Instagram is on the rise. As people are more attracted by visual content and less willing to sort through fake news and political debates, Instagram has grown its number of users and relevance, both for individuals and for businesses.
And the team responsible with developing and maintaining the social media platform were quick to recognise this trend and started to make several changes to it. These changes are meant to encourage brands to buy ads and post native content, while maintaining the transparency that users demand for branded content.
Why Should You Start an Instagram Sales Funnel?
First of all, consider the power of an image or a video over some text describing your product. People are emotionally influenced by visuals and they are more likely to form a buying decision from seeing something they like than from reading about it.
Secondly, if you haven’t been active on Instagram for some time, you will see it tremendously changed for business accounts. There are more ways than ever to build an Instagram sales funnel and to keep your customers engaged and willing to try your next product.
Here are some of the most recent (and effective) ways in which you can build and maintain a healthy Instagram sales funnel:
1. Use Instagram Placement for Facebook™ Ads
Most of you are already investing a lot in Facebook™ ads and trying various placements: news feed, Messenger, Marketplace…But most of you are probably overlooking Instagram. This is because the CPC and CPM for the Instagram placement is higher that for the others.
But so is the average conversion rate for Instagram ads. If you have great visuals and a snappy description with a few hashtags, you will definitely get the clicks to your landing page.
2. Turn Your Bio into a CTA
The Instagram bio appears at the top of your page and you should take advantage of it to bring more people to your website. How do you do that? By adding a link to your products page or, even better, to a special landing page where your followers can sign up to receive your newsletters.
Be creative in your bio description and add hashtags as appropriate. Instagram is perceived as a fun social media platform, where people go to for entertainment and inspiration.
3. Collaborate with Micro-Influencers
Instagram is the influencers’ paradise. And you don’t have to think as high as Rihanna or Cardi B. There are influencers at all levels, including those whom you stand a chance to approach and form a partnership with.
Actually, micro-influencers are the trend for 2019. Big names with millions of followers are perceived as unapproachable not just by smaller businesses, but also by individual Instagram users. A micro-influencer is closer to their world, relatable and more likely to understand their likes, preferences and (obviously) financial limitations in purchasing branded products.
4. Take Advantage of Shoppable Posts
This hot new feature is still rolling out, so do not panic if you do not see it yet. The conditions for being eligible to share shoppable posts are to have a Facebook™ business page and a Facebook™ Shop set up.
Whenever you share a photo featuring your products, Instagram users can click on it and go straight to your Facebook™ Shop to purchase it.
5. Turn Branded Influencer Content into Ads
The latest feature launched by Instagram indicates how much value there is in partnerships with influencers. Until now, branded content created by influencers was visible only to the influencer’s followers.
Now, companies working with influencers can boost these branded posts as ads. This means that the post will appear on the timelines of Instagram users selected as ad audience by the brand.
As you can see, creating an Instagram sales funnel is quite easy and very effective. Thanks to the direct shopping features added by the social media network, your work to attribute sales to a specific marketing channel will be even easier, as well.