Bank of America created Better Money Habits (BMH), an online resource to help people understand their money. The site is open to anyone, with a focus on those just starting out – millennials. With the help of Promoted Pins, BMH content reached nearly 6 million people in less than 5 months and generated more than 29,000 saves.
Case study summary
• Bank wanted to reach millennials for new Better Money Habits (BMH) programme
• Created boards for different life moments, such as Buying a Home and Travel Plans
• Populated each with relevant Pins that pointed to deeper educational content on their website
• Content reached 6 million unique people in 5 months with engagement double the average Pin
The challenge
Bank of America first created a Pinterest profile at the end of 2014. When they launched the Better Money Habits (BMH) programme, they wanted to reach millennials, a group going through many financial firsts —from getting their first paycheck to planning their weddings to saving for retirement. Since one-third of all millennials are already using Pinterest to plan their futures, the Bank of America BMH team knew it was the right platform to reach their audience.
The solution
Bank of America used Pinterest best practices to make sure the creative on Pins would encourage organic discovery, feel native and drive people to take action. They created boards for different life moments, like Buying a Home and Travel Plans, and populated each with relevant Pins that pointed to deeper educational content on BetterMoneyHabits.com.
“We’ve been successful because we’ve listened to what the community wants to know more about based on what people are searching for and customized our content to meet those needs,” said Christopher Smith, enterprise social media executive at Bank of America.
“Whether you’re planning a wedding and need some budget help or are looking to buy a house—we know we aren’t the center of those decisions, but we can help you plan.”
BMH promotes its Pinterest boards across different social channels. The team also added Save buttons to all of their site content and plans to add Rich Pins soon.
Bank of America used Promoted Pins to reach even more people on Pinterest.
The results
In less than 5 months, BMH content on Pinterest reached nearly 6 million unique people, generated more than 29 thousand saves and led to thousands of actions on BMH.com, including video views. Engagement on Bank of America’s Promoted Pins is about 2X greater than average.
Since the best performing Pins are usually the most helpful, Bank of America focuses on providing more detailed financial education to people on Pinterest.
“There are unique creative opportunities on Pinterest that we don’t have in other channels—for example, we’re encouraged to create longer Pins and longer descriptions, where elsewhere we’re accustomed to copy and imagery constraints,” Smith said.
The team uses Pinterest Analytics and Promoted Pins measurement tools to carefully track what kind of content and topics people have found most useful. They compare these to popular topics on other platforms and take what they’ve learned to refine their Pinterest strategy.
“We are utilizing Pinterest as a visual search engine to reach consumers with the right message at the right time and tailoring our content to what consumers are searching for most often,” Smith said.
