This is a guest post from Mitt Ray of socialmarketingwriting.com.
Do you want to get the most out of your Instagram presence? Would you like to learn how to get more sales with Instagram?
If your business follows through on a well-planned Instagram strategy, you should be able to generate plenty of sales, as the average Instagram user spends $65 per order, giving it the 2nd highest average order value among social networks.
So, today I am going to show you exactly how to get more sales with Instagram…
Optimize Your Marketing For Mobile
Since the vast majority of time Instagrammers spend on the platform is on mobile, if you want to get more sales from Instagram, you need to first make sure all your online properties are optimized for mobile devices. This includes your website, landing pages, emails, etc. Optimizing all media for mobile is especially important for companies that use a well-planned marketing funnel, since the success of the funnel depends upon the visitor taking multiple steps on the site.
People who enter your funnel from Instagram through a mobile device will most likely access the rest of your content through a mobile device as well. Make it a delightful mobile experience all the way through the process and increase your chances of making a sale!
Optimize all your marketing content for mobile – before you start working on generating any sales from Instagram.
Post GREAT PHOTOS of your Products and Share Useful Product-Related Content
It sounds obvious, but to generate sales of your products, you’ll need to share lots of product photos as well as photos promoting compelling blog content to encourage people to visit your website.
Not just any old photo will do! Spend time getting the lighting just right (oftentimes outdoor lighting is the best). Try a mix of photos of your product on a plain background, stylish flay lays (like this one from @birdsparty), and lifestyle photos of your product and watch which performs best.
To promote your website content and get people into your marketing funnel, you can take some Instagram-optimized background photos, upload them onto an editor, and add in overlay text and icons that promote the funnel. Blog posts and webinars can be promoted with this technique. You might also try NOT using any overlay text, but instead arousing curiosity with the image and clarifying with the caption.
Make sure to accompany the photo with a fun and informative caption, including:
- What the product is
The benefits it provides- A call to action on how to get one for themselves – If you are placing a link to it in your Instagram bio, a simple “(link in bio)” will help them find it
- Hashtags. Relevant hashtags can help people find you and increase engagement. Try Tailwind’s hashtag finder to uncover relevant, useful hashtags for your post.
To make sure that you get the most out of this post, respond to comments on it as soon as you can.. Keep an eye on it for the first 24 to 48 hours at least.
One company that regularly uses Instagram to promote its products is Ben & Jerry’s.
This fun shot introduces their followers to their new non-dairy ice cream. The photo shows the product in action and all the flavors available. Notice the fun and engaging description. Using a question is often a good way to get a conversation started!
They also regularly share recipe videos where their ice creams are an essential ingredient. Can you think of similar ways in which you might promote your products directly and indirectly?
Team up with Influencers
If you want to promote your products to a larger and fresher audience, you should try out Instagram influencer marketing. It has the potential not just help you generate more sales, but if you get the influencer to tag your Instagram account in the post description, you’ll see your follower count grow as well!.
The ROI can also be high. Unwheels, for example, generated $1 million from just three months of influencer marketing. Their investment? A very affordable $61,200!
Be careful when vetting influencers you choose to engage, being on the alert for accounts with fake followers and low engagement levels. Partnering with them will do nothing to increase your sales or improve your marketing.
Here are a few tips to help you find the right influencers…
- Choose influencers relevant to your niche: The influencer you choose should already be sharing content relevant to the products you want to promote. Relevancy ensures that your promotion reaches the right followers.
- Look for stats beyond followers:. While researching influencers, look at engagement levels. Check for both likes and comments on their posts.
If the photos they post are getting less engagement than you expect (see this chart of average engagement rate by follower count), it may indicate a large number of fake followers. Stay clear of these people.
- Ask for references: Ask these influencers for references and results of campaigns they have worked on in the past. If possible, contact these clients and find out if they were pleased with the experience and the results.
- Work with an agency: There are marketing agencies that specialize in working with influencers. Usually they will have a portfolio of influencers they work with regularly and case studies that show results. If you have a high budget, you can work with them. They will save you a lot of time.
Once you have chosen the influencer(s), you can work with them and create an Instagram-optimized photo.
Don’t rush when creating the caption to accompany the photo. Include hashtags as they increase engagement – and don’t forget to tag your Instagram account so that the influencer’s followers can find and follow you easily. Make sure that they schedule the Instagram post at the most engaging time (Tailwind’s Smartschedule will tell you the best times) and if possible, get them to include the link to the product in their bio for a few hours when the post goes live. Don’t forget to add “Link in bio” to help people find the link quickly.
One company that knows how to find the right influencers for their Instagram sponsored posts is Pedigree. When they ran the ‘Buy a Bag, Give a Bowl’ campaign, they only worked with pet owners and got them to share stories about their pets.
The results of this campaign were stellar. It generated more than 62,800 content views and 43 million impressions.
Run Contests Promoting your Products
Contests are usually used to drive up engagement and get followers (70% faster). But you can use contests to drive more sales by making the products an integral part of the contest.
One way to do this is by giving away your products as the prize. While you promote the contest, you will also be promoting the prizes (your product) – building demand for them!
You can also offer people a chance to win when they post a selfie that includes the product or like or tag a friend on the p post If you are running a contest for the first time, try ‘Like to Win’ contests. These only require entrants to like a product photo you post on Instagram. It might look too simple, but all those likes constitute engagement which will increase impressions and (hopefully) sales. They require very little effort on your part and when the prize is relatively small, can be affordable enough to offer on a regular basis.
Drinkwel knows how to make use of Like to Win contests such as the above one. To take part in this contest all people had to do was like the photo and follow them. They featured a product in the photo, which means increased awareness and hopefully, sales.
Track Sales with the Right Analytics Tools
If you want to get the most out of the above techniques and brainstorm new techniques that are more likely to work, you need to regularly track analytics and make changes based upon your findings.
For tracking Instagram analytics I like to use a combination of two tools, Tailwind and Cyfe.
Tailwind helps me track my Instagram account’s activity. Using their Post Inspector I can analyse individual posts to see which posts are getting the highest engagement. It can also help me find trending posts and the Smartqueue automatically suggests my peak times to post.
Cyfe helps with the web analytics. Their social media dashboard lets me view metrics from my Instagram account along with data from other networks and analytics tools on one screen.
I can also use their mashups feature and compare data from Instagram against data from other software like Google Analytics, Shopify, Unbounce, Stripe, Paypal, etc. to check if my Instagram activity is resulting in traffic and sales.
In Conclusion
These are countless ways to get more sales with Instagram, and all of them can be implemented by anyone.
- Begin by optimizing your marketing media for mobile.
- Promote your content through product photos, helpful and motivating descriptions, influencer marketing, and contests.
- Don’t forget to measure the effectiveness of your marketing methods by using analytics tools.
How do you get more sales with Instagram? Which techniques work best for you? Please leave your comments below.
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