The Instagram story feature has already become familiar – however, it still has unrevealed potential for your brand. According to statistics, every day, 500 million users create new Stories, and a third of all Stories are branded. What is more, customers are also loyal to this format of social interaction – 1 out of 4 of them would like to see Stories from a product or service he/she is going to buy.
Instagram Stories can help you to sell more – and in this article, we will share some tips.
Tell a Story
This is paradoxical, but lately more and more often Stories from brands resemble advertisements at bus stops. “For sale. Price X”.
Some brands have begun to forget how Instagram Stories work and what their primary goal is. But storytelling is a very powerful marketing tool that allows users to learn more about company values and to feel their involvement in these values. This should be the basis of the story you are creating, at least in most cases.
Yes, transmitting values is not the only thing you can do with Stories on Instagram. Just do not forget about their original purpose and do not turn your Stories into message boards.
Use hashtags and geotags if you want to announce your new post in a story as well. Instagram promotion is basically impossible without hashtags.
Yes, the search by story function does not exist yet, but there is a search by hashtags. For this, you should use the correct hashtags in your posts, and give users the ability to easily find you using them.
Also do not forget about geotags if it is relevant for your business. They work similarly and allow users to search for local services or products.
Allow Users to Swipe up and See More
Instagram Stories are great for educating users and creating intrigue. Moreover, you can combine both of these approaches in one story. By the way, high-quality educational content has a direct impact on the sales level – 64% of users said that they decided to buy from the brand after receiving high-quality educational content on the social network.
So, in order to create good educational content, plus to keep the intrigue in Stories, all you need is to Pick The Writer who will cope with a text perfectly, link this post to your story and enable Swipe up and See more function.
Pay special attention to the text of the story – this should be intriguing, and at the same time motivate users to go to your post and read the content.
Engage Users With Polls
Here’s another interesting trick for users – create polls and analyze the results. Moreover, such polls are just a klondike of insights that users are ready to tell you for free. You can ask absolutely any questions and evaluate user answers in terms of your business strategy.
For example, the most common question is what content would you like to see in our profile. And this question is also the most logical and the most correct. Use the answers to reform your content strategy – and your marketing strategy, respectively.
Create Creative Designs for Your Stories
Instagram Stories are a good space for creativity. Moreover, you do not need to be a professional designer to create cool covers for your Stories. A little after the Stories appeared, special software for creating their specific design appeared too.
For example, Canva previously did not have the Create a Design for Instagram Stories function, and now this feature is available for free.
Be sure to use unique designs for your Stories, as your client needs to somehow identify you in the stream of competitors. You already know how to do it for free and with your own hands. Strengthen the influence of your story with Writing Judge and be sure that you have got a very powerful marketing tool to your hands.
Show the Backstage
Despite the fact that marketing is digital, people still want to buy from people. It’s a great idea to tell the story of your people and your company using Instagram Stories. Moreover, no complicated technique is needed for this.
You just need to shoot a fragment of your team’s work, mount an excerpt from the production process, show how you solve the problem, and even how you relax after work. All this creates a strong impression of humanization and stimulates sales.
User-generated content is just that case when you can share valuable content without creating anything new, but simply using users’ materials that they share voluntarily.
For example, if one of your customers posted a photo in a dress purchased from you and used your branded hashtag, you will receive a notification about this. And you can reuse this photo in your Stories.
This is a good move to show your product or service in action, as well as increase user loyalty. Each user who interacted with your brand will be pleased to see a story dedicated to him/her.
Show the Testimonials You Get
Instagram Stories are also a great place to keep the feedback you receive from customers and not to spoil the look of your profile. Be sure to share the reviews, and indicate the author of the review with his permission to convince other customers that the feedback you receive is true.
The Internet is teeming with reviews written to spoil or vice versa, to artificially improve the reputation, therefore social networks plus proof of the veracity of opinions are a good competitive advantage. And completely honest.
Promote Your Blog Posts in Stories as Well
Instagram Stories can also drive traffic to your site. To do this, you can use them as an announcement of your new blog posts. We already talked about how to do this using the Swipe up function, and in general, everything is similar here. The main task is to encourage the user to go to your blog and read the article.
To do this, when creating blog posts, you always need to maintain focus on the user’s problem and propose competent solutions. It’s also a good idea to work on connecting your post with a hot topic.
For example, now retailers massively began to write posts on the topics “How to update the wardrobe during quarantine”, “How to spend time with benefit during the lockdown” and so on. Most likely, you also have something topical that you can tell your subscribers and increase their engagement.
Invest in Promo Stories
Use this function to catch new subscribers. Unfortunately, there is no universal recipe. Someone will be attracted by a discount or promotion, someone will carefully read your blog post or another piece of educational content. You need to test, experiment and draw conclusions from every advertising campaign on Instagram.
Run Instagram Retargeting Campaign
And don’t forget about retargeting. You can set up an advertising campaign on Instagram Stories and show it to those who visited your site. This approach can give a much greater number of subscribers and hot leads than just promotional Stories because users have already been interested in your brand once.
Conclusion
Selling through Instagram Stories is not that difficult. However, here, as elsewhere, a strategy is needed. Use different types of content to display in the Stories and push your users throughout the sales funnel. Moreover, the potential of Instagram Stories for business is almost unlimited.
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