Social media has become one of the non-negotiable factors for businesses that want to succeed online. With all the upgrades and new features that have rolled out in the past years, Instagram is easily one of the best platforms to market on. The platform reports more than 200 million business accounts are in use.
Businesses that want to improve their marketing funnels should be considering Instagram in their strategy. There are many reasons and benefits to promoting on the platform. Keep reading to learn how to create a simple Instagram marketing funnel for your business.
Start With a Goal
The first thing you want to do in your Instagram marketing funnel is to start with a goal for your strategy. Depending on what type of business you run, you’ll more than likely want to leverage some features more than others. Although it’s great to get creative with using features available to you, it’s best to plan according to what makes the most sense for your audience.
If you’re an e-commerce brand, for instance, your goal may be to drive customers to your shop. On the other hand, if you’re a service provider, you might be wanting to grow your email list. Start with clear and concise goals to be able to strategize the best actions to take from there.
Optimize the Bio
After you’ve figured out clear goals for your brand, you’ll want to make sure you start at the foundation of attracting the right audience. This is where optimizing your Instagram bio comes in. You can leverage the bio space to make sure people are finding your page when searching the platform.
One of the first things to do is to make sure you’re account is switched to business. This way you’ll be able to view insights and data on your audience to help make informed decisions. Instagram gives you the option to choose a category of the type of business you own.
Choose the category that’s closest to what you do. This helps the platform suggest your page to people that may be interested in what you offer. You’ll also show up as a recommended follow from pages that are similar to yours.
After that you’ll need to clearly state exactly what you sell, offer or provide to your audience. Brick-and-mortars should use this opportunity to also add a location tag to their shop. You can tag relevant pages in your bio as well. For instance, if you have a sister brand that you want to send traffic to you can connect the page in the bio by adding an “@”.
One of the most important parts of your bio is making sure you have a working link. Including a link in your bio helps customers to reach your website, shop, or external page easily. If you have multiple links, maximize this space by using a tool like Linktree. Also, be sure to add a CTA to your bio to encourage users to visit the link.
Leverage the Right Features
Again, all the features on Instagram are great for anyone looking to build a brand. But if you want Instagram to be a marketing funnel for your business, you need to make sure you use features that will highlight your brand the most. Keep reading to find out how each feature can be leveraged so you can align your brand with the right ones.
Create Entertaining Reels to Attract
Instagram stated that they are shifting more into becoming more than just a photo-sharing app─ videos are a priority now too. Reels has become one of the top tools for creating engaging content on Instagram. Reels are basically short videos that help you to reach your audience in a more fun way.
Using reels gives brands a chance to show up in more explore pages for people that don’t follow them already. Instagram gave a quick overview of how the algorithm works for reels. One of the main focuses is engagement. They’re more likely to show a reel to someone that has engaged with similar reels or audio sounds.
There’s a way to create a smart marketing strategy from this feature for your brand. Make sure that you’re keeping an eye on what your target audience is currently engaging with. Then, create reels using the audio that they have shown interest in.
Continue to build your reach from the reels and grow your audience. You can get creative with making promotional videos using trending audio clips. Be sure to add a CTA (call-to-action) as you continue to get more views and engagement.
Post Carousel Feed Posts to Educate
The important part of a marketing funnel is to move the customer or client seamlessly to the next phase of the buyer journey. On Instagram, you want to make sure people are seeing and engaging with your content to build more trust. A great way to do this is by creating carousel posts.
A carousel post is a post with multiple images or videos that visitors can scroll through. A study showed that carousel posts can help generate a significant amount of engagement. Carousels also give you a chance to educate your audience on different parts of your business.
Using carousels is a great opportunity to create evergreen content and get real likes on Instagram. For instance, you may want to share a pain point your audience has and how your product or service addresses it. Carousels are also great shareable content which means you could increase your reach each time you make one.
The most recent update for carousels is the ability for users to go back and delete a single photo or video after the post has been published. This is great for businesses that may have made updates to their inventory, for instance. You could delete a promotional photo of a product that you no longer sell so you don’t confuse customers.
Go Live to Connect With Your Audience
One thing about technology that most people love is how it allows for presence. Instagram Live videos are a great way to feel more connected with your audience in real-time. It can also be an easier way to convert leads to customers.
Consider going Live at least once per week to talk directly to your audience. Be open to answering questions about a service or addressing pain points. This will help to build relationships with you and your ideal clients or customers.
Use Instagram Ads to Target Ideal Customers
Since Instagram is owned by Facebook, you can connect your brand pages on each platform to create ads. Connect your Facebook ads manager to create and manage your Instagram ads.
Paid ads are a good option for businesses that want to enhance their targeting efforts. You can set up audiences based on demographics that you want to target. This allows you to show up more in front of the people who are more likely to buy from you.
If you just want to try out paid marketing, consider starting with boosting posts on Instagram. Boosting a post allows you to increase your reach by targeting potential customers based on things like age and location. It’s often a more affordable route before getting around to fully investing in ads.
Increase Sales Using Shop Tools
Instagram has definitely upped its game when it comes to optimizing the platform for e-commerce business. They’ve added multiple features that allow users to improve shopping experiences for their customers. You’ll definitely want to take advantage of these tools for your marketing funnel.
If you’re under a business account, you’ll see a tab right under your bio section that allows you to add a shop to your profile. Once you set up your shop, you’ll be able to tag products in your posts and Instagram stories. From there, customers can view all of your products right from your shop page.
You’ll also be able to collect more insights from your shop. These will help you learn what products customers are engaging with as well as other factors that can help you improve the buying experience. Opening a shop does require you to connect your Facebook account which is best for consistency if you use your brand page.
Promote Links on Instagram Stories
Instagram now allows all users to use the “swipe up” feature on Instagram stories. This would typically allow you to create a post and then viewers could literally swipe the screen upward and visit the linked page. Previously, this feature was only open to larger accounts.
The slight difference is that viewers won’t technically swipe up anymore. But you can still place a link directly in your stories and direct traffic to it. Leverage this feature to promote your posts that people may not have seen on your feed.
Turn Instagram Into a Marketing Funnel For Your Business
Finding success with your online business on Instagram is now easier than ever. There are plenty of features that you can use to help turn your account into a well-oiled marketing funnel machine.
Remember to create killer content, add CTAs and build engagement with your audience. The more consistent you are, the more you’ll see your efforts pay off. For more tips and advice on marketing your business on social media, read the rest of our blog.