Bourbon & Boots pins down Southern lifestyle

Little Rock, Ark. – By focusing on its brand story and collaborative boards, Southern lifestyle retailer Bourbon & Boots has dramatically increased cross-channel traffic through its presence on the Pinterest social network.



Founder Matt Price described how Bourbon & Boots has maximized the value of its Pinterest activities during a session at last week’s Internet Retailer conference in Chicago.



Bourbon & Boots, which has been in business for about a year, specializes in selling small batches of products from Southern artisans and releases three items a day and five pieces of original content every week. Doing prelaunch research in December 2011, Price said Bourbon & Boots discovered a large portion of its target customer base was active on Pinterest. The retailer has thus pursued an active Pinterest strategy since its official launch in February 2012.



“Our most successful tactic was to build collaborative boards and join other collaborative boards,” said Price. ‘What is the South?’ is the unifying theme.”



Price said Bourbon & Boots’ first major successful pin was a photo of a decorative Mason jar lighting in March 2012, which was pinned 15,000 times and gained the retailer 3,000 followers. In July, the retailer experienced the full potential of Pinterest-based marketing when a pin of a limited edition Johnny Cash necklace resulted in 500,000 pins.



“It changed our business because it became so viral on Pinterest,” said Price. “We had a 2,000% traffic increase across all channels.”



Bourbon & Boots has the photos it pins lead to category pages rather than category pages. Price said Pinterest is essentially the virtual equivalent of scrapbooking and that Bourbon & Boots’ designers also use the retailer’s Pinterest boards to promote themselves and their products.