You certainly hear about the power of Instagram for increasing your sales. But what is your strategy to perform Instagram marketing? Do you post the images of your products, set various hashtags in the caption or publish a story about them? It is the common Instagram marketing strategy that most people do it. But can you increase your selling through this path? It is almost the most ineffective Instagram marketing strategy!
We suggest improving your Instagram marketing in 2024 by reading this article. The expert social marketing team of Chidma agency will speak with you about the best practice to rise your sales on Instagram. If you keep reading, we will give you a brief overview of this issue and more.
➡ A podcast of this article has been provided for your listening pleasure:
The Best Practice for Creating A Functional Instagram Marketing Strategy Step By Step
Most of our client wants us to show them artifices to enrich them overnight. It is impossible, becoming rich and selling a lot of products through Instagram will take time. You must be patient and pick up new skills and brush up on your existing knowledge in the field of social marketing.
In the following, we want a best practice for designing a powerful Instagram strategy. We select this policy based on our deep experience in this field. Our path is very functional and, in every step, we ask you the critical questions that we ask them to form our clients for designing an Instagram marketing strategy. Hence, try to answer them very accurately.
We draw the four stages including:
• First stage: Set your table
You must perform 6 steps before starting to create your content and publish it.
• The second stage: start your job and create your content
In this part, you will pass 7 steps to create attractive content and publish it
• The third stage: draw your selling strategy on Instagram
In this stage, we will show how to publish and promote your content through 8 steps. In every step, you will find out pro tips.
• Fourth stage: measure your progress
You will learn how to improve your strategy through digital marketing analytics.
Join us and keep reading. we will walk you through this article and you can ask your question by typing them in the left-side chat box.
The First Stage: Set Your Table
Imagine you have a guest tonight. You certainly planned for it three days ago. You think about the taste of your guests and your budget before buying drinks, making desserts and cooking dinner.
Same as above, before starting to create content for your business account on Instagram, you must plan for Instagram marketing. You should think about the 6 following options. They will help you to have a powerful strategy.
Hence, the expert social marketing team of Chidma agency want to speak with you about the 6 critical steps of the first stage of Instagram marketing. we try to show this path by asking some important questions at every step. If you can answer them correctly, you will be a success in drawing the first stage, so, keep reading to know more.
1. Know Your Target Audience
Determining the persona of your target audience is the first step of all digital marketing strategies. You must know about them and their tests. Just as providing for a kiddish birthday party is different from a tea party, your Instagram strategy when your audience is young boys are different from when you want to attract middle-aged women to your page.
For this purpose, we suggest to our clients answer the following questions:
• What is the age, gender, religion, interests, free time and jobs of your audiences?
• How much is their income?
• Where is their location?
• What are their favorite brands?
• What type of pages do they follow on Instagram?
• What are their common hashtags?
2. Determine Your Objects
After you diagnose your target audience, you have to recap your objects again. Try to answer the following question Cleary. Take note that every goal dependent on your business will have its unique criteria and its specific content strategy. If you find the wrong answer, you will deflect from your path.
• What do you want to gain from your Instagram marketing? accessing a target audience and guiding them to your website? increasing your brand awareness? Selling your product or services? And …
Try to create a list of your main goals. If you cannot find your goal, don’t worry! The expert social marketing team of Chidma agency are here to help you if you click here.
3. Draw Your Content Marketing Strategy
It is the critical step of your strategy. You have to determine the type of your content. if you are not familiar with the various type of content marketing, click here to find out them.
The best type of content for Instagram marketing is Image, Video, Story, User-generated content (UGC), Meme marketing and live. We spook with you about meme marketing, video marketing and image marketing strategies, before. For finding the best content types and determining their priorities, you should ask yourself that:
• What kinds of content are more interesting for my target audience?
After that, you have to determine your policy and technique for advertising your page on Instagram. You have four ways for this purpose:
• Holding a contest along with giving a gift.
• Affiliate marketing
• Influencer marketing
• Advertise your Instagram page through your email campaign marketing
What kind of the above services are more appropriate for your business? you will find a correct answer to this question If you can answer the following questions.
• What is the type of your target audience? What is their taste, age, etc.? you can answer this question by helping of collected data from the first step. You have to determine that they are more interested to participate in a contest, reading an email, etc.
• How much can you pay for your advertising? how much is your budget?
If you can find the correct answers to this port you can find the perfect content strategy for your Instagram marketing. it is a very critical step before starting to create content. don’t forget that contact us if you have any problem answering the above questions by clicking here or typing your question in the left-side chat box.
4. Create Your Content Calendar
You passed the three above steps and know your audience, your goals and the best kinds of content that can attract your audience to reach your goals. Now you need to draw a calendar content. are you Familiar with it?
some important subjects for having a strong Instagram marketing strategy are:
• Publish your posts continually. it is very important for making a good connection with followers and attracting their trust.
• Try to publish specific posts related to trend events and special days.
If you want to perform the above tasks, you need a content calendar. To create a content calendar for your Instagram marketing, try to answer the following questions:
• When is the best time for publishing your content?
• What are the special golden days that you can use to attract more followers? For example, Christmas, the opening school season, etc., are dependent on your business.
• What is your plan to publish your posts continuously?
• How you can find out the days that you didn’t publish any posts?
• Where is the best place for publishing your posts for advertising your page?
Now, you can draw your specific calendar. But take note that you must publish your content continuously. For this purpose, you have to know what time your followers are more active on Instagram. The data from the first step can help you with this issue.
In Instagram, marketing caption is the voice of your brand. so, it is one of the critical parts of your Instagram marketing strategy. Do you know about the voice of the brand?
let me say an example of the voice of the brand. Imagine you own a bodybuilding club and you want to advertise your brand on Instagram and gain a lot of audiences. The voice of your brand must be powerful. But if someone owns a blanket factory, the voice of her/his brand should be very soft.
Now you get familiar with the term “voice of brand”, you can understand the importance of your caption. Your content with your target audience through your caption. So, you should make sure about selecting a good strategy for it.
If your account is directed by several people, you must meet your associates and discuss your caption. We always suggest our client ask themselves and their associates the following questions:
• What is the voice of your brand?
• How you can show it in your captions?
• Is it appropriate for your brand to use emojis in your caption?
• What are the best hashtags for your brand?
• Where is the best placement for adding them to your caption?
You must know that hashtags are one of the critical parts of your Instagram marketing strategy. Never select your hashtags based on the chance, you have to search for them. We before spook with you about “Hashtag marketing and how you can search your appropriate hashtags” and recommend to read it.
You must put your hashtags in your captions. If you want to know how you can find the appropriate hashtags for your brand, we have three suggestions:
• Analyze the page of your competitors and find the hot and trend hashtags that are related to your brand. we will more speak about analyzing your competitors in the next step.
• Using online tools such as Hashtagify can help you to find trend hashtags.
• Read “Hashtag marketing and how you can search your appropriate hashtags”
After answering this part questions, now you have an infective caption strategy and you can show your brand voice perfectly through it. If you have any problem with them, please contact us before going to the next step by clicking here or typing your request in the left-side chat box.
6. Analyze Your Competitors On Instagram
In the first step, you searched about your target audience, now, you must search about your competitors. Instagram marketing is like a competition and you are its players.
You must detect the expert players, analyze their strategy, and find their power points. Please take note that their target audience is your target audience too. you must try to attract more followers before they gain them. For this purpose, first, search the following questions to analyze your competitors:
• How much is the amount of their engagements (the percentage of their likes, comments, followers, etc.) if you cannot calculate the engagement, please click here to help you.
• Do they answer comments?
• What are the most common questions that their followers ask them?
• What are their hashtags?
• Which kind of content is more popular among them? (We spook about various types of content in Instagram marketing in step 3)
• Take note of their CTA (call-to-action) and try to find out what is their CTA strategy.
If you can find the answer to the above question, you can analyze your competitors correctly. We know it is a hard and time-consuming job but an important task for your Instagram marketing strategy. If you don’t have enough time or experience for doing it, we suggest you outsource digital marketing. we can help you with this issue with various charming offers. Click here to see them.
After analyzing your competitors, you should use the above data to draw a plan for your business. for this purpose, we always suggest our clients answer the following questions:
• What are the power points of your competitors?
• How you can use this data to improve your Instagram marketing strategy?
• Which job can help you to stand out from your competitors?
• What are your power points?
Now, you set your table! It is time to start the main task: content creation for Instagram marketing based on the data that is collected from the first stage. In the second stage we want to speak about it, so, keep reading to know more.
The Second Stage: Start Your Job and Create Your Content
In the second stage, we want to create the appropriate content for Instagram marketing and promote it. All of our decision in this stage is based on the data that is collected from the first stage.
Hence before starting the second stage, make sure that you complete the 6 previous steps correctly and if you have any problem from the first stage, please contact us by clicking here. In the second stage, you must pass 15 steps. We will walk with you through this stage and you can connect with us by typing your question in the left-side chat box. If you are ready, let’s get going.
7. Improve The Bio Of Your Business Account
The bio of Instagram is the first part of your page that most target audiences check it. They try to find your validity through your bio. So is very critical for your business to create a professional bio. If you couldn’t do it perfectly, your audience may think you are not a valid business. for this purpose, please take note of the following tips:
• You can only write 150 characters in your bio.
• You must present the name of your brand in the bio.
• Your image must be related to your business.
• Your audience seeks your address, website link, telephone, your category, etc. in the bio. If they couldn’t find the above information, they may doubt your validity.
we couldn’t dive into the bio-Instagram in this article but suggest you read “Bio for Instagram marketing in 2024”.
8. Creating Your Unique Content
In the first stage, you drew your content strategy for your Instagram marketing. Based on the taste of your audience, your budget and your goals, you decide which kind of content (image, meme, video, etc.) is more appropriate for your business.
Now you have to start to create your content. for this purpose, regard the following tips:
• Your content has to attract the target audience to your page. for example, if you sell kitchenware, your audience is housewives. It will be a good idea to create some videos about housekeeping tips.
• Try to take advantage of various content (image, video, etc.), however, you have your priority.
• You must create content with different concepts including educational, entertaining, advertising your product, or counselling content.
• You will give great results from your counselling content. in this issue, life on Instagram can help you. We will speak about it in the next steps.
• Take note of the SEO Instagram. It is essential for your business because you need to be seen on Google and increase your followers. We suggest you read “the best practice for SEO Instagram in 2024”. But if you don’t have enough time to pick up a new digital marketing skill or enough experience in this issue, we recommend getting help from outsourcing digital marketing. For this purpose, we can help you if you click here.
In the following steps, we will speak about the image, UGC and video content separately. But if you are interested to know about using meme content on Instagram social media marketing, we suggest you read “Meme marketing strategy in 2024”.
9. Take Advantage Of The Graphic Images
Instagram is the home of Images and video. Hence you have to attend to the quality and beauty of your images. We suggest you try to create professional graphic image content. Click here to see some of the image content that the professional team in the Chidma agency designed and draw your inspiration from them. In the following we have some advice to improve your image marketing on Instagram:
• You can create your image content by passing a short photoshop course. It will help you to attend your audience but if you have enough budget but don’t have enough time, it is better to get help from an expert graphist. We can help you with this issue if you click here.
• For taking a picture of your product take note of the background, the prevailing colour, the subject of the picture and natural light. Try to take images near sundown but avoid photography after this time.
• Know the Instagram filters. Instagram presents several methods for editing images and videos. Try to be familiar with them.
• Use the editing image tools such as Photoshop, VSCO and After light.
10. Getting Help From A Video
Publishing video on the internet has highly positive feedback in the world of digital. marketing. hence most digital marketers try to use this artifice for increasing their sales and branding.
As mentioned above the social media platform Instagram is the home of images and videos. And allow you to use the video content for your business objectives. For this purpose, in the following, we want to say some pro tips based on our deep experience in the field of social marketing:
• Before starting to create a video, you have to attend to your target audience. Hence, you must review the result of the first step of your Instagram strategy.
• Sharing your video with followers is very important for your business. hence, if you want to create a video from your products, you should adopt a policy to be very attractive and followers persuade to share it.
• Try to draw a video marketing strategy for your Instagram marketing. we suggest you read “The 17 steps of a video marketing strategy in 2024” and “Video content in digital marketing: its advantages and disadvantages on your business in 2024”.
• If you don’t have enough time for creating a perfect video, never bungle it, contact us by clicking here even if you own a small business with a little budget. we will present various offers and help you with this issue.
11. Publish UGC (User-Generated Content)
UGC is content that your followers have generated it. For example, a picture from your product that your followers have taken when he/she received it. Nowadays unboxing videos are very popular among people and a lot of people follow them. Hence, UGC can become the goldmine of your Instagram marketing and can increase your audience in a short time. why? because of the following reasons:
• When you publish a picture or a video from Mr./Ms. X white your product, he/ she will share this content with her/his family and friends. So, they will share your post and promote your brand.
• The friends and family of Mr./Ms. X will connect with him/her and ask about your product and brand. so, you can promote your business through verbal advertising. They will be more interested to buy your product after that.
• Mr./Ms. Feel a close relationship with your brand and he/she is interested to rebuy your brand.
• When your followers see the picture of your customers that are satisfied with your product, can trust your brand more easily.
• Most people are interested in unboxing videos and following them. They will follow your unboxing videos and may share them if you can montage them very attractive.
12. Use Of Instagram Story
Until here you find out the various methods for creating your Instagram content. In addition to sharing your post on your main page, Instagram has various other options for publishing your content. One of the popular options of Instagram is Story.
Story of Instagram is very efficient for creating content at the moment. But please attend to the following tips:
• The text of your story must be short and clear. Your followers want to get it easily.
• Your story must be attractive to encourage your followers to follow it.
• It is better that have a story calendar. And polished your story based on an organized plan.
13. Hold The Lives Of Instagram
Instagram like other social media networks can hold a live program. It is one of the most powerful services of Instagram that you can use for your business. the live program helps you to meet your audience, read their comments and answer them alive. It will increase your sales and followers because of the following reasons:
• Most of the users of social media are interested to participate in live programs.
• You can invite your followers to your office, introduce your staff, show them a part of the process of producing a product, etc. Try to be creative and attract a lot of followers. For this purpose, you have to take note of the tase of your target audience. If it is necessary, review the results of the first step of your Instagram marketing again.
• If you are preparing for a special event for example producing a new product, etc. try to use Instagram Live as your followers’ companion in this way. It will cause them to get aware of it and feel a close relationship with your brand. it will increase your sales.
Third Stage: Draw Your Selling Strategy On Instagram
Until here, you learn to create the perfect content for your followers, now we want to speak with you about how you can promote it. For this purpose, we design 8 steps (from 14-21). Hence, keep reading to know more.
14. Take Note Of Hashtag Marketing
We supposed you are familiar with “Hashtag” and “Hashtag marketing”. Otherwise, please read “Best practice for designing a hashtag marketing digital strategy in 2024”. however, hashtags are one of the most powerful ways to increase your followers on Instagram but they have their limits. In the following we want to show you some pro tips to improve your hashtag efficiency:
• Try to limit your hashtags to 10 -15. Avoid extra use of it.
• However, trend hashtags can increase your followers, but there is high competition for them. Hence try to take advantage of rare hashtags too.
• Use the hashtags on your story. People are very interested in it.
• Try to create your unique hashtag. It must be related to your brand. The professional team of Chidma can help you with this issue if you click here.
15. Try To Increase The User’s Engagement
Most people ask us “why are our selling low when we have myriad followers? “Most times their problem is the low engagement with their followers. User engagement is a critical strategy for Instagram marketing that most people have no regard for it. Hence their Instagram marketing will fail. But what is the meaning of users’ engagement on Instagram?
Selling a product on social media is different from it on a website or in a store. You have to:
• Be friends with your followers.
• Help them for buying your product.
• Speak with them after publishing every post.
It will cause they can trust you, and advertise your brand among their friends. Verbal advertising will have highly positive feedback for your brand.
In the following we show you a perfect strategy for improving user engagement on your Instagram business account:
1. Publish attractive posts.
2. Try to entice your followers to write comments. Your caption is a good place for this purpose. you can do it by asking charming questions in the caption.
3. Want and encourage your followers to like, share and save your posts? Try to do it very politely but not in helplessness.
4. Publishing the question-and-answer mode Stories can help you in this issue.
5. Live Instagram is very popular among the audience especially if you invite some of them to accompany you in your life for example your loyal customers.
If you can increase your user engagement, Explorer will show your Instagram posts. It will cause you to attract more and more target audiences. Hence, do not be apathetic about user engagement. If you have any questions about this issue, contact us now by writing your question in the left-side chat box.
16. Answer To Comments
In the previous step, we ask you to entice your followers to leave their comments behind your posts, now it is your turn to answer their comments. You may think that it is hard or even intolerable to answer all your comments, but it is a necessity. If they say their comments and you don’t answer them, it will hurt your sales because:
• They think you don’t appreciate them and your relationship will be cut.
• They think you may be a fake business, so, they cannot trust you.
• They suppose when you delay answering, you will delay the next process such as sending the product, etc.
People usually pay more money for better services. Hence, try to present a great service to your customers such as answering comments, especially critical ones.
17. Holding An Instagram Contest
People usually like contests and competitions especially if they hope to take a valuable gift. It can increase your user engagement, traffic of your page, brand awareness and sale if you be creative and take note of your audience’s taste. In the following we show you the pro tips that you must attend them:
• Try to find a sponsor from other brands. In this way, they will advertise for your contest too and their followers will aware of you. Hence you will find more viewers.
• Ask people to participate in your contest and share the bulletin of the competition with others.
• Entice your follower to create content for participating in a contest for example upload a specific image and tag your brand. Hence, they will promote your brand more and more.
• Try to be creative and encourage people to buy your product however, don’t win the contest. For example, select valuable gifts from your products and speak about their positive points.
18. Direct People To Your Website for Selling Your Products
People will find your website when they are searching on Google for their specific needs, but they don’t do it every day, whereas they check Instagram every day. Research shows that more than 500 million people use Instagram every day. Hence if you advertise your website here, it is a perfect platform for increasing your organic traffic.
For this purpose, you must follow the following tips:
• Select one of your attractive products
• Add a name and price tag to it and the like of its selling page on your website.
• Publish it on your page or other related pages on Instagram for advertising.
• It is very easy for Instagram users to click on your product tag and visit your website.
19. Publish A Product In Several Posts At Several Times
To rising your sales on Instagram, you have to attend to the behavior of its users. They usually jump on posts quickly, hence if you present your product just once, they will jump on it and it is rare to remember it later.
Researches show that more than 60% of Instagram users will buy a product after they saw it twice or three times. Hence, what you must do? Publish a post more and more? It will be tedious for your target audience and they never take note of it and even they may leave your page. Hence. You must be creative.
In the following we will show you a strong strategy:
• First, publish a post and present your product or service.
• Second, after a few days, put an image of that product in your Instagram Story.
• Third, after a week, publish a video and speak about how they can use it or some things like that.
• Finally, after a few weeks, hold a simple but attractive contest related to your product.
If you want our help with this issue, please contact us by clicking here.
20. Perform Purposive Ads
You must pay a cost for advertising your brand on Instagram. So, you have to perform it purposively. Don’t forget that your goal is attracting your target audience to increase your sales. There are various ways that Instagram’s users can aware of you:
• Tagging the locations
• Holding a contest
• Accompany with influencers
• Advertising on related pages
• Performing purposive advertising
Among the above options, most of our clients are familiar with the first four options but the last option is incognito for them. You can filter your audience on Instagram based on their age, gender, location, and even taste. We couldn’t dive into this issue in the preset article but strongly suggest you read “The best practice for performing purposive advertising on Instagram”.
21. Give A Discount To Your Follower
Charming offers play a critical role in digital marketing. in Instagram marketing, you can give a discount offer to your followers to persuade them for buying your products. The story Instagram is a perfect place for giving a charming offer because:
• The expiration time of every story is only 24 hours
• Hence, the users of Instagram think they take a unique offer that others don’t have it.
• They think if they don’t attend your offer, they will lose it immediately.
• Try to insert a CTA into your discount offer. For example, if you click on “buy now” you can use our discount code.
Final Stage: Measure Your Progress
Until now, you pass three stages of your Instagram marketing, you created your content based on the taste of your audience and your goals. You could publish it and advertise your brand, now you must measure your progress. You have to analyze your path and find your strong and weak points of it.
The final stage of your Instagram strategy never finishes. You must always try to pick up new skills, improve your content, etc. in this part we want to speak about the ways for measuring progress.
22. Instagram Marketing Analytics
Instagram marketing analytics is a process that helps you to analyze the efficiency of your strategy by defined metrics. For example:
• Engagement rate
• Followers and subscribers
• Shares
• ……
This step is very professional and we cannot dive into this issue. Hence, we suggest reading” The best practice for digital marketing analytics in 2024”. If you don’t have enough time for learning this skill, we recommend that get help from digital marketing outsourcing. If you want, we can help you if everywhen click here.
Conclusion
In this article, we tried to show you a functional Instagram marketing strategy based on the four critical stages. Every stage includes various steps. In total, you passed 22 steps to draw your efficient Instagram strategy. This strategy is designed based on our deep experience in social marketing. however, we tried to present the perfect but you must adapt it to your business goals.
We know that some steps of the above strategy are very professional and you need deep knowledge and experience to perform them. Hence, we deeply suggest you confer with experts about your Instagram strategy. In this issue, the professional social marketing team of the Chidma agency with more than 15 years of experience are ready to help you. If you are ready, click here.