To Pin or Not To Pin: Pinterest Marketing for Grocery Retailers

The AWG social media team recently stopped offering Pinterest profile management as part of our services to AWG retailers. We came to this decision based on the fact that it makes more sense for the store to manage these pages on their own. In addition, many stores don’t necessarily need Pinterest as part of their digital marketing strategy.

Not familiar with Pinterest or how to manage a Pinterest profile for a business or brand? Cara wrote a great blog post about it a few years ago. While Cara provides tips for what to do once you set up a Pinterest profile, it’s also just as important to determine if it’s a good marketing strategy for your store to set up a Pinterest profile in the first place.

A few questions to ask before you set up a Pinterest profile for your store:

Does your store provide enough content on the store website for you to regularly update your Pinterest boards?

If you have a recipe section on your website that you regularly update, this is a great source of content for Pinterest. Recipe pins get a higher click through rate than other pins. When looking for a recipe online, many people turn to Pinterest before any other platform or search engine.

If your store website has a regularly-updated blog, you can link back to individual posts on Pinterest. You could have one pin for each post you publish.

Would you like your store to be a thought leader in areas related to food and grocery?

As Cara pointed out, you can pin content from other profiles on Pinterest so you don’t have to constantly update your boards with original content. However, this requires regularly searching Pinterest for new, interesting content to keep your profile fresh and relevant to your followers.

What you should not do with your store’s Pinterest profile is use it as a place to post about your weekly ad and sale items. Customers who are looking for that information will like your Facebook page or follow you on Twitter. The purpose of a Pinterest page is to inspire. So if your goal is to promote your inspiring content or cultivate and share others content, then Pinterest is the right marketing strategy for you!