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How To Drive More Sales On Your Website With Instagram

Image Source: Solen Feyissa

 

The world of eCommerce has, over the last year, had unprecedented growth due to the global pandemic sweeping the globe. Companies all over the world have reported a sharp increase in sales and traffic due to the continued lockdowns being unfairly imposed on communities.

Millions of customers are turning to online retailing and digital shopping to make purchases, and the growth is not expected to decline any time soon. In fact, experts have predicted that this has simply changed the face of the industry. Online retailers have had to rapidly expand and evolve their operations to keep up with the growth, while non-digital organizations have had to pivot their business to remain relevant.

So, if you either have an eCommerce store, are starting a brand new business, or are having to transform your company to a digital entity, we thought we would help out. We took a look at a few ways that you can use Instagram to drive sales for your business and how to get customers’ eyes on your business. Let’s dive straight in.

 

Plan Your Content Well In Advance

One of the key elements of any digital marketing strategy is your content. You need to make sure that everything you put out is carefully planned, mapped out and will hook visitors and potential customers.

Your content needs to be informative, educational and entertaining for your audience. You want to empower them and capture their attention by creating something that will appeal to their interests and behaviors. Remember, you are not just marketing to your direct followers, but also to an audience who hasn’t stumbled across your brand yet, but might have interests in your brand and products.

Start out with an overall content calendar for your business. Plan out your full year, and flesh out the content in the upcoming months once you get to them. All content that goes out across your channels will need to be uniform and need to reflect your brand.

Let’s look at an example. Say, you are a pet retailer. The lockdown is affecting your customers’ animals as they can’t get out as frequently and the animals are getting restless and putting on weight. Not only will your followers be looking for answers on how to cope with the situation, but people will also be Googling how to deal with it. So, create content to answer these types of questions, and apply the right hashtags and keywords.

Create blog posts and send those out in emails and on socials, and create posts centered around those topics. This may take up a lot of time, but luckily, there are tools and platforms to assist with making this less resource-intensive for you. You can find a great Instagram feed planner to assist you and work with this in conjunction with all of your other content that goes out.

 

Measure, Monitor and Test All the Time 

The next thing that we can advise is to keep a close eye on your posts at all times. No, it is not just about likes and comments, it is about how many eyes saw it, and how many click-throughs you received.

Not only does Instagram provide you with these insights, but you can also track them from your website. Instagram will allow you to monitor how much engagement posts are receiving, how many conversions were made and how many followers you’ve gained. This is incredibly helpful for you to track which posts are working and which are not. You may also get the best Instagram bot to track your Instagram posts more easily.

Google Analytics is also a great tool to use in conjunction with Instagram metrics. You can track how much traffic actually came through to the site from the platform, as well as each specific post. You can also track how the traffic behaved on the site from that point. Were there mostly bounces? Did the traffic convert to leads or sales? Or did the traffic flow around the site organically?

Having all of these insights will make it easier for you to know what works and what doesn’t work for your Instagram page. A great post will shoot up the traffic to your site and increase your conversion rate. Replicate the idea of the post for future use, and you will start seeing your sales increasing.

 

 

Allow Your Instagram Posts to Be Shoppable 

Instagram has added a new feature that is changing the face of online shopping. You are now able to tag products into the posts and stories for your audience to shop them directly from the platform.

The key here is to make sure that the post and images that you are posting are as organic and as attractive as possible. High-quality images are an absolute must for your Instagram posts, while a more organic and almost natural look is better for your everyday stories.

You can create simple tags and links to the products directly from the posts for the audience to click on if they are interested in the product. Not only is it important to have a catchy bio and a link to your site in it, but each product featured in the images needs links. There are additional features in which you can add in the price tags and indicate if they are on special offer.

Stories are also a great way of selling products. As mentioned, you can create relatable, day-to-day stories that will appeal to your audience. Within them, you can add links to the products, your site, or even promote your audience to swipe up to see and purchase the products.

 

Partner With Affiliates and Micro-Influencers 

The last piece of advice that we would like to share with you is to get partners on board with you and your brand. Not only is link-building key for your SEO rankings as Google ranks you according to shared links with authoritative sites, but it can get your brand seen by a wider audience.

Instagram, in particular, is great for brand building between various brands. Micro-influencers are highly effective partners to have to get your brand seen by a particular target audience. The trick is to be smart about it. Influencers have developed a bad name globally, but if you partner with someone who is genuinely associated and interested in your field, and who spends time on educating their audience, you might have a chance at heightening your conversion rate from their audiences.

Say, you are an online insurance site. Connecting with well-known financial gurus or even car enthusiasts can place you directly in front of an audience who has followed them due to their interest in the subject matter.

Pick someone who spends time engaging with their audience, takes pride in their actual posts and will be able to guide their followers to your brand and site. Once again, educational and informative content wins the day, so try and work as closely as you can on the posts with the influencer.

 

Wrapping Up

Keep your customer journey in mind at all times. Whether a new customer is coming in from Instagram to your site, or whether they already are a follower, this is a key touchpoint for them. Make sure that every single touchpoint from Instagram, all the way through to shipping and delivery is optimized to keep the experience surprising and delightful for the customer.