Using Instagram for more product sales goes beyond uploading a great photo or video. A good Instagram caption is just as important as the Instagram video or photo itself!
With over 72% of Instagram users reporting that they have purchased something after seeing it on Instagram, it’s crucial that you know how to motivate your followers to buy your products with Instagram marketing.
And a great Instagram caption can help you do just that!
After all, that customer base of over 500 million daily users is just too big to ignore!
So let’s dive in and talk about how to write Instagram captions that inspire your followers to take action.
Why Good Instagram Captions Drive More Sales
A great Instagram photo or video helps stop your audience from scrolling past, but your Instagram caption has the potential to draw them in even more!
It encourages followers to engage with your Instagram post and moves them closer to a sale with a meaningful call to action.
So while a picture may be worth 1,000 words, an engaging Instagram caption could be worth 1,000 dollars!
How to Write Great Instagram Captions in 7 Steps
Though much of your success depends on motivating Instagram captions, there’s no need to panic even if you aren’t a natural writer.
Creating Instagram captions that have people engaging with your posts and making purchases isn’t difficult if you keep a few handy tips in mind!
These seven steps will help you learn how to write a caption on your Instagram photo that leaves your followers scrambling to find out more!
And guess what? These don’t just apply to Instagram sales – you can use these tips to build engagement, or encourage people to read your latest blog posts!
1. Develop Your Brand Voice in Your Instagram Captions
Think of your brand voice as the personality behind your communication with your audience. Developing your brand voice is key to building a connection with your audience so you can sell your products on Instagram.
Your brand voice might be funny, casual, sarcastic, or even formal. Just remember, consistency is key when it comes to how to write good Instagram captions!
A consistent brand voice will help develop an emotional connection with your audience, which is important! Why?
Customers who feel emotionally connected to a brand are 4 times more likely to buy from that brand and 10 times more likely to shop a website on a mobile device.
Denny’s Diner has been in business since the 1950s, but they’ve found a way to update their brand voice, references, and personality to appeal to younger generations successfully.
You can see this on their Instagram, where captions are usually short, sweet, and laden with emojis.
2. Create Several Drafts of Your Instagram Caption Text
When you create an Instagram post on the fly, your caption might not be the best it can be.
Oftentimes the answer to how to write an Instagram caption that truly works is to try writing it a few times!
Instagram captions should go through a couple of drafts before being published to your feed, which means you don’t want to rush your caption copywriting!
Planning is key when creating captions that sell. By using Tailwind’s Instagram scheduling tool you can plan out your captions ahead of time, and even save them as drafts while you’re perfecting them!
Simply upload your image, start working on your caption, and pick your hashtags, and the best time to post with our SmartSchedule tool. Then, access your upcoming post at any time in your calendar and click the pencil icon to make any changes to your post!
And just like any other piece of copy, you should carefully proofread your captions.
3. Include a Call To Action (CTA) In Your Captions
If you don’t effectively direct your followers to take action, they likely won’t. Your caption CTA will likely direct viewers of your Instagram post to visit your checkout page, and hopefully, get them to purchase your product!
Some examples are CTA’s are:
- “Visit the clickable link in our bio to learn more.”
- “ View our newest collection by clicking the link in our bio.”
- “(your item) is on sale now. Link in bio!”
Your motivating call to action should be front-loaded and placed near the top of your caption.
Even though you have 2,200 characters to work with, Instagram only displays the first three lines (or 125 characters) of captions before adding a “read more” link in user feeds.
Your audience might not always click to “read more”, so include your CTA near the top.
Captions can be fun and inspiring, but if they’re going to help sell your products, your CTA needs to direct users to a place where they can purchase the products you sell.
One way to do this is with a link in bio tool, like Tailwind’s smart.bio! You can easily add links to your smart.bio posts when scheduling in Tailwind updated your link page in real-time as soon as the post goes live.
You can also do this by setting up Shoppable posts with Instagram.
4. Use Instagram Captions That Trigger Emotions
Our emotions heavily influence what we buy. Tapping into your followers’ emotions through your caption can help increase sales and can be done so when we can evoke feelings of Fear, Belonging, Trust and Inspiration.
Fear
Fear (or FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out) can drive your followers to purchase your product.60% of millennials have made a purchase within 24 hours of feeling FOMO.
Using fear or “FOMO” to drive sales doesn’t mean you are making your customers feel anxious, worried, or any other harmful emotion.
Simply stating that you have a limited quantity in stock or setting a time limit on when the item can be purchased is sufficient.
@Travelocity uses FOMO to promote trips and vacations by using a specific holiday as their limited-time offer.
Belonging
We all crave connection and want a sense of community. Speaking to your followers as if they are part of your tribe can help develop that sense of belongingness with your brand which will help you sell products.
@airbnb speaks to their audience through their captions as if they are one big family.
Frequently included in the features of various Airbnb properties are details about the area and the hosts.
This serves to create a much more homey, personalized connection with each location for prospective travelers than typically experienced with hotel properties.
Trust
Seventy percent of consumers use online reviews to help them make a purchase. Rather than expecting your potential customers to search for product reviews on their own, why not highlight reviews in your captions?
Adding customer testimonials to your captions can help you build trust between you and your audience.
You can even re-post user-generated content to use as your photo – people love to see Instagrammers like them talking about your products!
Passion Planner frequently posts success stories and user-generated content from their loyal following – #PashFam!
Inspiration
A challenging aspect to e-commerce is that your potential buyer can’t hold the product in their hands before they buy.
Use your captions to describe to your followers how your product can help improve their life – or even to describe in detail what the product looks or feels like up close!
@lornajaneactive inspires their community to be healthy and active through their posts that promote their products.
They do a masterful job of featuring products to their audience in the context they can be used in – such as “weekend paddleboarding adventure” in this caption!
5. Add Hashtags to Instagram Captions
When creating Instagram captions, you’d be selling yourself short (no pun intended!) if you only focused on the copy! The right hashtags will help you extend your reach, get your posts seen by more potential customers, and help grow your Instagram account.
Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags in your caption and finding those hashtags can be a challenge if you’re manually searching for them for each and every Instagram post.
Tailwind’s Hashtag Finder helps you find hashtags that can expand your reach to new customers without needing to perform any research. Simply enter your initial hashtag, and Tailwind will begin to populate a list of hashtags.
Once you find a list of hashtags that works for you, create a reusable hashtag list in Tailwind. Tailwind’s Hashtag Finder helps you find the best hashtags for your Instagram posts.
6. Use Emojis in Instagram Captions ✍
Using emojis in your caption can increase your engagement by nearly 43%!
All that extra engagement can help your post reach more potential customers that you can then direct to your product page.
They also add personality, bringing your content to life.
7. Keep the Conversation Going
After your post has been published, don’t forget to reply to any comments or questions you receive. Companies who engage with customer service requests over social media report 20%-40% more revenue per customer.
Whether you are receiving positive or negative feedback, it is important to reply to each and every comment!
Use Tailwind Ghostwriter to Create Good Instagram Captions
Whew, that’s a lot to keep in mind when thinking about how to create an Instagram caption that works! If you’re struggling, Tailwind Ghostwriter can help! Here’s how our AI-generated Instagram caption tool works:
- Upload your post photo, and click the “Ghostwrite for me” button above your caption field.
- Input what you’re posting about (ex: lifestyle content, promotion, educational, etc.)
- Input what your content is about
- Add any keywords or phrases you want to be included in your caption
- If you want to add a Call to Action, input the text of your CTA
- Click Generate, and view the three captions Ghostwriter comes up with! You can tweak these captions, use them as is, or if you want to try again, simply hit Try Again until your Instagram caption is perfect.
And guess what? Tailwind Ghostwriter is included on Tailwind’s Forever Free Plan!
Want to try it for yourself? Just sign up with your Instagram account, and explore this new feature – and other great ones on your forever-free account!
Conclusion: How to Write a Good Caption For Instagram
Great captions help you sell your products on Instagram because they:
- Increase engagement
- Create a two-way conversation between your brand and your followers,
- Direct your followers to a checkout page with a powerful call to action
Remember, when creating Instagram captions that sell, your caption should be front-loaded so your audience doesn’t miss it by needing to click “read more.”
By using Tailwind’s Instagram scheduler, you can not only plan your captions out ahead of time (or generate them with Tailwind Ghostwriter!), but you can also search for the best hashtags to make sure you are increasing your reach as much as possible.
Lastly, don’t forget to respond to any questions or comments you receive. That’s what builds your community and ultimately your engagement, traffic, and sales.
