How to Promote Your eCommerce Store with Instagram

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April 23, 2021 Marketing

Instagram has become the most popular and loved social media platform among the youth. With its image-based interaction and exciting features. This platform has gained a lot of traction in brand marketing and online sales.

Over the years, Instagram has shown great potential for eCommerce advertising, increasing conversions, and connecting with your target audience. It helps you generate valuable leads that can make your business soar. Here, you can also build a loyal follower base and gain constructive feedback.

Currently, Instagram has more than a billion users. The power it wields can be harnessed smoothly into your eCommerce business if you play the right cards.

If you own an eCommerce business or a dropshipping store, we have the best tips and tricks to help you reach potential customers, increase engagement, answer queries, and boost conversions.

How to Promote Your eCommerce Store with Instagram

Studies have shown that about 70% of buyers and shopping enthusiasts search for products on Instagram. To tap this market, your products should be visible to the right audience and easily accessible as well. Here’s how you can make that possible.

Share product photos and videos

The first step towards gaining buyers is to showcase your products on your Instagram profile page. No matter what you sell, people want to view it, learn about its best features, and see it in use. Hence, it is a great idea to publish videos and photos.

The goal of your content should be to entice potential buyers and get them interested enough to click your link. Videos and high-quality photos help a great deal in this. Also, ensure variety in content to keep your followers engaged.

Less than 20% of Instagram posts are videos, but they fetch more than 20% higher interactions compared to images. Recently, more and more people have started using Instagram Reels to show off their products. This is a great way to increase popularity and sales.

Nurture your followers with free content before promoting products

Before you start selling products on Instagram, you need to build a follower base and increase engagement. The best way to do that is to post value-adding content on your page.

With entertaining and inspiring posts, your follower base will increase, and you will also be able to understand the needs and wants of your target audience. Once you grab their pulse, promotional content will also be received well. Your followers will feel more confident buying from you based on the trust you’ve built.

You can also attract followers by promoting your Instagram account on your ecommerce website.

Use influencer marketing

Influencer marketing with Instagram shoutouts is a powerful way to promote your Instagram store.

According to an Instagram study, influencers have successfully urged more than 87% of users to make a purchase. Of all the people who come to this platform in search of great quality products, the majority are influenced by what their favorite personality endorses.

To use influencer marketing effectively, you must choose a personality that resonates with your brand. Sportswear giant Puma recently made an Instagram ad with sportspersons from around the world.

On the other hand, clothing brand Forever 21 prefers collaborating with local influencers to increase their reach.

Hence, you should collaborate with influencers who can reach your target audience and help push your products to people who are more likely to buy or recommend them.

Use ads

The Instagram ads feature makes it super easy to shop on this platform. You can opt for paid advertisements that place your products right in your audience’s feed. From there, they can swipe to view products and click a link to buy them on your website.

Instagram ads can help you increase website traffic, conversions, and sales. You can simply set goals and create a campaign that helps you achieve the desired results.

Through ads, you can also promote offers and discounts on your eCommerce store. Just don’t forget to include a purchase link. This link can lead users to a specific product or your website, depending on your goals. This way, they are encouraged to check out more stuff and shop what they like.

Implement shoppable posts

Earlier, Instagram marketers had to lead their viewers to a link in their bio for website visits. Many users would not choose to take these steps to find the link. All that has changed now as you can create shoppable posts and stories for direct sales.

Instead of an elaborate CTA, you can now tag products in your Instagram post and stories. By clicking on the tags, users can get more details and even navigate to your webpage.

Users can identify these posts and stories by the bag sign that appears at the bottom left corner of the image, indicating that there are tagged products in the post. Shoppable posts increase traffic and revenue significantly, and hence they are a great way to promote your eCommerce business on Instagram.

Run contests

Contests increase engagement drastically, as everyone loves a great activity and freebies. While promoting new products or brands, you can hold contests on Instagram and even get influencers to promote it on their pages.

Keep lucrative rewards and giveaways alongside, and you never have to look back. This also works in another way as your followers will often tag multiple friends in your posts to win the contest. This way, more people get connected with your business.

Create an Instagram-friendly funnel

A sales funnel is basically the path taken by the customer in the purchase journey. It can split into discovery, intent, conversion, and loyalty. To create an Instagram-friendly funnel, you must keep these aspects in mind.

Reach as many followers as you can, involve them in activities that contribute to your promotions, urge them to try out your products, and build a positive experience for long-term customer loyalty.

This can be done through tagging contests, high-quality images and videos, valuable links, interaction with your followers over comments, and so on. Netflix has a reputation for being very interactive with followers, thus urging more people to comment on their posts and share them as well. Check them out for some ideas!

Prepare for Instagram Checkout:

Instagram has recently started its Checkout feature in the US. It allows buyers to purchase a product directly on this platform, without having to visit the company website. With a couple of simple steps, you can buy a product from a shoppable post without leaving the Instagram app.

This feature is set to become available worldwide soon. While this doesn’t mean eCommerce brands should neglect their own payment process, it is indeed a great move to prepare your business to integrate with Instagram Checkout.

If you can reduce the number of pages a buyer has to visit before purchase, you are bound to get positive feedback and more recommendations.

Conclusion

Instagram is slowly moving towards becoming a mainstream eCommerce platform, with valuable aspects like ads, shoppable posts, influencer marketing, checkout feature, and so on. To remain ahead in the race, you must actively focus on campaigns to promote your store on this platform. With its high user base and engagement opportunities, your digital marketing game will be revolutionized!