Pinterest for Home Depot
As of one week ago, I had never used Pinterest before. While I won’t claim that today I have become an expert of creating boards and understand the full power and impact of Pinterest, I do believe that I now understand the general value and use case for Pinterest. As a social media platform, it is incredibly easy to get up and running on Pinterest as I learned throughout my week of exploring the product and features. Additionally, it is easy to get lost in the beautiful pictures and click from one pin or board to the next seamlessly with a high degree of infotainment.
As an aspirational network, you very quickly get the sense of “I can do anything once I put my mind to it.” In my opinion, this is exactly the type of attitude that Home Depot wants in a potential customer. From Home Depot’s perspective, I imagine one of the largest challenges they face is a customer that lacks vision or inspiration for home decoration or improvement.
Walking into a kitchen like the one pictured above can be can be a daunting and scary experience for a homeowner that plans to complete a renovation. As much as Home Depot can alleviate that stress and evoke feelings of potential and inspiration, the better for them.
Pinterest provides Home Depot with an outlet to communicate, collaborate and inspire potential customers to purchase smaller ticket items as well as undergo big ticket renovations. Home Depot can develop a strategy around the features and collaboration on Pinterest that can help it accomplish its goals. An example can be seen below:
Goal: Generate more interest in major renovation projects that drive high margin purchases from customers.
Audience: Gaining access to 100 million monthly active users (skewing female) provides Home Depot with a collaborative audience that is trying to get inspired and likely skews more towards higher likelihood for action (purchases) in the near future.
Content/Engagement: Building pins and boards for different types of high margin renovations would allow Home Depot to showcase what can be done in an aspirational fashion for potential customers. This could be accomplished by creating renovation boards from top renovators, designers, and influencers as well as creating contests that challenge people to create the best boards and receive products or services at a discount. Home Depot will receive added multiplying benefits from one potential customer inspiring multiple additional customers. Having features that are already built into the product like “Buy now,” reserve in store, or pick-up or delivery of specific products would make the purchasing decision more seamless. For influencers and professionals, this provides an opportunity to support Home Depot and receive the added benefits that Home Depot gives them through a referrals program.
Home Depot is often an overwhelming store to walk into as an uninspired customer. It is hard to envision how your final renovation will turn out and thus decreases the likelihood of someone making large purchases there. Pinterest can help Home Depot become more aspirational and get the inspirational juices flowing for potential customers.
