emails that use Pinterest-generated content, emails prompting recipients to follow a brand on Pinterest, and emails that have content appealing enough that recipients end up "pinning" the content.

How do you know whether your content is pin-worthy? First, do your research: Find companies that are already posting, and see what type of content is getting pinned the most. Generally, content that is extremely visual, new, aspirational, or instructional does well. Pinterest is a place for eye candy and wish lists.

When placing images in an email to share, choose those that are simple and clear. A photograph of a pair of shoes is much more likely to be shared than a photograph of five pairs of shoes.
Remember that your customers subscribed to your emails for a reason. Is there something directly or indirectly related to your relationship with them that you can highlight?

Placement in the email

- Placement of follow icon. Icons with similar functionality should be grouped together for usability—"Follow us on...," followed by icons for Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.—and they should all be customized to fit your brand but still be immediately recognizable as social follow icons.

- Placement of sharing (pinning) content. Make it obvious what is being shared, and for usability, use Pinterest's standard "pin it" button. Place the "Pin it" button either over the image you'd like to share, or grouped with other sharing icons.

- Overall formatting. Pinterest's unique formatting is making its way into email. Email marketers are experimenting with grid-based blocks of images, which, deliberately or not, mirror Pinterest.com. When creating a dedicated send with Pinterest content in it, try using similar formatting to tie it all together.

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