With over 1 billion people using Instagram every month, it has become vital for brands to create an influential Instagram presence.
However, digital marketers don’t often prioritize Instagram to get leads or traffic.
They consider other platforms as a better option for the job.
Because Instagram’s potential advertising reach is 849.3 million – a missed opportunity of not considering Instagram as a lead generation tool can cost your brand a lot.
With the right tools and an ongoing effective Instagram strategy – your brand can nail its Instagram account.
All you need to do is find the right way to do it so that your work can be effective.
For example, you can create Instagram video ads because 51% of marketers consider videos as the best way to generate ROI.
You’ll find tons of information relating to Instagram video ads best practices that will surely boost your video ads efforts.
Moreover, a staggering 90% of accounts on Instagram are following a business.
This is already a good sign. When other marketers are utilizing and competing on gaining leads from other channels – you can focus on building a leads-oriented presence on Instagram.
With that out of the way – let’s explore the different Instagram ads strategies and how you can put them to work for your brand.
But first, let us tell you if your business should even be on Instagram or not.
Let’s begin…
Is Instagram The Perfect Platform For Your Business?
Let’s start by determining if Instagram is really the platform your brand needs.
I mean, I already told you that there are over 1 billion active monthly users on Instagram, and you’ll probably get some advantage by creating an Instagram presence.
But is Instagram really the best platform for your brand?
And the answer is, “it depends.”
Instagram is and always was basically meant for brands that have more visual products naturally.
Organizations like auto, fashion, beauty, or travel are the best fit for Instagram.
Because these brands can share more appealing and engaging visuals as compared to other brands – they have an advantage over their competition.
Beautiful imagery and compelling storytelling are what Instagram is all about.
See some Instagram video ads examples below to get an idea of how creative and photogenic your presence needs to be to get Instagram to love you.
With these examples out of the way, let’s start read our seven lead-oriented Instagram tips/strategies.
1. Leverage Instagram’s Lead Generation Ads
Paid ads always tend to deliver instant and more relevant results. Such is the case with Instagram’s lead generation Ads.
It is also important to mention that Instagram has a more vivid organic reach as compared to Facebook.
So, after running a lead generation campaign on Instagram – you can expect amazing results.
Let me tell you how you can set up and run an Instagram lead generation campaign:
- Create a Facebook page and an Instagram profile.
- Go to the ads manager to start creating your ad.
- Choose lead generation as your marketing goal and create a name for your campaign.
- Precisely target your audience. A more effective way to do this is by using Instagram audience insights, such as OwlMetrics.
- Choose your placement.
- Optimize your bid for leads instead of links.
- Choose your preferred Ad type, i.e., Story ads, video ads, or carousel ads.
- Create a lead form where your audience can submit their information.
- Get your lead generation campaign rolling.
2. Create A Conversion-Oriented Landing Page
Assume that the user has clicked on your ad.
Now you’ll need a landing page that will define everything in a little more detail.
Sproutsocial has some stunning examples of landing pages that you can check out and implement the same thing to get optimum results.
The examples in the blog are inspirational and quite intriguing, observing from an audience’s perspective.
Your landing page should be the same.
Your landing page should be relatable. The content/tonality should reflect your values, and It should provide the user with a seamless experience.
If your landing page has all the elements mentioned above – then it is all set to deliver the leads you’ve always dreamt of.
3. Make Sure Your Profile Is Perfectly Aligned To Your Landing Page
Next stop, your profile.
So you have now successfully created a compelling and conversion-oriented landing page.
Your focus now is to ensure that the user finds your landing page relating and credible enough to persuade him to make the purchase.
You can do this very simply and easily by following the steps written below:
- Upload a stunning profile picture of yours.
- Create an even more intriguing bio. It should be well written and should answer all the concerns of your customers. For example, who are you? What you do? And why should anyone care? (use business terminologies to explain these).
You can also add your URL and CTA to properly format your BIO.
By completing your bio, you’ll be creating a small version of your buyer’s journey.
Your audience will come to your profile, see what you are offering and why to follow the properly structured information to make a sound decision, which can be anything.
You can either place a link in your bio that redirects your user to a landing page, download page, or submit the information page.
However, I would recommend that you put a little more emphasis on capturing the information of your lead.
So, you can contact them yourself or even better send them special offers by getting in touch with them personally.
Pro-tip: Incorporate a CTA button on your profile so that your users can reach out to your company easily.
4. Harness The Power Of Carousel Ads
Sometimes a single image isn’t enough to explain your product/service.
Sometimes you’ll need more space to tell the whole story or to define your brand more decisively.
With Instagram Carousel Ads, you have the power to tell your story by uploading a single post but attaching up to 10 images in it.
I recommend utilizing carousel ads to market your product or service because of the two main advantages.
First of all, because you have the option of uploading 10 images at a time, you have a lot more space to talk to your audience.
Second of all, within a single post, you have the option of uploading more than one product or message, minimizing the risk of cluttering everything in just one picture.
Carousel Ads are indeed a great and more effective way to share your product without oversaturating the motive behind it.
You can also create carousel videos. Explainer videos work best in them and if you don’t want to create videos all by yourself, simply search for a professional explainer video production company who can help you with your Instagram video ad.
Usually, Instagram video ads cost less in terms of getting them created and are more effective than images.
5. Build Influencer Relationships
Influencers, by definition, are the people who have built communities and discussions around a specific topic or niche.
Nowadays, Instagram is literally rocking its digital presence.
There are several influencers on Instagram that you might want to connect with.
By doing so, you can grow your audience and maximize lead generation.
However, to safely reach out and get them to review or promote your product/service, there are some guidelines that I think you should abide by.
Firstly, your influencers should have a credible presence. Their audience should trust them.
If your influencer’s audience is not committed to him/her, it could cause potential damage to your brand.
So, recruit an influencer who has a consolidated brand affinity and a good reputation.
All of the traits mentioned above are integral to the success of your upcoming business venture.
6. Use Hashtags To Increase Reach
The advantage hashtags give you is that they present/showcase your brand in front of an audience unaware of your presence.
Hashtags maximize your reach, make your post go viral, and get an audience searching for a keyword related to your brand to engage with your post.
Hashtags also have the ability to strengthen your brand’s image by showcasing it in the most relevant search results.
The more you show up in search queries, the more credibility and recognition you’ll build in the digital realm.
Having even a single hashtag on your Instagram post can increase your engagement by 12.6%.
However, don’t overdo it.
If you use the same tags on every post of yours – you might get Shadowban by Instagram.
If your account gets Shadowban, you will not be able to appear in hashtags or keyword searches.
7. Share User-Generated Content
Sharing user-generated content deserves a spot on this list because, first of all, it is important enough, and second of all, it does wonders for your brand.
Your audience wants to feel connected online; they just have a tendency to trust someone else’s opinion about a product or brand.
So, by sharing user-generated content such as testimonials, reviews, or celebrity endorsements – you can bring immense engagement to your product/service.
You might’ve heard the phrase that social media is all about engagement more than sales. So, your engagement on Instagram will eventually lead to more leads and even sales.
Over To You
That’s all, folks.
Now you know 7 top-notch strategies to get your brand’s Instagram presence rocking.
Moreover, the key to success is always good storytelling – at least that is what I believe.
With technological advances and digital evolution, we have been given countless opportunities to capitalize on and surpass our competition.
All we need is a plan, strategizing, creating compelling content, and leverage these social media platforms to present ourselves in front of our targeted audience.
Speaking of Instagram – it wasn’t designed to be a lead generation tool like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter.
However, leveraging it correctly and utilizing its potential will help you turn Instagram into a lead generation tool.
Understanding the platform is the most important thing to do in this regard like knowing how to resize story for Instagram, the different engagement features available on the platform, optimizing for IGTV, etc. If you can accomplish this and align it with an established lead conversion funnel, there is no reason you can’t generate a consistent stream of sales qualified leads to your business from Instagram.
So, while other brands are competing with other platforms to get more leads and sales – you can capitalize and leverage Instagram to get more sales and leads for yourself.
Jane Collen is a creative content writer and digital marketer at BuzzFlick. She works closely with B2C and B2B businesses providing blog writing, video script writing, ghostwriting, copywriting and social media marketing services.