Have an Interest in Pinterest? Here’s One Email Consultant’s Take

Have an Interest in Pinterest? Here’s One Email Consultant’s Take

OK, I am coming clean: I am a Pinterest neophyte. It seems I am slow to get the hang of it, but get the hang of it I must because at least once a week I see an article on marketing with Pinterest. And it is the job of the email consultant to stay not only on top of but ahead of email marketing trends.

With that in mind, I’ve been pondering Pinterest’s place in the email marketing toolbox and doing a little research on what other email consultants might be saying.

An image sharing platform, Pinterest probably works best as another social media type marketing, although with a decidedly visual twist. It is all about the sharing! And the image!

I haven’t yet seen a “Pin It” button in a marketing email in my own inbox yet, but I can see where that would be effective. If I received an email with images of saddles, for example, and I’m shopping for a saddle and there’s one I like, I could “pin it” to one of my boards for my friends (aka followers) to see. My other horse-y friends would see that pin and perhaps like the looks of that saddle enough to click on the photo and check it out for themselves. The saddle company would hit a whole new bunch of prospects because I pinned an image in an email.

Thinking from a B2B perspective, I could also see a company shopping for office furniture using Pinterest to post images for employees to peruse and even vote on. Or a tradeshow could be marketed with images of the venue perhaps?

However, there is a potential conundrum here that I haven’t seen referenced yet in my research: image blocking. That makes your alt text ever more important. If you have an image worthy of sharing—intended to be shared—as part of your email marketing campaign, you’ll need some way to get people to show the images in your email if image blocking is turned on. I’ll be watching for email consultant advice on how to handle that. Stay tuned.

You’ll also need to use really good images, images that are not only of top quality but top appeal as well. Pinterest is all visual. Mediocre images are easily overlooked. Your images will require as much care, planning and testing as your subject lines and content.

I am a visual person, and now that I’m getting the hang of Pinterest as a consumer, I can see where it would be hugely helpful—as well as addictive! If you’re not already integrating Pinterest into your email marketing, I wouldn’t say you’re behind the curve yet. But I would definitely advise you to show an interest in Pinterest!