Want to know the secrets to making Instagram a money maker for your business? Do you have a plan B?
You’ll learn a three-step process in this post to boost sales.
What Impact Instagram Has Had on the Sales Process
Instagram businesspeople have been preoccupied with their following count for some time now.
And there were valid arguments in support of that. Do you remember when you had to have ten thousand followers before you could put swipe-up links in your stories?
However, Instagram has evolved, so you’ll need to rethink how you approach sales. Anybody can share tales with swipe-up links now. Instagram business and creator accounts are open to the public. An Instagram Shop is an online retail space that allows virtually anyone to sell their wares.
The quality of your interaction with your followers on Instagram is now more important than the number of people that follow you. Relationship building with your most significant followers leads to increased sales and conversions.
Instagram Stories: The Art of Making a Sale
For this tactic, we’re going to zero in on one particular Instagram post format: Stories.
Justify your use of Narratives. Because it’s the ideal way to interact with your followers on a personal level and provide them with useful information.
Instagram posts can be seen by your followers, but unlike Instagram Stories, they are not dynamic and typically feature less visual content. While reels are excellent for exposure, they are most effective when used to attract a new audience rather than retain existing viewers.
Stories are the perfect media because they are both informative and engaging for your followers.
You’ll be publishing three distinct types of content using this method:
- Lead generation and offer seeding through narratives.
- Narratives that direct prospects towards a purchase.
- New and exclusive products will increase your sales.
First, however, I must issue a warning. Not everyone will become a paying customer if you use this approach. It shouldn’t do that!
Find Prospects, Plant the Seed of Your Deal
Finding your best consumers is the first step in your new Instagram sales plan. Who are you expecting to take up your offer? Which topics most interest them?
There’s no need to push sales at this point. You don’t need to include a call to action while discussing your offerings such as products, services, courses, or specials.
Map Will Get You a Sale
Suppose you have compiled a list of potential customers who are interested in just one of your company’s products or services. It’s time to lead them along the path of making a purchase.
Using Instagram Stories will still be a primary emphasis for us. Keep in mind that telling stories is an effective technique to impart knowledge to your audience while keeping things light. They also let you zero in on specific demographics. You could, for instance, share this lead nurturing information with just your closest pals. Another option is to add everyone in a collection to your inner circle of friends until you’ve sold them on the item that piqued their interest.
You should gather as much social proof as possible and employ it whenever possible since it is a potent instrument. Begin compiling a “praise album” by taking screenshots of every encouraging comment, post, direct message, etc. Keep all that positive feedback in a database for future reference. Don’t forget to tag customers in their own success stories!
When combined with a call to action and social evidence, the basic combination of “hook,” “education,” and “call to action” works wonders.
Better still, after you’ve published this series once, you can highlight it on your Instagram profile and use the individual stories as evergreen sales content for as long as you like.
Instagram Sales Growth Is to Host Limited-Time Events
Bonus points for the last phase of your Instagram sales approach.
You know the ins and outs of creating subscriber lists and working them into a buying audience.
This third action is an additional strategy to turbocharge sales by drawing on personal anecdotes and your network of personal contacts. (Keep in mind that you may use this strategy with any product or offer by temporarily adding members of a collection to your close friends list.)
The idea is to heavily promote one specific deal through your tales over a period of 24 to 72 hours. The exclusive nature of the stories shared with your inner circle makes the deal that much more alluring. Consider time-sensitive offers such as lower prices, freebies, or sneak peeks at a new release. This is also a great, risk-free method of introducing novel product concepts to the market.
This time around, your narratives won’t follow the typical pattern of developing new leads. You shouldn’t put forth so much effort to demonstrate your knowledge or instruct your listeners. Instead, you’re going to make a strong pitch to customers for a limited time. This includes posting frequently, providing ample social evidence, and making frequent calls to action.
You can test the covert release in advance of the public rollout to see how it performs. You might start a series of countdown tales a week ahead of time. Encourage your followers to respond to the story or send you a direct message containing a certain keyword so you can quickly add them as friends. Develop a sense of urgency and scarcity!
Get Your Instagram Store Ready!
You probably have some plans for lead nurturing, customer segmentation, and sales pitch customization in mind by now.
The method we describe in this post is a hands-on approach. Not everything can be automated. There’s logic behind the decision.
Hand-building your Instagram sales takes time and work, but the resulting audience is very loyal and valuable. Without the use of intermediary mechanisms, it prioritises establishing true human connections above blasting as many people as possible with a sales pitch.