5 Ways to Unlock Your Sales Potential On Instagram in 2018

With over 800 million users, Instagram has increased the lucrativeness of promoting brands by helping spur business growth in different ways. If you want to reach your potential clients to deliver your message, you should promote your brand where your customers are hanging out.

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Instagrammers use the platform to keep an eye on things which they find interesting, and the statistics prove it: 80% of users follow at least one business, 75% of people take action after seeing a post, and 60% of us find new products on the platform. In short, Instagram marketing isn't optional these days. The rapid expansion of shopping on Instagram gives many ways to unlock your sales potential.

Let's find out how to boost sales on the platform:

1. Use Consistent Visual Elements

Visual communication matters. It's scientifically proven that people are visually-oriented and they perceive nonverbal information better. Moreover, Instagram is about posting visual content first, so you need to use consistent visual elements if you want to hook potential customers.

For everyone obsessed with the examples, here's how Taco Bell uses their creativity to organize the feed:

So, how to improve your Instagram feed?

• Pick one color palette.
• Choose one filter and stick to it.
• Crop images the same way.

If you want to differ from the thousands of other brands on Instagram, invest your time and effort in creating a well-designed feed as it's a proven way to capture and hold the audience's attention for an extended period.

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Bonus tip: While TemplateMonster helps your website surpass any competition, visualizing social media accounts is also important. Use apps like Snug, Preview, or UNUM to preview your feed before you publish a new post.

2. Enhance the Shopping Experience

If you're trying to promote or sell your products on Instagram, you may know that is easier said than done. As more brands use eCommerce templates, the niche is getting more competitive which means you need to offer something extra unique to keep your clients. When it comes to boosting sales potential, building a better shopping experience is necessary.

Instagram gradually introduces features to help brands drive more online sales. Here's how to affect purchasing decisions on Instagram:

• CTA buttons: running Instagram advertising campaigns, you can include a call-to-action button to encourage clients to act. Choose the best CTA (Shop Now, Book Now, Contact Us, etc.), and increase your conversion rate.
• Shopping tags: some business accounts have an opportunity to sell directly on the platform by using shoppable posts. Add the information about the products (description and prices) to help customers save their time if they're interested in a product! It will be a fantastic way to increase sales, so stay tuned for a more comprehensive rollout.
• Stories links: if you have 10k+ followers, don't miss a chance to drive more traffic to your website by adding swipeable links to stories.

The smoother the buying process is, the more sales you can win. Thus, use Instagram shopping tools to grow your business.

Bonus tip: think about your customers first and analyze what works best for them by using Instagram insights (available for all business accounts).

3. Make the Most out of Little-Known Instagram Features

Instagram has a high potential for businesses. If you're keeping up with the updates and think about creative ways to make the most out of new features, you can be a savvy user who knows how to run business accounts without spending much time and effort.

• Saved photos: when looking for inspiration, you may love finding photos on Instagram. Now you can save photos without screenshots. Save interesting photos into separate collections. For example, you can organize all UGC into one collection to use these photos later.
• Turn on post notifications: if you want to establish long-term connections with influencers, it's important to keep an eye on their Instagram activity and interact with them. Turn on post notifications to know when they publish on Instagram.
• Manage filters: rearrange filters you use the most at the top. It helps to save time when editing photos before you post them.
• Hide photos you've been tagged in: some spammers try to engage on Instagram by tagging different accounts. It hurts your online presence as your brand can be associated with spammers. Thus, you need to remove yourself from tagged photos as fast as you can.
• Follow hashtags: most companies create unique brand hashtags to get their content found. Now you can follow a hashtag the same way you would follow an account. It allows to stay on top your interest and get photos from that hashtag in your feed. Thus, you can react to posts with your brand mention to show your customer care.

Once a new Instagram feature appears, think about the ways to use it for growing your business.

Bonus tip: read a business blog on Instagram to keep up with the latest announcements and updates. Moreover, you can find best practices to learn some insights from other businesses.

4. Provide Excellent Customer Service

It's harsh but true: news of lousy customer service reaches more than twice as many ears as praise does for an excellent service experience. Lousy customer support can cost you a fortune, so it's important to keep your clients satisfied. Thus, you need to solve their problems fast.

Did you know about a secret inbox for message requests on Instagram? When a stranger tries to connect, there's a filter for messages from accounts you don't follow. These messages fall into 'request' category, and you need to accept them before reading.

While it's an excellent opportunity to avoid getting spammy messages, it can prevent you from providing excellent customer service as these messages can get buried in the inbox. Thus, marketers can't afford to ignore this feature, and it's essential to set up push notification in order not to miss potential clients.

To increase sales, you need to take care of potential clients, but it's important to think about existing ones as well. Providing excellent customer service helps to increase a customer retention rate which means keeping clients.

Bonus tip: unless you have content moderation staff, enable notifications on Instagram to know when people leave comments or try to connect you via DM.

5. Boost Clients' Loyalty

Building brand loyalty should be high on marketers' list as this concept goes together with customer retention. It also plays a significant role when it comes to making purchase decisions, so thinking about suiting your customers' needs, you invest in your sales potential.

Running a business account on Instagram, there are several ways to boost clients' loyalty:

• Publish user-generated content (UGC): people love taking photos, and they produce user-generated content if they like your brand. As a brand, you need to share this content on your account to make them feel rewarded and encourage other users. It's a way to build brand loyalty and boost engagement, so give it a try.
• Run contests: Instagrammers love activities, so running contests is a way to engage your followers and generate more sales as you can offer a discount or branded freebie as a reward.
• Live Stream: streaming online is a way to increase authenticity and show backstage scenes. Try to go live to attract customers' attention and increase their loyalty.

Once brand loyalty is achieved, there's an increase in sales. So, try to satisfy your customers.

Bonus tip: running business accounts on Instagram, don't overdo with self-promotion. Instead, try to solve customers' problem with your helpful content as it's a proven way to gain trust.

In a Word

Instagram has become a lucrative platform for marketers to promote their brands and drive sales. More customers use Instagram to find and buy new products, so it's high time to invest in Instagram marketing to unlock your sales potential.

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