6 Instagram Marketing Tips For A Successful E-commerce Business

“Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make but about the stories you tell.” -Seth Godin

Every brand has a purpose, and behind every purpose, there is a story. As an eCommerce business, you need to tell your story, and Instagram is the perfect platform for you!

Instagram has come a long way from being only a photo-sharing app. It has transformed itself into a leading social media marketing platform for consumer brands. It provides a perfect backdrop for experiential marketing, giving marketers the ability to create engagement and gather fans and followers.

With an Instagram Business account, marketing on Instagram has become easy for e-commerce businesses. With Instagram Insights, Instagram shopping, and many similar features, brands are able to showcase their products and drive traffic to their eCommerce website.

Here are 6 Instagram Marketing tips you should leverage for your eCommerce business.

Make a killer first impression:

The first impression is the last impression. When marketing on Instagram, this is more than true! An average user spends less than 20 seconds browsing through your Instagram profile before moving on to the next one. Here are four tips for your Instagram marketing to keep them engaged for those 20 seconds. 

• Set your logo or your mascot as your profile picture on Instagram. This will help build brand recognition and recollection, leading to brand affinity and engagement.
• Write a bio that resonates with your brand and appeals to your customers and the personas you target. Etsy’s bio creates an entrepreneurial appeal to its vendors and strikes an emotional chord with its customers. A community that supports local businesses (target market) and designers (personas).
• Remember to include your store link. Instagram restricts you from sharing a link in posts. Many eCommerce stores include their store link in their Instagram bio. They often update the link to drive traffic to their latest pages or recent promotional pages.
• Keep an eye on the color palette you choose for your Instagram posts. Most eCommerce stores stick to a color palette that compliments their brand guidelines. P.S. Your brand colors and guidelines should be appealing to the target audience.

Create an Instagram Marketing Strategy that Aligns to your Business Goals

Honestly, there is no one perfect strategy for marketing your e-commerce business through Instagram. Every business is unique, and what works for others may not work for you.  

Like every other marketing channel, crafting an effective Instagram marketing strategy that aligns with your goals will help drive traffic to your e-commerce store and boost sales.

So here are five exclusively insider Instagram Marketing tips to consider while you create your eCommerce store strategy. 

• Plan Ahead:

Most brands share an average of two posts every day—that's around 60+ posts in a month. So rather than racking your brains at the last minute, plan your posts ahead of time. We recommend you have a running inventory of at least two weeks of posts and a calendar for three months, and make sure you are prepared for last-minute announcements and pushes.

Create a strategy that includes your promotional offers, new product launches, etc. Use tools like Hootsuite to create an Instagram marketing strategy calendar and increase your efficiency. 

Download Your Instagram monthly planner for free

• Think Before You Create:

Before you create an Instagram marketing post, think about the purpose of the post. Ask questions like 

1. What is the post about?
2. Who is the target audience?
3. Does the post convey the expected message?

You can create posts on tools like Canva, Venngage, etc. They could be videos, memes, gifs, or stories about your employees. 

Tip: Posting videos on Instagram gets 21.2% more engagement than a single photo. 

• Use Instagram Shopping Feature:

Instagram made lives easier for businesses with this amazing feature - the shopping feature.  

This may sound unbelievable, but major brands saw an astounding 1416% increase in traffic to their e-commerce store. 

• Engage with a winning caption:

Your Instagram marketing is incomplete without a winning caption for your posts. Your caption gives your post a background. You can pose a question, drive your customer to visit your e-commerce store or engage your visitors or followers in a conversation. 

And don’t forget this! Keep your caption concise and within 150 characters for better engagement.

• Include Hashtags:

Hashtags play a major role in attracting visitors to your eCommerce store. They classify your content and make it easier for visitors to browse through posts that have the same hashtag.

It simply classifies your content and makes it easier for visitors to browse through posts with the same hashtag.

For example, during the recent pandemic, #contactless delivery has been trending on Instagram. Most eCommerce stores are using this hashtag to promote that their business is following a safe delivery protocol and to create a positive mindset. 

While social media automation tools are great at scheduling your posts, the only drawback is that you must manually post Instagram stories. 

Plann is also a great Instagram scheduling app that allows you to conduct A/B testing on your photos. It can analyze if the colors of the posts would work for you or not. 

Leverage Instagram Insights:

So, now that you have the engine running, you need to know which posts worked and which did not.

Use Instagram Insights to track and measure the performance of your marketing efforts.

It also provides detailed information about your visitors' demographics, enabling you to gain actionable insights and optimize your Instagram marketing strategy. 

Get Your Influencers:  

Nike is famous for promoting its brand through athletes and is a great example of influencer marketing on social media channels, including Instagram. It doesn’t spend much time focusing on its shoes. Rather, it focuses on athletes who push their boundaries in their fields. They simply do it. This, in turn, creates a powerful brand image in the minds of its customers.

Well, not all eCommerce stores can get celebrities to endorse their brand. That’s where you have got your influencers to do your job. Influencer marketing has become an effective marketing tactic to get people talking about your brand.

Old Navy, a fashion eCommerce store, leverages top fashion bloggers to promote their brand.

Partnering with the right influencers who resonate with your brand and target audience will boost your website's traffic.

Experiment with User-Generated Content:

What’s better than your customers talking about your brand on social media? It is a virtual form of word of mouth. According to studies, consumers trust user-generated content more than other sources. 

Starbucks is an excellent example of a brand that leverages user-generated content on Instagram. 

They consistently share posts tagged by their customers, which builds customer loyalty and increases brand awareness.

Run Promotions and Giveaways:

Remember Oprah Winfrey’s exhilarating episode in which she gave away cars to the entire audience? Her audience was ecstatic! 

Giveaways and contests are major brand engagement tactics in Instagram marketing. Giveaways increase brand awareness and build a strong and loyal customer base. 

Similarly, contests have a similar effect on your target audience. You can conduct promotional contests, share photos, mention them in comments or stories, etc. 

Conclusion

Instagram marketing will help you scale your business if planned and executed effectively. 

To create a stellar Instagram post, here’s a checklist our social media marketing experts at Growth Natives have curated for you.

• Use colors that complement your brand guidelines
• Include videos to increase customer engagement 
• Write a 150-character caption to get better engagement
• Include trending hashtags (up to 30) that are relevant to your brand
• Analyze Instagram Insights consistently 

CTA- To get more Instagram Marketing Tips and design your e-commerce Instagram Marketing Strategy, connect with our experts at Growth Natives.