For a couple of years I have been using pinterest to look
for inspiration for new work. This has worked out perfect for me. To see what
others are creating has enabled me to get my creative juices flowing. But I began
to wonder how I could use this to attract customers to my work. Since everyone that I follow on my Jewelry pinterest page is a fellow artist, I figure that
they wouldn’t necessarily be in the market for my work.
Then it hit me; create a pin page where I could collect
pinners that are my target market. This marks the beginning of my marketing
experiment. For the next few months I plan to figure out a way to turn my pin
posts into paying customers, and I will be bringing you along with me.
Step One – Identify my target Pinner
Through my Jewelry pin page I have had a lot of contributors
from pinners with pages like ‘My Style and Things I like’. As I look through
their pins I notice that there was a wonderful mixture of clothing, shoes, accessories,
AND trendy jewelry. Many of these fashion conscious pinners must be my target
demographic. So I did a search on the keyword ‘style’ and found hundreds of
women who are interested in fashion and jewelry. But what do I do with these
newfound pinners?
Step Two – Make a Pin Board
In order to collect interesting pinners I need a place to
put them. So I created a new board on my Pinterest called ‘Style Board’. After
I did my search on ‘Style’ I began following those pinners whose style was
similar to the jewelry that I create. As I come across their fashion pins that
have both clothing and jewelry, I pin it to this board.
Step Three – Build a Following
After you have begun pinning some fashion pins that fit your
target demographic, go back to the pin in your pin board. After you click on
the picture you’ll notice that there are others who have pinned this same image
to their fashion boards. Have a look at some of these boards and decide which
ones fit your demographic and begin following them. This will give you a bigger
pool of pins to add to your own pin board.
As you pin you’ll notice that others are beginning to follow
your fashion pin board, this is exactly what you want. You want to build a
following to your fashion board.
Now What
That’s a good question. You’ve added a lot of pins to your
new board. You’ve begun to receive followers to your fashion board. What can
you do with this? Every so often pin one of your pieces from your ETSY Shop (or
wherever you sell your work) to your Fashion Board. This will then end up in
the feed of everyone who follows your fashion pin board.
The idea is to get your work out to a buying audience. That’s
the experiment. I really am not sure if anyone is doing this or not, but I’m
going to give it a try. As the weeks and months progress we’ll see if I sell a
piece (if any) to one of my Fashion Board pinners.
Stay Tuned.
