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The Marketer’s Guide to
FOOD & BEVERAGE
on

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The Landscape: Food and
Beverage Brands on Pinterest
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Your Content Strategy: What Works For Food and
Drink Brands on Pinterest, and What Doesn’t
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Seasons, Holidays, and How to Harness Them
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The Power of Pinterest Promotions
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Establishing, Measuring and Achieving Pinterest-Specific Goals
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What You’ll Learn in this Guide

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The Landscape:
Food and Beverage Brands
on Pinterest
Part 1

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Food and drink on Pinterest is all about Inspiration
and Discovery. From holiday recipes to entire diet
plans, people are turning to Pinterest to discover
what they should eat or drink, and get inspired
by content that tells them how to make it. For
food and beverage brands, participating in and
capitalizing on these conversations on Pinterest
can be hugely valuable.
Many brands are turning to Pinterest as a
powerful E-Commerce engine, but food and
beverage brands that don’t sell directly to
consumers might wonder how best to leverage
the network. The important thing to understand
is that Pinterest is all about action. People browse
Pinterest with the intent of doing something,
whether that is buying, building, mixing or baking.
So even if your brand doesn’t have a strong
E-Commerce component to its business model,
Pinterest can still deliver extraordinary value as a
channel for inspiration, discovery, and relationship
building with your audience.
A recent study revealed that Food and Beverage is
by far the most popular content category on Pinterest.
In fact among women, who make up the majority of
Pinterest’s users, food and drinks account for
20 percent of all Pins.
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Food and Drink is a dominant content category on Pinterest, according to a
study by the University of Minnesota

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Dana From
Social Media Marketing Manager @Sprouts Farmers Market
“We view Pinterest as a tool to educate, empower and
inspire our customers, and use it to engage people with
top of the trend, valuable content about healthy living and
eating. This develops us as a brand and establishes us as
a healthy lifestyle resource, which is especially important
as we’re growing into new regions where they might not
know about our stores. If people already know about us
through our Pinterest content, it can help us get into
those new markets.”

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Piqora’s Audience Profile tools make
it easy to identify your top Pinners,
advocates and influencers
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Pinterest can also be an terrific resource for identifying
and engaging with brand advocates and influencers
in the food and beverage space; The Nutrition Twins,
for example, have an audience of nearly 4,000,000
people. Taking time to engage with your top advocates
can foster powerful and valuable relationships, and
Piqora’s platform can help you with this.
With all the opportunity available to food and
beverage brands on Pinterest, it’s essential to
approach the platform with specific goals, and a
strategy to achieve them. Simply Pinning for the
sake of having a presence on Pinterest is a surefire
way to leave you disappointed with the results.
For food and beverage brands to succeed on
Pinterest, you need to identify what you want
to achieve from the network, and structure your
strategy to achieve those goals.

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“From the very start, you have to get in and
wiggle around and test things, to learn how
Pinterest impacts your business and what
the ROI is, whatever that might be. When we
first started on Pinterest, we really came at
it from a customer first standpoint. If I was a
customer, what would I want to learn, and
how can we service that need?”
Dana From
Social Media Marketing Manager @Sprouts Farmers Market

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Your Content Strategy:
What Works For Food and
Drink Brands on Pinterest,
and What Doesn’t
Part 2

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Pinterest is a visual content network, so your creative is absolutely
essential to success. The good news is that food and beverage brands
have the inherent advantage of being in a richly active content category.
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Recipes are extremely popular on Pinterest. McCormick Spices does a
great job of offering a broad selection of recipe ideas to serve a variety
of tastes, and they incorporate suggestions on how to integrate their
products into Pinner’s projects

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“Lots of people use Pinterest as a
dedicated recipe or food search
engine. For food and beverage
brands, Pinterest enhances your
content’s visibility as people are
naturally looking on that platform
for those types of content.”
Ashley Chrisostomo
Sr. Customer Success Manager @ Piqora

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Pinners are total foodies, as evidenced by the fact that 57% of
Pinterest users have interacted with food related content. While this
makes it critical for food and beverage brands to regularly update their
boards with new photos that will appeal to audiences on the platform,
it’s important to be strategic and mindful about what types of creative
will work for you, both from a branding and Pinterest perspective.
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VEEV spirits has taken a diverse approach to their Pinterest content;
in addition to product-focused pins they feature recipes, DIY ideas,
quotes, travel pictures and more. This has been successful as fans
are very engaged with their brand, and turn to VEEV for inspiration
across several categories

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“We have a very specific look and feel to our content. Sprouts has a nutritionist and a designer
who work together to create images and infographics to help establish us as a destination that
people go to for healthy living advice. We’re always thinking about how to create a cyclical
customer experience with our content, so there’s not a gap where customers stop learning or
having information provided to them. Each of our Pins goes back to our site, where we display
additional relevant content. So by coming back to us, they learn more.” ­—Dana From
For food and beverage brands, recipes and DIY
guides are fertile ground for Pinterest content. They
allow you to showcase your products in a beautiful,
natural, and inspiring way that makes it easy for
consumers to imagine how they would incorporate
them into their lives.
And when it comes to food and beverage Pinterest
creatives, you do not have to be strictly product
focused. In fact, it sometimes pays not to be.

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“You want to focus on inserting your brand
into conversations that people naturally
want to be involved with. You can’t force it,
because people don’t want to be pitched to
or advertised to on Pinterest. They want to be
inspired. So be careful of over-branding.”
Jason Jay Sharma
Head of Customer Success @Piqora

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Many of San Pellegrino’s
Pins feature their products
as supporting characters
in “lifestyle” type shots,
which are very successful in
generating engagement
San Pellegrino is a great example of a brand that recognizes the distinct nature of
successful Pinterest content. The San Pellegrino bottle is iconic, and they feature
it in “hero” shots prominently on Instagram where such types of images are very
successful. However, standalone product images aren’t necessarily as effective
on Pinterest. It’s not that those photos aren’t gorgeous, because they are. But on
Pinterest, audiences respond better to context, especially where food is concerned.

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Food and
Beverage Content
• Generally, showing your products “in
the wild” as part of a dinner setting,
recipe, etc. is more effective than
“hero” shots
• Our research shows that on Pinterest,
it’s best to show food and beverage
products without people in the
picture
• For inspiration on photo creative,
keep an eye on what other popular
Pinners in your category are doing
and take that into consideration for
your own content. Pay attention to
lighting, angles, stages and setting;
if it’s working for them, it’ll probably
work for you
• Tailor your image descriptions
and primary keywords to match
Pinterest’s own categories
• The most repinnable descriptions are
about 200 characters long
You want to showcase your products in a way
that inspires emotion and action. Pinners might
appreciate a beautiful photo of your product on its
own, but showing it next to delicious food makes
them hungry for it, and inspires them to incorporate
it into their purchasing decisions.
After someone looks at the Pin itself, the second
thing will they look at will usually be the description.
Having a detailed, well written description of your
products will make it easy for people to Pin from
your site, and will have a huge payoff when they
do. This is because your description will form not
only the Pin’s description on Pinterest, but also that
image’s keywords for search results!
You might have only a few seconds to attract a
Pinner’s attention. By simply adding a phrase, you
can immediately give the context for which your
content is intended. By adding a more robust
description for all Pins, to include brand information,
pricing, product descriptors, and any additional
keywords, you enhance your Pin’s discoverability.
Finally, it’s important to remember that more than
90% of Pins originate from a website, not from
a Pinterest profile. This makes optimizing your
website for pinning very important, so check out our
Marketer’s Guide to Pinterest Website Optimization,
which is packed with simple steps to drive huge
increases in referral traffic.

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Seasons, Holidays, and
How to Harness Them
Part 3

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Food is intrinsically tied to seasons, and this creates
great “low hanging fruit” for food and beverage
brands on Pinterest. Seasons provide a built-in
context for food and beverage conversations and
searches, and whenever possible brands should
react to and capitalize on these trends and join the
conversation. Libby’s Fruits & Vegetables does a
great job of this, and they have boards for every
season packed with recipes and seasonal guides.
Of course, holidays are also closely tied with food.
From Thanksgiving Turkey to Shamrock Shakes,
nearly every single holiday has recipes, drink ideas,
and DIY party planning guides associated with them
on Pinterest. This provides a perfect opportunity
to boost your Pinterest presence by providing
quality content that people are already organically
searching for.
Seasonal changes
give food and
beverage brands
a huge opportunity
to provide their
audiences with
valuable content

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“Holidays are key, because so many people are
cooking at home with their families. We want to
make home cooking approachable and healthy for
people, and we know that holidays offer a chance
for really valuable engagement, because people are
actively looking for this kind of content as holiday
meals and parties are at the top of their mind.”
Dana From
Dana From, Social Media Marketing Manager @Sprouts Farmers Market

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• Consider thinking beyond recipes for holidays. Share
your favorite decorating ideas, party themes, and
holiday arts and crafts; all are extremely popular
verticals on Pinterest
• Adapt your Pinning strategy to match seasonal
trends; if you are food brand, Pin recipes that include
in-season produce, or if you are a beverage brand, Pin
margarita recipes in summer, cider recipes in fall, etc.
Seasons and Holidays
All of the buzz, creativity and energy flowing around
food and drink on holidays makes them the perfect time
to launch a Pinterest promotion. Which brings us to…

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The Power of
Pinterest Promotions
Part 4

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Promotions are a great way to drive
engagement on your Pins, traffic to
your Pinterest profile or website, gain
followers, identify brand advocates
and influencers, and more. For food
and beverage brands, seasonal
promotions can be especially
powerful, so be sure to check out
our Guide to Halloween Promotions
for some inspiration.
Regardless of your objectives, the
key to success lies in designing your
promotion from the ground-up to
achieve specific goals. Here are three
key areas to focus on, but Piqora has
more information available to help you
run great promotions on Pinterest!
Saputo Cheese’s “Holiday Cheese Board Giveaway” is a great example
of holiday promotion creative; they show the prize in an enticing manner,
explain the rules clearly, and make it easy to enter the contest

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Gain Followers
A “Follow” promotion is the simplest format, with a
low barrier to entry that is appealing to participants.
A “Follow + Pin from Board” option takes it one step
further, and can generate even more Follows as a result
of the impressions gained from shared Pin content. We
recommend the latter option, but only if your brand’s
Pinterest page is full of fresh and appealing content!
Drive Engagement to Your Pinterest Page
“Pin With Inspiration from a Board” campaigns drive
the most traffic to your brand’s Pinterest page. As more
Pins are being shared as a result of the campaign, more
impressions lead back to your Pinterest page.
“Create-a-Board” promotions carry a higher barrier
to entry, but result in more board pages that Google
can index, driving more traffic to those board pages
with your Pins – and consequently more traffic to your
website. With enough incentive for your participants, it
can be the largest engagement generating option.
Drive Traffic to Your Website
“Pin With Inspiration from Website” promotions are
ideal for driving traffic to your website.
Gaining Customer Emails
Fortunately, every promotion Piqora supports
collects Email address for users who opt-in to receive
marketing materials!
1. Identify Your Primary Goals & KPI’s
It’s tempting want achieve a everything at once from
your promotions, but keeping it simple and focused
always produces the best results. By identifying and
prioritizing the goals that are the most important for
your brand, you can choose the promotion format
that is best suited to achieve them.
For their “Sweet’s the Word” promotion, The Cheesecake Factory followed
several best practices when they chose an easy to enter, fun format, and
offered a valuable prize. The results? More than 20,000 participants and
thousands of Pins to their profile.

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Target an Audience That is Active on Pinterest
Ask yourself, who is your audience, and what are they
pinning on Pinterest? If you can align your Promotion
with native food and beverage pinning behavior, you
won’t have to convince your audience to do something
they wouldn’t already do.
Give Them Great Content to Interact With
If you are asking users to repin from your boards or
your website, ensure that your content is up-to-date,
inspirational, and comprehensive. Try filling your boards
with great recipes for the season, or the latest trends in
mixology. The more content you offer participants, the
less they will look somewhere else for content to Pin.
Offer Them an Incentive Worthy of the Barriers to Entry
On Pinterest, a bigger prize generally equals more
participation. Our research shows that prizes valued at
between $1000-$5000 generate 3x more participation
than prizes valued at $500-$1000, and 5x more than
prizes worth less than $500.
Of course, not every brand can afford thousands of dollars
worth of prizes, but that doesn’t mean you can’t achieve
great results. It’s equally important to pick a prize that will
resonate with your target audience.
If you want more information on the effects of prizes on
Pinterest promotions, we recently published an article on
the subject!
2. Consider Your Audience
A great rule of thumb is to always try and create
a promotion that you would be tempted to enter.
What would that require?
A valuable prize isn’t necessarily expensive. McCormick Spices’
“Fish Friday Pin-Spiration Sweepstakes” generated thousands of
participants with weekly prizes valued at approximately $50.

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3. Launch Early, Promote Often
The huge amount of traffic in the food and
beverage category can be a great audience booster.
Promotions are great for capturing some of this
traffic, and are powerful tools for migrating your
audience over from other platforms like Facebook
or Instagram. So before your promotion officially
starts, let your followers on those platforms know
about it by posting links to your contest landing
page on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, as well
as a photo of the creative on Pinterest. Promotions
are terrific for capitalizing on people’s holiday meal
preparations and planning, so consider launching
well in advance of your chosen holiday to maximize
exposure and participation.
You should consider reminding your audience a
few times during the contest to boost participation;
sharing the best entry of the day or week is a great
way to reward participants and keep the contest
buzz going strong.
Food and Beverage
Promotions
• Preparation is a huge part of Pinterest
behavior, so launch your promotions
early enough to capitalize on your
fans’ holiday planning
• Prize is important, but it’s just as
important to offer a reward that your
audience will find both valuable and
relevant
• It’s effective to offer a grand prize
and several other prizes for runners
up, as the more opportunities people
have to win, the more times they will
participate

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Establishing and Measuring
Pinterest-Specific Goals
Part 5

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Since many food and beverage
brands don’t have a direct to
consumer E-Commerce component,
direct ROI measurement can be
difficult. However, Pinterest can still
be a powerful tool for these brands.
Marketers who understand this will focus
on creating and sharing content that
helps foster intent and makes it easier
for their fans to take action. And for many
food and beverage brands, a great way
to measure intent is to look at repins.
Piqora’s platform helps you measure engagement on
your content and make specific, actionable decisions
on your Pinterest content

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“If you’re a food brand, adult beverage brand, or brick
and mortar grocery store, for example, odds are you
won’t be using Pinterest as a direct sales tool. So your
primary metric for success should be engagement. If,
for example, you include your products in the recipes
that you Pin, and a lot of people are repinning those
recipes, they will have your products in mind when
they go out to buy the ingredients. Pinterest is a
network built on intent, so if people are engaging with
your content, odds are they have strong intent to act
on that, whether that means trying a new recipe or
checking out a new restaurant.”
Jon Shea
Director of Operations @Piqora

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“Repins are the primary metric
that we look at. If people are
repinning our content, that tells
us that content is valuable to
them, that a lot of people are
interested in it, and they were
inspired to share it.”
Measuring Success
on Pinterest
• Engagement is an indicator of intent
on Pinterest, so tracking the content
that people are interacting with most
and iterating off of those learnings is
a fast track to success
• Piqora’s analytics platform can help
you interpret how well your content
is performing, both individually
compared to the other brands in
your “food chain” on Pinterest.
With Piqora, you can identify
industry-wide trends and compare
your performance to that of your
competition to learn from them
Dana From
Social Media Marketing Manager @Sprouts Farmers Market

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Food and beverage brands have a huge opportunity
available to them on Pinterest. Every day, millions
of people turn to Pinterest to discover new recipes,
restaurants, drinks, and more, and for brands that can
tap into these conversations and provide their customers
with real, valuable content, Pinterest can be a game
changer. The data and techniques discussed here are
just a small portion of the resources available from
Piqora. We’ve helped many food and beverage
brands achieve tremendous success on Pinterest,
so if you’re interested go to www.piqora.com
and request a demo, we’d love to help you!
Wrap-up