Instagram is one of the best social networks to promote your ecommerce store. It has the 2nd highest average order value at $65, beating other popular networks like Facebook and Pinterest.
Therefore, to help you get the most out of it, this guide will help you promote your ecommerce store on Instagram…
Create engaging content:
Sharing photos of your products on Instagram and sending people to the product page works. It is one of the reasons why so many brands do it. But if you want to make an even stronger impact, you should also share photos of engaging content on Instagram.
80% of the photos you share on Instagram should comprise of useful and engaging content.
Content helps you build a relationship and gain the trust of your followers. Therefore, when you later share photos of products it has a stronger impact.
Engaging content can be in the form of quote images, jokes, serene photos from your life, photos of your employees, user generated photos, etc. You can also share videos.
A company that understands the importance of sharing engaging content on Instagram is Barnes and Noble:
They share everything from user-generated content, quote images, book excerpts, etc. The best part is that they stick to the topic of books which helps them attract and engage the right audience (as they are a book store).
So, from today onwards make engaging content an essential part of your Instagram strategy. It shouldn’t take up too much time.
You can find great photos to post by just staying alert and taking snaps of anything interesting you see. Quote images and other images with overlay text can be quickly created by finding Instagram optimized background photos and adding text to them using any online image editor you like.
Share better photos of products:
The number of sales your posts drive on Instagram will chiefly depend on the quality of the photos. If the photos look great and display the product properly, they will drive more engagement and convince more people to buy.
You can take these photos yourself or you can publish user-generated content containing your products. People who see user-generated content are 4.5% more likely to convert. The best photos are the ones showing your product in action so that people can picture themselves using it.
For some ideas on how to take creative photos of your products check out Converse’s Instagram account:
They regularly publish highly engaging photos and videos promoting their products. They also publish user-generated photos.
Accompany your images with enticing and engaging copy:
The photo is definitely the most important part of an Instagram post, but the caption you accompany it with plays a key role in selling too.
While writing this caption you should get use the AIDA formula. This is an abbreviation for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action.
This formula is frequently used in copywriting as it works well to attract and convert website visitors.
If used correctly it will work on Instagram too. Your photo does the job of gathering attention. Hence, you should work in interest, desire and action into the caption.
To work in interest and desire just list out features of the product and discuss the benefits of using it. End this with a call to action that asks people to click on the link in your bio and visit the product page (make sure you update this URL before you post) to purchase.
Also, don’t forget to add in several hashtags at the end as adding more than 11 has been shown to increase engagement.
They should be a combination of both popular hashtags and niche/product specific ones.
To find popular hashtags I like to use this list of 100 best Instagram hashtags for Likes. You can also use these hashtags to conduct research.
Search them on Instagram and see what type of captions other people are typing in. It can provide you with a lot of ideas.
A company that takes great care in writing their Instagram captions is Ocado, an online supermarket located in the UK:
An example is the above one where they write a caption that describes the product in detail and end it with a call to action and several hashtags. They use a mixture of both popular and niche hashtags. They even use the branded hashtag #supplierofthemoment.
Make posts more shoppable:
The biggest problem with selling ecommerce products on Instagram is that you can’t directly share URLs in your post. As aforementioned people need to go back to your bio and click the link there.
One way around this is by creating Instagram shoppable posts. When you make your posts shoppable you can tag your products in photos you publish. Customers can fill out an order form and make a purchase. A cart icon appears on the photo. When people click on this all the products tagged in the photo are shown. People can then checkout the products and their prices directly through the post itself. They can also visit the website and purchase it.
Shoppable posts can be easily set up if you are using a tool like Shopify or BigCommerce. Initially this feature was only available to businesses in the US, but recently they have expanded to the UK, Australia, Spain and several other countries.
Team up with influencers:
Another way to promote your products on Instagram is by teaming up with an influencer and asking them to post a picture of one of your products. The ROI from Instagram influencer marketing can be very high. Unwheels, for example, generated $1,023,208.26 by only spending $61,200.
To get maximum sales from influencer marketing, a good (and more affordable) strategy is to team up with smaller influencers with very relevant followers instead of super popular influencers who have a varied range of followers.
Also use a good analytics tool to check an influencer’s engagement levels before working with them. The amount of engagement they drive matters more than followers.
For best results you should work with the influencer closely and get them to try out your product. After that ask them to take an original photo and write a caption themselves. You can offer feedback and help fortify it if you would like to.
And when they publish make sure they tag your Instagram handle so that people can find your account and product easily. Update the URL in your bio for the product too.
Now promote your ecommerce store on Instagram!
These are all the tactics you can use to promote your ecommerce store on Instagram. Get started today by creating and publishing engaging content once a day at least. After you notice a boost in engagement levels, you can begin employing techniques that can directly increase sales.
Do you use Instagram to promote your ecommerce store? Which techniques have worked best for you? Leave your comments below.
Mitt Ray is the founder of Social Marketing Writing, where you can download 100 Free Social Media Background Images.
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