It gives people a reason to follow its profile and engage with the brand. Again, this strategy will drive more users to its page. Now that you’ve got these users interested in your products, you can use other strategies to get them to buy. This strategy allows you to sell products directly through the Instagram platform. If you’ve never sold products on Instagram before and don’t know where to start, check out my complete guide on how to increase your ecommerce product sales with shoppable posts on Instagram. Post the same product more than once If you post a product once and then never promote it again, people may forget about it. Basically, if you can get an influencer to promote your brand, you will get sales. Run targeted ads How can you reach people on Instagram who don’t follow your account? Here’s an example of a targeted Instagram ad from Tentree: As you can see, this post looks like any other post on Instagram. Social media influences consumers’ purchasing decisions.
In today’s competitive landscape, your business needs to leverage as many distribution channels as possible to increase sales.
By now, I’m sure you understand the basic concepts of applying a social media marketing strategy.
You’ve created business profiles on the most popular networks. You’re sharing content on a regular basis. Your efforts have helped you get more followers.
But you’ve got to elevate your game and learn how to convert your social media followers into customers.
According to research, 74% of consumers use social media to guide their buying decisions. And 71% of people are more likely to buy something based on a social media recommendation.
Simply put, consumers are eager and willing to use social platforms to find new brands, conduct research, and aid the purchase process.
As a marketer, you need to recognize the latest social media trends and use them to your advantage.
Instagram is the fastest growing social media platform. This social network makes it very easy, friendly, and appealing for brands to reach their target audiences.
Take advantage of everything Instagram has to offer. I’ll show you the top 11 ways to drive sales on Instagram.
1. Run contests and giveaways
Promotional contests and giveaways are two of my favorite strategies for brands to engage with their audiences on social media.
If you can learn how to run a profitable giveaway, your efforts will result in more sales.
I know what some of you are thinking. How can you make money by just giving away your products?
Let’s review an example to show you what I mean. Here’s a look at how Lander used this strategy on a recent Instagram post:
The company is giving away a smart lantern, power bank, phone case, and lightning cable.
Doing this increases the exposure of its page. It gives people a reason to follow its profile and engage with the brand.
As you can see, this giveaway is a bit different from the ones you may have seen in the past. Lander partnered with other brands to sponsor this giveaway.
Again, this strategy will drive more users to its page. These other accounts will post information about the giveaway and direct users to follow Lander’s profile to win.
Here’s a look at the caption from one of the other accounts it partnered with:
There are plenty of other ways to get creative with this marketing tactic.
Instead of giving away items at random to your followers simply for liking a post and following your account, you could run a more structured contest that requires skill.
Contests that encourage user-generated content are the most effective.
To enter, ask your followers to upload a picture and tag your brand. This strategy will expose your company to anyone who follows the users who enter.
If someone sees that their friend is promoting a brand, they’ll be more inclined to follow your profile and potentially enter the contest as well.
Now that you’ve got these users interested in your products, you can use other strategies to get them to buy. Even if they didn’t win the contest, the product you were giving away is still on their minds.
2. Take advantage of the “swipe up” feature
The swipe up feature is a game-changer for businesses.
For years, you probably had some trouble getting users on Instagram to navigate to your website from a specific link. You would post content and then direct people to click a link in your bio.
But that strategy has lots of faults.
First, it’s an extra step for the user. They have to navigate to your profile page and then make another click.
People don’t want to go through that hassle.
Plus, what if you want to promote two different landing pages? Or maybe three? or four?
You will not have multiple links in your bio. That’s too confusing.
The swipe up feature eliminates this problem. Now you can use your Instagram story to drive traffic directly to specific landing pages.
Here are a couple of examples:
Just promote a product or service on your story, and add the swipe up function with a link to a landing page about your promotion.
If you’re advertising a specific product, a logical landing page would be to the product description on your site. There, the user can look at additional photos and add the product to their shopping cart.
These lead magnets are a great way for you to drive more traffic to your website and ultimately increase conversions.
3. Use shoppable posts
If you have an ecommerce brand, you need to take advantage of shoppable posts.
This strategy allows you to sell products directly through the Instagram platform.
The reason why I love this feature so much is because it increases the chances of getting your current and prospective customers to buy something. Here’s why.
Right now, you’re relying on consumers navigating to your website to buy your products.
This can be from organic traffic, paid ads, or direct navigation.
The problem is that people probably won’t do this every day. But they’re active on Instagram daily.
In fact, 500 million people use Instagram on a daily basis. So there’s a great chance your target market falls into this category.
Here’s an example of a shoppable post from Patara Shoes:
It’s simple. This post is just a regular image that includes one of the brand’s products.
You also see a tag of the product by name, the price, and a link to purchase it. All someone has to do is click on the tag, and they’ll be directed to the website.
This is much easier than having to manually search for the product by opening a web browser. Shoppable posts increase conversions.
Check out the caption. It’s creating FOMO—the fear of missing out. I’ve discussed this strategy in the past.
Telling users they have only a few pairs of these shoes left nudges them to buy right now.
If you’ve never sold products on Instagram before…
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