Is it worth investing in Instagram marketing?
How long does it take before you see any meaningful results from IG marketing? Several days? Weeks? Or months?
Kudos to you, by the way.
You’re definitely on the right track by asking these questions.
After all, there’s a myriad of marketing approaches you can pursue to grow your e-commerce business.
And if you’re considering using Instagram marketing, you need to ascertain its worth.
This guide answers all of these questions. Even better, we’ll share tried and tested Instagram marketing strategies that can skyrocket your e-commerce sales.
Let’s hop right in.
Is it worth investing in Instagram marketing?
The answer is “yes.” (For the most part, at least.)
Whether a marketing channel is a good fit is often determined by a myriad of factors, such as the products sold, who the target customers are, etc.
However, Instagram has become such a massive and well-loved platform by its users that e-commerce store owners from unrelated industries are getting enormous success out of the platform.
From carpentry to pet products. Even from affiliate marketing to vegan-related items.
Instagram continues to yield tons of views, engagements, leads, and sales to brands that use it as a marketing channel.
How long does it take to see meaningful results from IG marketing?
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question.
Several factors determine how quickly you’ll see meaningful results from your Instagram marketing campaigns.
If you’re starting from scratch, for example, and you don’t have a single follower, it’ll take you much longer to see a decent number of views and sales than having an aged account with several followers and posts.
The quality of your followers also needs to be considered. If you’ve worked with an IG marketing company that used shady methods to generate followers, a good portion of your followers could be bots, or your followers might be random users who have no interest in your products.
To give you a ballpark figure, it’s worth considering a 6 – 9 months window to see meaningful results.
Again, what you do within 6 – 9 months will determine the results you’ll generate.
If you follow the proven IG marketing tips below, you are bound to see decent numbers from your IG analytics.
Reliable Instagram marketing tips and tactics
The tips below are divided into two categories: Foundational tips and Instagram marketing hacks.
The foundational tips are an absolute must. If you skip them, your capacity to drive views, leads, and sales from your IG marketing will be drastically handicapped.
Foundational tips
1. Create a professional-looking IG profile
“Professional” doesn’t always mean boring. You can make your IG profile fun-looking, but it must align with your branding guidelines.
Ensure your profile is complete, has a high-quality photo, etc.
2. Have a buyer persona
A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customers. It lists their pain points, job title, age, and time they log in to IG, among other peculiarities.
Every reel and story, among other IG content you produce, needs to align with your buyer persona’s interests so your content pieces will resonate with your audience.
3. Be consistent with your posting times
Most e-commerce companies fail at Instagram marketing because they need more consistency.
Don’t give up if you don’t get engagements from your IG posts, even if you’ve been at it for days. Continue to test, get feedback, improve, and ideate.
Continue posting at a regular schedule. It’s only a matter of time before you crack the code and start generating tons of engagements that could lead to sales.
4. Invest in creating fantastic content
There are a couple of content pieces you can publish, such as:
- Before and After
- Share tips and tricks
- Reviews
- Photo dumps or carousel posts
- Etc.
Remember to use the correct dimensions for your IG content and include relevant hashtags and engaging photo dump captions.
Social media management sites share tons of guides about Instagram reel dimensions, best posting times, trending audio suggestions, etc.
Instagram marketing hacks
Now that we’re done with the basic yet crucial tips, it’s time we talk about the more advanced IG marketing tactics.
5. Cross-promote
Ever heard of the maxim, “You scratch my back, I scratch yours?”
It’s a common principle used by successful Instagram marketers, yielding amazing results.
You can conduct cross-promotions in a myriad of ways:
- Cross-promote with a direct competitor. The internet is a massive place. You’re not going to run out of customers due to competition. Instead of seeing your competitors as just that, competition, why not look at them as allies and add value to each other?
- Cross-promote with an indirect competitor. Suppose you’re selling knitted flowers. You can reach out to e-commerce store owners who sell flower vases. You can promote them on IG account.
- Cross-promote from a different platform. Don’t shy away from offering cross-promotion to someone who primarily engages their audience from another platform. Even if they promote you on their YouTube channel, you can ask them to direct their viewers to follow you on IG or visit your e-commerce website directly.
6. Run contests
Contests are amazing because they’re easy to pull off.
When posting a contest, remember to include these crucial points:
- The prize. Ensure your contest prize is appealing and relevant to your target audience. The quality of your prize greatly impacts whether your audience will decide to join or ignore your contests.
- The mechanics to join. Make the mechanics to join your contest uber simple and easy. You can ask your audience to comment, share your post, and tag three of their connections who might be interested in joining.
- What the contest is about. Ensure your contest’s description is easy to understand. No need to be verbose or to use complicated words. The simpler and shorter, the better.
7. Use feature-packed SMM software
There are loads of online social media management platforms, each of which has pros and cons.
One social media tool that’s promising in feature, price, and customer support-wise is Vista Social. The platform is packed with advanced social media management features, its UX and UI are top-notch, they provide excellent support, and they’re reasonably priced.
As of this time of writing, it looks like they’re the only social media management tool that offers AI functionality to help their users create content in seconds!
8. Repurpose content
Get more mileage out of your IG Reels, Stories, and posts by repurposing them.
You can turn your IG content into tweets, Linkedin posts, infographics, YouTube shorts, among other content types.
That way, your content gets more exposure.
Not only will you save time and money since you’re not creating content from scratch, but you will also give your e-commerce brand and products more visibility.
What’s next?
What are some of the best marketing strategies for e-commerce you’ve come across?
Feel free to share them in the comments section below. Cheers!
