Hamilton Jewelers is building buzz around Valentine’s Day sales with a new campaign that ties together Pinterest with a mobile catalog application.

The jewelry retailer is leveraging its presence within the Catalog Spree app to help scale the campaign. The sweepstakes runs through Feb. 14.

“Hamilton is an original tenant in the virtual mall of Catalog Spree, and we have enjoyed strong success with the platform,” said Donna Bouchard, vice president of Hamilton Jewelers, Princeton, NJ.

“In analyzing our Web site traffic for 2013, we noticed a significant increase in our users converting to mobile devices versus desktops,” she said.

“We therefore feel it is critical to offer a promotional initiative to this audience.  In particular, Valentine’s Day is traditionally a male-giving-to-female gift occasion, so we hope that ladies will find something they love and hint to their significant other.”

How it works?
To participate in the sweepstakes, consumers first have to follow Catalog Spree’s and Hamilton’s Pinterest accounts.

Then, they must create a board on Pinterest titled “Catalog Spree and Hamilton Jewelers Pin to Win Contest.”

The contest then links back to Catalog Spree’s mobile app and Web site, where consumers must pin five different items from the catalog to the board. One of these items has to come from Hamilton’s own Catalog Spree board.

Once five items have been collected, consumers can paste the board’s link into the comment section of the sweepstake’s pin.

Hamilton Jewelers will award a $250 gift card to a lucky winner.

The Valentine’s Day sweepstakes fits into a bigger mobile strategy from Hamilton Jewelers for 2014.

The jewelry retailer reports that mobile represents 20 percent of traffic, and the company is currently redesigning its mobile site.

“This particular contest is of interest because it appeals to two aspects of online strategy for 2014,” Ms. Bouchard said.

“Firstly, we like the lifestyle approach of showing our jewelry with outfits, and, of course, Pinterest is the perfect venue for this,” she said.

“Secondly, we believe this appeals to a strong female audience, and this is another emerging market for us in terms of self-purchasers of fine jewelry.”

Another screenshot of the digital catalog

Social integration
As more consumers rely on their smartphones and tablets to access Pinterest, these types of campaigns give retailers a chance to boost their content strategies.

While the end goal is obviously to increase sales, these kinds of contests can also be effective for retailers to build up relevant or entertaining content for consumers.

In addition to Hamilton Jewelers, Fab also boosted its mobile content strategy last year by integrating itself into the app (see story).

“Traditionally, jewelry is a big gift item for Valentine’s Day, so we wanted to address that need with our Valentine’s Day Pinterest contest,” said Joaquin Ruiz, CEO of Catalog Spree, Los Altos, CA.

“Hamilton is a well-established brand that has had a lot of success in engaging customers and prospective customers with digital catalogs on the Catalog Spree platform, so working together for this contest was a natural fit,” he said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York