No better time to create an Instagram sales funnel than now.
With 6.1 billion total visits per month, Instagram is one of the world’s top ten most-visited websites globally. As a result, the app has become a viable platform to build relationships with your audience and drive rapid revenue.
You can’t afford to let your brand fall behind if you understand what makes Instagram sales funnels effective. By utilizing the available resources, you’ll be able to set up your funnel and take your brand to new heights of success.
Are you wondering how to create an effective Instagram sales funnel for your brand?
This article will show how to build an Instagram sales funnel that consistently generates sales while fostering meaningful relationships with your customers.
Let’s get started.
1. Create Buyer Personas
Although a buyer persona is semi-fictional, it represents the ideal profile of your customer for your company — based on market research and actual customer data.
When creating your buyer persona, consider customer demographics, motivations, behavior patterns. The more defined it is, the better your chances of making a data-informed sales approach. Once you have this profile, you can then use it to determine where your customers hang out on social media and how they will react to different content.
If you’re using an Instagram Business or Creator account, you can access this built-in Instagram analytics app to create your buyer persona.
Source: Hootsuite
To create buyer personas, start by asking questions. Find out what your buyers like and dislike. Identify their problems, pains, or challenges they’re trying to solve, or words and phrases they find meaningful.
As you respond to these questions, you’ll understand your audience’s preference and how you can tailor your content to it and make them your customer.
2. Work With the Right Influencers
Having influencers work with your brand and promote your products will show your audience that you’re willing to work with others and invest in them. Thus, establishing trust between you and your audience.
Louis Vuitton partners with Emma Chamberlain to attract Gen Z consumers. Emma Chamberlain is a fashion icon and a household name for people within the Gen Z age bracket.
Source: Emma Chamberlain Instagram
By collaborating with the right influencers, you’ll drive sales and leads by using their network to increase your brand awareness and directly promote your products.
Consider the following factors when seeking to collaborate with influencers;
Audience Engagement
Observe an influencer’s audience when they share content with their followers, especially with brands they promote. Ensure their posts get suitable responses regarding their followers’ comments, likes, and shares. Also ensure the influencer you choose has a high engagement rate to reach their audience, efficiently translating to improved sales.
Relevancy
Partner with influencers who share relevant content with your target audience. This way, your business can reach consumers who would otherwise miss out on it. Collaborating with relevant influencers in your industry ensures you get the highest level of engagement possible.
You can use Hootsuite and other tools to find influencers relevant to your brand. You can use an email finder to collect their contact details.
Authenticity
Find an influencer who is authentic and relatable. If they appear fake or inauthentic, it could damage your brand’s credibility. What kind of content does the influencer create? Is it high quality and original? Associating your brand with plagiarised content is a PR disaster waiting to happen.
You want an influencer who is authentic and whose brand voice is credible. Authenticity leads to trust, ultimately leading to conversions in your Instagram sales funnel.
Explore Hashtags Related to Your Brand
Industry hashtags carry a lot of potential on Instagram. Explore the most recurring ones and use a variation of them on your posts. However, avoid the popular hashtags with high usage. Aim for hashtags within 50,000 to 500,000 uses to strike a chance at getting seen.
Moreover, you might also be able to find influencers who use these hashtags and partner with them. You should collaborate with these influencers to reach the right audience on Instagram, as content with that hashtag already appeals to them.
3. Sell With Your Instagram Business Account
Setting up an Instagram business account is a crucial first step if you want to sell on Instagram.
Once you have established a brand presence on Instagram and have built up an engaged audience that loves your content, you can start using the platform to drive sales. You can easily integrate your brand store with other platforms, such as Shopify, Bigcommerce, and Magento.
To satisfy your buyer, you must respond quickly. A key method to boost your Instagram sales is to give your audience direct access to your products.
Check out Glossier’s account below, where they can still sell their product without having an Instagram shopping account.
Source: Glossier Instagram
Here’s also an instructional video that shows customers how to use the product.
Source: Glossier Instagram
Your Instagram business profile is often the first point of contact between you and your customers — make it impressionable to increase conversions.
4. Tap Into User Generated Content
Individuals, rather than brands, generate user-generated content (UGC) such as text, videos, images, and reviews. The goal of UGC is to gain a great relationship with your followers, share good branding imagery, and increase your brand’s visibility on Instagram.
Tapping into authentic, organic content created by customers, and followers can increase your brand reputation and credibility. The ability to draw users’ honest acceptance of UGC makes it easy for you to promote products, collect feedback and increase social proof.
Here are several ways you can generate UGC for your Instagram funnel:
- Run contests and offer rewards
- Share user products on your feed or story
- Offer product discounts for user photos or videos
- Ask users to share their experiences at special events
- Invite followers to share their content for a chance to be featured on your page
- Create a photo contest and ask users to vote for their favorite entries
- Create a powerful hashtag for your brand
- Encourage authentic feedback and reviews
As shown below, GoPro used UGC to promote wildlife conservation by giving awards and inviting people to join their community.
Source: GoPro Instagram
UGC varies based on your brand’s industry. If you decide to incorporate UGC, choose wisely and remember not all UGC must appear in your feed. Ensure you vet every content and avoid buzzwords to remain unique. It’s also great practice to get permission from the creators before posting their UGC on your page.
5. Add Product Links to Instagram Stories
Instagram stories are the perfect way to monetize and engage your audience. Instagram Stories allows users to share content for 24 hours. You can create a story with a product image and add the link to the product page.
You could also add a call-to-action (CTA) sticker to your story or use Instagram polls to help you figure out what your audience wants.
This feature is only available to business pages with at least 10,000 or more followers. With this in mind, you can use Instagram Stories to drive your brand or business sales.
Source: Tiffany’s Instagram
Tiffany’s example above illustrates how you can use links in Stories. The new stickers in Instagram Stories make navigating your site more accessible. That’s why Instagram ditched Swipe-Up in favor of stickers.
Finally, you can use branded hashtags to reach new audiences, besides relying on your existing followers. By including hashtags in your Instagram story, new users will find your account and navigate to your brand using the CTA feature.
6. Include a CTA Button in the Bio
One significant way your brand can stand out from the crowd is with an impressive bio and CTA. This feature allows your brand to move its audience from discovery to instant action and thus ensures a fast conversion rate.
Therefore, include a CTA button in the bio so your audience can quickly navigate to your website without leaving the app. Also, ensure the text in your bio supports the CTA so it doesn’t stick out awkwardly.
For example, Sephora users can click on their bio and be taken directly to their website’s landing page. You can further personalize and adapt the CTA link to reflect the recent text of your marketing effort on your landing page or website.
Source: Sephora Instagram
Using a CTA avails your business of many opportunities such as increased engagement, interaction, and potential conversions.
7. Convert Your Personal Instagram Account to a Business Account
If you’re going to leverage Instagram as a sales tool, setting up a business account is the best way to go.
Instagram gives business accounts special features like Instagram insights, a CTA button, Facebook business page alignment, and story links to help them promote their products and services. Convert your account into a business account from your settings to take advantage of these features.
This business upgrade grants you access to insights, allowing you to track metrics like engagement, impressions, and reach.
Aside from these benefits, if you have the budget, you can promote your Instagram post with Facebook-built ads by connecting with your Facebook business page.
Over to You
Once you’ve established the sales channels mentioned above, Instagram will no longer be an afterthought in your business. Instead, it’ll be a revenue-generating engine that produces leads and sales on command.
However, it’s essential to be patient with the entire process, especially as you see results. Not every sale will come from your Instagram ads, nor should they — but as long as you put in the effort and refine your strategy, everything should run smoothly.
You can always find a process that works for your brand, from simple to free strategies. These sales funnels will help you streamline the process of making constant rapid sales. Still, they also help you focus on the most effective content for your social media.
