According to TechCrunch, as of June 2018, Instagram reached one billion monthly active users.
Image Source: TechCrunch
This shows that Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world today. For an e-commerce brand, it means that if you want to reach more social media users, you must leverage the platform.
Not only that, Instagram is one of the highest-converting social media platforms. According to Facebook, 80% of Instagrammers say that they decide whether or not to buy a product via Instagram.
Image Source: Facebook
So, if you have an e-commerce brand, Instagram is a good place to generate leads and even make sales for your business. In this post, you’ll learn the exact things you need to do in order to use Instagram for this purpose.
Let’s dive in.
1. Engage With Your Audience Regularly
If you want your brand to become known and generate leads on Instagram, you need to engage with your audience. The reason is simple. The more you engage with people, the more visible your brand will become.
To engage with your audience on Instagram, all you need to do is respond to all posts that are not spam-related. However, you must make sure that your responses are thoughtful, useful, and timely.
Most brands and businesses tend to overthink engagement and feel that responses should be lengthy. The opposite is the case. The most important thing when it comes to engaging with your audience is to give them the deserved attention.
Also, you should make sure that you add a human touch to your responses and not engage with your followers like a robot.
To do this effectively, you can share related images, ask follow-up questions, and use emojis in your responses too.
If you’re just building an audience on Instagram, you can leverage other similar brands’ audiences by engaging with those who comment on their posts.
When you do this, more people will hear about your brand. And they will be more likely to recommend it to their friends and followers too.
2. Create Quality and Remarkable Content
If you want to create a buzz about your e-commerce brand and generate leads for it on Instagram, then you should focus on creating quality and remarkable content. In essence, you must ensure that your content is useful and valuable to your audience.
One way to do this is to identify the problems that your audience is facing and create content that solves them. Since Instagram is a visual platform, you should make sure that the images you upload on the platform are of high-quality. That way, your audience will know what your post is about at a glance.
When you do this, your brand will stand out. Not only that, you’ll get more people to engage with your content from this strategy.
One brand that does this remarkably well on Instagram is Vans. When you check out the content on their Instagram page, you’ll see that most of the images they use are of high-quality. They instantly catch the eye and can be very appealing to the brand’s target audience.
Image Source: Instagram
To get more content to post on your brand’s Instagram page, you should consider hiring someone to take/edit your photos and videos. Not only that, you should also have someone who manages your page.
Aside from these tips, also make sure you have a posting schedule that you follow strictly. This will help you create content on a consistent basis to continue engaging your followers.
3. Utilize Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is a great strategy to use to generate leads for your small e-commerce brand.
With influencer marketing, you need to look for influencers in your niche to write about your brand or mention it in their posts. This helps to create awareness about your brand and increases conversions too.
The reason is simple. Influencers typically have a large number of followers who like and trust them. So, if an influencer promotes your small e-commerce brand, there are good chances that you’ll generate a lot of leads from it.
Due to this, more brands and businesses are leveraging this strategy to grow.
According to a recent survey by the Association of National Advertisers, 75% of brands use influencer marketing. Not only that, about 43% of these brands plan to increase their budgets for influencer marketing.
Image Source: ana.net
This shows how effective influencer marketing is for brands who want to generate more leads. As a small e-commerce brand, your best bet is to search for influencers in your industry. In fact, you can focus on working with micro-influencers alone for a start, as they will help you reach out to a targeted audience faster and for a lower cost.
4. Leverage Instagram Ads for Lead Generation
Another strategy you can use to generate leads on Instagram is through Instagram ads. To get started with this, you need to create a Facebook page and also have an Instagram business profile. Once you have those two things figured out, then you can use the Facebook ads manager to create an ad.
The first step is to choose your marketing objective. In this case, since you want to collect leads for your business, you’ll choose lead generation.
Image Source: Instagram
The next step is to name your ad and finalize the ad creation process. Some other things you need to keep in mind while creating an ad include defining your:
- Target audience
- Preferred ad placement
- Preferred ad format
- Lead form
When you set up your ad correctly, Facebook will send leads your way. Another strategy you can use to get more highly targeted leads is to use a Facebook lookalike audience.
This will help you to get in touch with new people who will most likely be interested in your business, as they're similar to your best existing customers.
Examples of lookalike audiences you can create on Facebook include: people who sent a message to your business profile, or those who engage with your content or ads.
You can also target everyone who engaged with your Instagram profile, only those who visited your profile, and so on.
5. Use Shoppable Instagram Stories for Easy Shopping
Shoppable Instagram Stories makes shopping easier for your audience as they allow you to include a clickable sticker in your Instagram Story. You will be able to link this sticker to a product that you mentioned in the Story.
If someone clicks on the link, they will be redirected to your online shop. That way, you can get more people who are interested in your products and quickly move them along in the sales funnel.
This feature is an extension of Instagram shopping, which is available on Instagram posts and is a great way to generate leads for your business.
One mistake most brands make with this strategy is to bombard their followers with these shoppable Stories. In most cases, doing this will hurt your conversions. This is because the average Instagram user doesn’t want to be sold to.
So, you have to study your audience and understand when it’s best to post these product-focused Stories. Doing this will help you to strike a balance between creating posts that add value to your audience and the ones strictly for selling to them.
Conclusion
Instagram is a great platform you can leverage as a small e-commerce brand. With the strategies shared in this post, you’ll have a much easier time generating leads for your e-commerce brand.
If you can implement these tips, you can quickly and easily make your e-commerce business successful on Instagram.
Have you ever used Instagram to generate leads for your e-commerce brand? Please share your experience and tips in the comment box below.
Leave your comments
Post comment as a guest