Monthly Archives: September 2022

Back in 2021, Pinterest introduced a new feature called Idea Pins. Pinterest’s Idea Pins consist of videos or photos grouped together in a format similar to Instagram Stories. These pins appear in the Watch feed of the Pinterest app, almost like the For Your Page on TikTok. Idea Pins are also displayed in the Create section of a brand’s Pinterest profile.

In a press release, Pinterest said Idea Pins make publishing “high-quality, long-lasting, and savable content” simple for content creators.

“With these updates, we’re highlighting the people behind the content and encouraging Pinners to follow creators and engage with the ideas they find,” the press release said.

As you’ll see with the brands below, Idea Pins can be used to tell a story, promote products, give tutorials, and engage with users. Here’s how these 10 brands are using Idea Pins.

10 Brands Using Pinterest Idea Pins

1. Fenty Beauty

Cosmetics brand Fenty Beauty uses Idea Pins to promote the brand’s products and showcase the brand’s inclusivity. The company does this by showing photos of the products and how they look on different skin tones. Fenty also includes videos on its pins of people of color applying makeup and creating different looks.

Image source

One of the biggest concerns facing the cosmetics industry is a lack of inclusivity. Many people of color with darker complexions often struggle to find makeup that matches or complements their skin tone. By using Idea Pins to show variety and how POC look in Fenty products, the company sets itself apart from other cosmetic companies and presents itself as a solution.

2. Oh Joy

Lifestyle brand and design company Oh Joy is the most followed account on Pinterest with 15.2 million followers. Its founder, Joy Cho, uses Idea Pins as a way to speak directly to the company’s audience and give advice on fashion and home decor. For example, in one pin Cho promotes jewelry from Jared. She speaks directly into the camera and tells her audience how she was able to coordinate the jewelry with her outfit.

Image source

Cho then encourages the audience to click through her pins to see more of her favorite Jared pieces and the outfits she matched them with. In other Idea Pins, Cho gives her audience a tour of her home and explains the thought process behind her decor. This is a great way to build audience engagement and to form a bond with viewers.

Image source

3. Food My Muse

Food My Muse is a foodie account that posts recipes and restaurant reviews. The account is run by former restaurant owner Nadia Aidi. While Aidi posts a variety of food-related content, she uses Idea Pins specifically to post videos with step-by-step instructions for different recipes.

Image source

She also includes the full recipe in the description of each pin. This kind of content is great for visual learners and it shows off her expertise as a chef — establishing her credibility as an expert foodie.

4. Mejuri Jewelry

Mejuri Jewelry uses Idea Pins to post photos of its jewelry pieces and categorize its content by theme. In a way, Mejuri uses Idea Pins to create different lookbooks. In one Idea Pin, for instance, Mejuri creates a lookbook showing Pinterest users the different ways they can stack bracelets. Another lookbook consists of Fall 2021 trends, and another Idea Pin uses photos to show how gold and silver jewelry can be styled together.

This method of using pins shows the jewelry Mejuri offers and gives potential buyers practical information about how to style them for any occasion.

Image source

5. Etsy

For its Idea Pins. Etsy leans heavily into video content that gives a behind-the-scenes look into small businesses on Etsy’s website. One Idea Pin includes a sequence of clips showing how one Etsy seller named Tori Lynn paints and glazes a ceramic mug. Another pin is a time-lapse video of another seller named Veruschka converting parts of their home into a workspace where they handmake and ship out their products.

Image source

This type of content doesn’t just promote the products found on Etsy, it also highlights the many businesses and artists selling their wares on the site. In doing so, Etsy attracts both potential buyers and business owners looking for a platform.

Image source

6. Vogue Magazine

Vogue Magazine uses Idea Pins to promote its magazine cover stars via candid videos from the photoshoots. The magazine’s latest Idea Pin, for example, features photos and footage of Serena Williams and her daughter, posing for the magazine’s cover and playing on a beach. Other pins feature celebrities like Rihanna showing her baby bump as well as photos from the Met Gala.

Image source

Vogue’s Idea Pins appeal to its audience’s love of celebrities and fashion, and the pins establish Vogue as being at the center of pop culture.

Image source

7. Bustle

Most of Bustle’s Idea Pins consist of repurposed content from other platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. This method is helpful because it gives older content a second life on Pinterest. TikToks of celebrity interviews and short anecdotes from YouTube are frequently uploaded as Idea Pins, showing off Bustle’s variety of pop-culture content.

Image source

8. Free People

Most of Free People’s pins start with a video of a model wearing the fashion retailer’s clothes and demonstrating the different ways the clothing items can be styled. The video is then followed by photos of the products in different colors and in different outfits. This method makes all the Idea Pins similar and uniform, so followers know what to expect.

Similar to Mejuri Jewelry, Free People also organizes its pins by style and creates a digital lookbook that showcases its clothing and accessories.

Image source

9. The Little Bazaar

The Little Bazaar is an online store selling boho-style clothing. Like most fashion accounts on Pinterest, all of The Little Bazaar’s Idea Pins consist of photos of models wearing their clothes. However, some models are also customers who submitted photos and videos of them wearing the products.

This form of user-generated content is great because it shows Pinterest users how the clothes look on real people and it would encourage people to submit their own content as well.

Image source

10. Lulu’s

Almost all of Lulu’s Idea Pins consist of fashion and lifestyle how-to’s, such as “How to Style a Corset Top” and “How To: Macha Gin Fizz.” However, what I enjoy most about Lulu’s Idea Pins is the cover images. Each cover image includes Lulu’s logo as well as large texts giving a quick explanation of what the pin is about.

This use of Idea Pins is aesthetically pleasing, organized, and helps Pinterest users navigate to the kind of content they’re looking for.

Image source

Idea Pins present more opportunities for brands to get their content on Pinterest users’ feeds, expanding brand awareness. However, brands should also see these pins as a chance to create engaging content that tells a story and provides value.

How-to’s, lookbooks, behind-the-scenes footage, and user-generated content are just a few examples of the many ways you can incorporate Idea Pins into your marketing strategy.

Post Content

The more traffic your blog or site receives, the better. But drive-bys aren’t enough to drive user engagement and ultimately boost sales — instead, you need to convince potential customers that it’s worth sticking around. Topical content and its counterpart, evergreen content, can help you achieve this goal.Consider that 38% of people will leave your site if the content or layout is unattractive. In other words, if they don’t find anything of value ASAP, they won’t stay.

Of course, this raises an important question: When it comes to topical content vs. evergreen content, which delivers the best bang for your virtual buck? Which type drives more visitors to stay? Here’s what you need to know about boosting traffic with these common content types.

Topical content focuses on current events or information to deliver targeted and relevant content to visitors. For example, a local roofing company might use the event of a large storm rolling through the city or county as a jumping-off point for a blog post about handling hail or wind damage. This type of topical content is relevant to their target audience in the moment, offers actionable advice, and may help drive conversions.

HubSpot’s recent State of Consumer Trends blog is a good example of topical content. The statistics provided are timely, relevant, and actionable in the near future.

Like the evergreen tree, this type of content is always around and relevant. Unlike the time-based nature of topical content that requires regular updating to stay compelling, evergreen content has a longer-term appeal that lets you post it and (mostly) forget about it.

Common types of evergreen content include how-to articles, tips, or listicles that are broadly applicable. HubSpot’s list of 15 Customer Success Metrics That Actually Matter is a great example of actionable evergreen content.

Topical Content Pros and Cons

Considering using topical content on your site? Here are two pros and two cons to this approach.

Pro #1: Less legwork

Topical content is there for the taking. A quick review of relevant industry websites or digital news outlets can provide inspiration for your next post, meaning your team can cut down the amount of time required to find your next content focus.

Pro #2: Multiple traffic opportunities

Relevant stories can gain traction across multiple points of content. In practice, this means you can drive traffic from social media sites, emails, and web searches simultaneously to your site.

Con #1: It’s Not Just You

Interesting content is interesting to everyone. This means that other sites are also posting their own take on topical content, making it harder to stand out from the crowd.

Con #2: Trust is Built, not Posted

Just because you make a great post and get traffic to your site, it doesn’t mean that visitors automatically become buyers. Instead, it takes time to build up trust, meaning you’ll need more than just topical content to drive conversion.

Evergreen Content Pros and Cons

Thinking of an evergreen effort on your website? Here are some common pros and cons.

Pro #1: Stays Fresher, Longer

Evergreen content naturally stays fresher for longer, in turn driving steady traffic to your site. You can also update rather than replace this content as needed to keep users coming back.

Pro #2: Ideal for Entry-Level Content

How-to’s and listicles that cater to beginners learning a new skill or understanding a topic are great choices for evergreen content, since there’s always someone looking to learn.

Con #1: Brainstorms can Run Dry

The more evergreen content you post, the harder it can be to think of new topics. This creates a situation where your team may spend more time work-shopping posts rather than creating evergreen content.

Con #2: Success is a Slow Process

Where topical content posts can drive big spikes in traffic over short time periods, evergreen content is more slow and steady. While this is great for long-term growth, it won’t help if you’re looking to capitalize on seasonal or event-driven demand.

Ideally, topical and evergreen content work in concert to help boost your website traffic. Not sure what that looks like in practice? Here are six tips to get you started.

1. Use content planning templates for your topical and evergreen content

When it comes to getting the most from topical and evergreen content, planning templates are a great place to start, since they provide a solid foundation for your long-term traffic strategy.

Check out HubSpot’s free Content Marketing Planning Template to get your content creation campaign off the ground.

2. Set a schedule for regular topical refreshes

To keep topical content relevant, schedule regular refreshes. The length of time between refreshes depends on the type of content — for social media posts, any more than a week can start to get stale. For blog posts, two weeks to a month at most.

3. Get the right tools

Before creating your content, make sure you’re on the right SEO track. Tools like Google AdWords and Google Trends can help you find keywords that are on the way up or have sustained search volume to inform your content strategy.

4. Topical content: Don’t hold back

Swing for the fences when it comes to topical content. Given the number of other sites doing the same thing, it’s worth going all-in with content that’s relevant to your target audience. Even if it doesn’t land as intended, it’s ephemeral enough that you can recover quickly.

5. Evergreen content: Think about the long-term

For evergreen content, think about long-term traffic potential. Is the content useful to your current user base? Can it be updated as the market changes to remain relevant?

6. Find a content balance

Finally, find a balance between topical and evergreen. While a totally topical approach can produce quick-win results, it won’t provide sustained success. Evergreen efforts, meanwhile, offer steady progress but aren’t enough to jump-start customer interest or capitalize on market trends.

Directing Traffic: The Double Benefit of Evergreen and Topical Content

Put simply? Both topical and evergreen content offer benefits for your site. Where evergreen efforts can help boost SEO and deliver steady visitor numbers, topical content helps your site get noticed when relevant and timely events have customers looking for answers.

In other words, it’s not about topical vs evergreen content: It’s about finding a way to balance both that gets visitors interested and keeps them coming back.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in April 2010 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

The easier it is for customers to find your webpage, the better your chances of engaging new visitors and driving new conversions.

In practice, however, this means more than having great content — it means taking steps to improve SEO performance so that search engine algorithms will be more likely to return your page as a top result.

You win!

It’s a short, simple phrase, but a powerful one — and it’s the basis for gamification in marketing.

By incorporating game elements into marketing efforts such as brand awareness, reward programs, or new product promotions, businesses can turn basic campaigns into connective efforts that keep customers coming back for more.

The challenge? While it’s easy to find anecdotal evidence of gamification making marketing efforts better, it’s more difficult to track down a gamification guide that helps marketers make this approach work for them. In this piece, we’ll walk you through gamification basics, common strategies, and real-life examples to help your campaign take the lead.

Put simply, it’s the process of turning any process into a game. For marketing teams, it could be turning your inbound marketing into a game in order to achieve a specific outcome. Your audience (customers, leads, fans, followers, readers, whoever) engages in a game that offers the chance to win something, and in return, you get a marketing boost.

It’s sort of like when we host a webinar and say whoever tweets the webinar’s hashtag the most gets a free ticket to our next marketing conference — it taps into people’s competitive spirit and drive to win, and gets our content more exposure on Twitter. Again, a win-win scenario, and one that’s more creative than just asking someone, “Hey, can you tweet this link?”

Some common gamification strategies for marketing teams include:

Website Games

Website games take many forms. They can be simple, “spin the wheel” pages that pop up when customers click through to products or when they arrive on your site, or they might be virtual scratch cards that let buyers earn a discount on their favorite products.

No matter the type, the key to website games working is keeping them simple and relatively unobtrusive. Make it easy for users to play, always let them win something, and let them quickly close out games if they’re not interested.

Loyalty Programs

Loyalty programs are also a great way to gamify the customer experience. By offering customers points, stars, or other currency after they make a purchase and tying these currencies to discounts or special offers, brands can keep their target audience coming back.

Completion Meters

Another way to engage customer interest is through completion meters. This is an especially useful tactic for brands looking to keep customers interested in their mobile applications. By giving users a goal to reach or another level to earn — along with commensurate benefits — companies can drive ongoing engagement.

Virtual Badges

Virtual badges or rewards for specific actions can help keep customers coming back and encourage them to earn the next digital award, especially if it’s tied to a discount or other benefit.

It’s one thing to know the basics — it’s another to implement gamification efforts that directly benefit your business. Here’s a look at 10 real-life examples for your brand to try.

KFC: Mobile gaming

KFC Japan decided the best way to engage users was with a mobile “advergame” called Shrimp Attack. The premise was simple: Users swiped away at virtual shrimp falling from a cartoon sky and encouraged them to try the restaurant’s new line of battered shrimp with reward vouchers.

According to Gamify, the company that created the game, 22% of people who played the game redeemed their vouchers and the company had to adjust campaign timing to account for increased demand.

Under Armour: Trivia

Under Armour engaged with users through its “Steph IQ” quiz application, which asked questions about point guard Steph Curry whenever he sank his first three-pointer of a regular season game. The app was set up elimination-style to test users’ knowledge of Curry while also engaging them with the Under Armour brand.

M&M’s: Digital puzzles

In 2010, popular and delicious candy brand M&M’s launched a chocolate-coated pretzel flavor. While the new treat did well, the company wanted to boost user engagement. The solution? A digital puzzle that tasked users with finding a pretzel image hidden in a field of M&M’s.

The effort worked: M&M’s saw 25,000 new likes for the company and the game was shared over 6,00 times.

Starbucks: Rewards app

Want a coffee? Why not get some rewards to go with it? This is the idea behind the Starbucks Rewards app, which gives customers the ability to earn “stars” for every purchase which can be redeemed for drinks or food.

The star-based solution has seen significant success: According to QSR Magazine, the app-based membership program accounted for 52% of all US store sales in 2021.

Nike: Fitness competition

NikeFuel is a fitness app that pairs with Nike wearable devices and encourages users to share their fitness goals and accomplishments. Not only does this help promote social recognition of the brand but also helps Nike integrate their brand into the everyday lives of users.

Duolingo: Gamified education

Oh, that owl. If you’re familiar with this language-learning app, you know that the company’s owl mascot appears regularly to remind users that they haven’t done their session for the day.

More importantly, however, is the use of minigames to help users learn a new language. With multiple short games that include selecting the right word to complete a sentence, listening to a phrase and then translating it, or speaking into your device’s microphone to see if you have the pronunciation right, Duolingo is doing gamification right.

They’re doing so well, in fact, that research has been published on their methods.

Wordle: Streak counter

If you haven’t heard of Wordle, where have you been? This get-it-in-six tries word guessing app was recently purchased by the New York Times, and while the company hasn’t heavily monetized it yet, there’s certainly potential to head in that direction.

One key element of the game beyond the game itself is the streak counter, which shows users their completion rate over all the puzzles they’ve done. Miss a day, and your counter starts over.

eBay: Emotional investment

While eBay doesn’t get the kind of traction it used to thanks to the rise of sites like Amazon and Etsy, it still generated almost $2.5 billion worth of sales in Q1 2022.

Part of the appeal is the game-like structure of the sales process. Users bid on items they want, and if they’re lucky can score a great deal — if they’re not outbid. EBay allows users to both set a maximum bid and get notifications if they’re outbid, allowing them to continually engage with the purchase process.

The US Army: First-person gaming

To help capture the interest of new recruits, the US Army created its own FPS game called America’s Army: Proving Grounds. This allows gamers to try out small-group tactics that prioritize working together with squad mates and is available on popular app stores such as Steam.

Headspace: Social sharing

Meditation app Headspace encourages users to complete their first medication within three minutes of opening the app. If they do, they receive an achievement they can share with others. All achievements are sharable, allowing Headspace users to continually connect.

Time to Level Up

Gamification in marketing can help your campaigns go from forgettable to fun, both engaging users and driving increased sales.

Best bet? Start simply. Select one approach to gamification and implement it on your website, mobile application, or email campaigns. Then, see how users react and make changes to improve the experience.

With a little time and effort, your brand can level up gamification marketing and create reciprocal interaction with customers that both drives initial conversion and creates sustained interest.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in September 2012 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.