Use Pinterest to create a local shopping plaza

Business owners and savvy marketers have been finding new and creative ways to use Pinterest to promote their business, brand or product line. Using Pinterest has proven to be a great way to paint a picture and plant an idea. Today, I’m sharing about what I’ve labeled as the virtual plaza concept. Ever notice how some businesses are located right next to a business that might support it? For example, an office furniture store might open up next to an office supply store. That way both businesses have a likelihood of drawing customers from each other without competing with each other. So let’s look at how you can do this with your small business by partnering with the businesses around you…

Create a board titled Center Street Shopping Plaza, but use your company’s street name. Pin specialty items from your business and from three to four businesses very near you. Meet with the owners ahead of time and ask them to partner with you. Ask them for sales or discounts you can promote on the board and ask them to promote the board on their Pinterest sites too. Each business partner should also integrate the board onto other marketing channels like your website and Facebook pages.  You may even want to consider making each of them users for this board so that they can update it with new information too. Get creative together… Maybe there is something you can all offer together, like ‘show your receipt from another business featured in our shopping plaza and receive a 10% discount at any partner store.’

Using this creative shopping plaza concept serves like a display stand at the check-out; it helps to plant ideas for consumers. It’s also a time-saver as you’ve shown customers how they can wrap up their shopping in one convenient trip.  Blend this with other marketing tactics shown on our 15 practical uses for Pinterest.