Pinterest.com could be the next big marketing tool for financial advisors who are willing to think outside the box, says Geoff Evans, founder of Social Media Coach in London, Ont.
Pinterest, which was launched in March 2010 and is operated by Palo Alto, Calif.-based Cold Brew Labs Inc., is a social media website that allows users to collect and post images in a way that mimics the use of traditional bulletin boards.
“On the surface,” Evans says, “this website may not seem like a tool that could grow a financial advisor’s practice. But the real opportunities exist outside of the traditional marketing strategies.”
The Pinterest site is built around the premise of sharing photos. The format enables users to save images and organize them on different virtual bulletin boards. Users also can “follow” the boards of other users who share similar interests or hobbies.
In addition, Cold Brew Labs recently launched a platform for business users, which can display a company name (instead of a person’s name) as the header.
Popular categories include travel, cars, film, home design, sports, fashion and art. By clicking on an image, users are then automatically sent to that photo’s originating website, where they can read articles, recipes or hobby instructions, for example. In the case of a financial advisor, the user would be directed to a professional website or blog.
“This social site is a great way to explain any concept visually,” Evans says. “If an advisor writes a blog about term life insurance or dollar-cost averaging, and the article has a photo with it, then [the advisor] will be able to ‘pin’ the visual and drive clients back to the blog.”
Many websites and blogs have “Pin It” buttons integrated into their platforms. Any news item or financial link on a site equipped with such a tool that has a visual element can be “pinned” to an advisor’s Pinterest profile. Individuals also can download the “Pin It” button to the bookmark bar on a web browser, creating another way to save visuals to the user’s Pinterest page.
“This is really about advi-sors setting up their own narrative and what they want to share with clients,” says Blane Warrene, senior vice president, customer communications, with North Carolina-based RegEd Inc. “Social media allows you to be the educator. And if you set it up right, then your clients will respond to that. They are looking to you as the expert, and Pinterest allows you to show them that you are not asleep at the wheel in between quarterly meetings.”
Many advisors use social networking sites as marketing tools to drive new business. However, Evans says, many opportunities with social media can be overlooked, such as helping your clients identify their own goals and expectations.
“Clients have to know what their personal dream is before they can really start to think about saving for that goal,” Evans says. “Pinterest can help clients visualize and begin to commit to an altered future state.”
For example, you could set up a “retirement vision board” that would include images such as a lakeside cottage, a European adventure, touring the country on a motorcycle, retirees spending time with grandchildren. Clients then can click through the images and tell you which images most resonate with them. If the client is a Pinterest user, he or she can be invited to view the images prior to your meeting, and even set up his or her own retirement board.
“This is really about providing an enhancement to the client meeting,” Evans says. “Clients will be able to identify with the specific images they think best suit their retirement needs. It is an effective way to get clients to commit to the goal emotionally before determining what dollar amount is needed for that activity.”
So far, Pinterest has grown in popularity mainly among women; about two-thirds of Pinterest users in North America are female. In addition, according to data compiled by Virginia-based Modea Corp., the average net worth of Pinterest users is reported to be approximately US$100,000, with many users using the site to plan their weddings, decorate their homes or organize favourite recipes.
“There is a very real trending of people with capital logging onto Pinterest,” Warrene says. “And now a lot of advisors have very quickly started observing, watching and following this site.”
According to a study conducted by Britain-based Experian Marketing Services, 29 million users had set up Pinterest accounts by July 2012, up from 1.27 million a year earlier. The study also found that Pinterest was the third-most visited social-networking site in July, after social media giants Facebook and Twitter. IE