Instagram promotes your business, engages potential customers, and generates more sales in your industry.
An Instagram sales funnel is a guide for your customers on their way to making a purchase. They won’t be as meaningful without a plan to leverage the numbers of active users to your advantage.
What is sales funnel?
A sales funnel a sequence of steps potential customers must take before making a purchase. Sales funnels typically have four steps.
Awareness: Customers might have seen your advertisement on social media or seen your brand in a local store.
Interest (e.g., Follow your brand on Instagram, browse your website
Evaluation (e.g., Reading your reviews and starting a trial for free
Take action (e.g., Making a purchase
The funnel (or inverted triangular) visualization illustrates the customer journey. It shows how few customers reach each stage. For example, more people know about your product than they will buy it.
Here is the way a sales funnel should look within the context of social media advertising.
The eight stages of an Instagram marketing funnel
An Instagram sales funnel that is well-oiled should have eight stages.
- Awareness
- Interest
- Desire
- Take Action
- Engagement
- Loyalty
- Referrals
- Advocacy
Here is where TOFU comes into play. These eight stages are divided into four types: TOFU, MOFU, BOFU, and ATFU. Each type of content has its own goals and best formats.
TOFU: Top of Funnel
Includes: Awareness and Interest. Your content should:
- Capture your attention
- Increase your number of followers
- Let people know about your products
- Don’t ask for a sale only, but provide value and education.
MOFU: Middle of Funnel
Includes: Desire. Your content should:
- Demonstrate to people that your product solves their problem
- Demonstrate how you are different from your competition
- Encourage people to buy from you
- Be focused on education and not pushy about sales.
BOFU = Bottom of Funnel
Included: Action. Your content should:
Ask for the sale, But don’t go excess.
ATF: After The Funnel
Included: Loyalty, Engagement, Referrals and Advocacy
Ok, so I invented this new acronym. Marketers love acronyms. It works. This section is about content that rewards customers for converting. Turning them into brand advocates who will tell all their friends how amazing you are.
Your content should:
- Keep building relationships
- Encourage referrals and repeat business
- Reward loyalty from your customers
- Your customers will feel confident buying from you
- Engage with your customers through regular interactions
- Do not just tell your company’s values, but show them.
You need a way to schedule all of this content efficiently. Hootsuite does more than just scheduling. It also automatically posts for you at the best times on Instagram. Advanced social listening is also available.
An Instagram sales funnel is a guide for your customers on their way to making a purchase. They won’t be as meaningful without a plan to leverage the numbers of active users to your advantage.
How can you create an Instagram sales funnel that’s effective? Let’s discuss that in this article.
1. Create Buyer Personas
A buyer persona is essential when creating social media marketing campaigns that target your ideal market via content. It’s a visual representation you create from research and conversations about actual customers. It goes beyond simple demographics to encompass the more intangible aspects that make people tick. Persona development is crucial to the success of an inbound marketing strategy, regardless of the size or the scope of your company. Marketing professionals and sales frequently utilize personas, and you must utilize them throughout your company.
To create a buyer persona, You must Identify your target market to build a sales funnel. Collect audience data from Instagram analytics and customer databases to narrow down specific details such as : Age, Interest, and challenges your ideal customers face.—these will allow you to understand your audience and their preferences better and prioritize them, as well as creating a good content.
Buyer personas assist teams in allocating resources, finding prospects, and comprehending the motivations behind people making purchases. They’re the kind of customers who remind you of why you chose to pursue sales or marketing in the first place.
Personas can help answer these questions:
- What kind of content will likely trigger interest from a specific client?
- How would your ideal client prefer to be involved with sales representatives?
- What issues do customers want to resolve, and how can your company assist customers?
These tips will help you make an Instagram account that is curated.
The relationship between personas as well as inbound marketing
Inbound marketing generates leads and converts them into customers. The most crucial aspect of inbound marketing is using content on the internet to draw prospective customers.
Different types of content are available, and, in many instances, marketers may be able to target their customers using a mix of methods: Blog posts and online videos. White papers, podcasts Newsletters, E-books, Social media posts, and online advertisements
Making inbound marketing strategies by focusing on personas will help you focus your efforts and boosts the Return on Investment (ROI).
Persona development helps you determine the following:
- What format(s) will get the highest response?
- What media outlets are most likely to be able to reach the most significant number of potential customers?
- The tone to use when creating your content or communicating with customers.
- The kinds of content that are likely to attract the most leads
- The call to action will get the highest response rate
If you don’t understand your customer base thoroughly, You’re shooting blindly with the marketing material you use.
Sure, you can make educated guesses and get positive outcomes. But taking the time to build personas is a more affordable solution. What industries can benefit from using personas?
All types of businesses can use inbound marketing to increase sales, which implies that practically any business could benefit from the development of personas, including financial service suppliers to businesses from senior care facilities.
These are only some examples of the different types of businesses that make use of personas
- B2B sales
- Business-to-consumer sales
- Services providers
- Manufacturers
- Consultants
- Online business
- Brick-and-mortar retail stores
Buyer personas allow you to identify the customers you serve in a human approach. They don’t aim to create profiles. Instead, it’s about identifying the behaviors of your customers.
The goal for buyer personas is to understand better the various behaviors people employ to meet their objectives.
To better understand the nuances, let’s examine some distinctions between personas, demographics and people.
DEMOGRAPHICS Vs. PERSONAS
Market research provides crucial information about the customers most likely to purchase your goods or services. One example of a kind of customer could include:
- Caucasian
- Female
- Ages 25-35
- Employed
- Single
- Urban
Here is some valuable information that you must know. But, persona development offers a greater understanding that allows you to connect with your ideal client.
The above example and a successful interview with a potential customer who fits this description could also inform you:
- She doesn’t have an automobile, so the possibility of making online purchases is crucial for her.
- She can live independently but is still looking for an excellent bargain.
- She is more dependent on her smartphone than her computer.
- She prefers to communicate via email rather than via phone.
- She makes use of social media to keep up-to-date with the latest trends.
While demographics are essential information about a person, personas are more detailed and reveal a buyer’s persona.
For instance, it targets employed urban-dwelling Caucasian women who’re unmarried and between 25 to 35, creating an undefined, unclear depiction of an aspiring young professional; this will not help you to refine your sales and marketing strategies.
It’s crucial to narrow the scope of your business. Personas focus upon what is the thing that makes potential customers who they are and what inspires them to engage with your company.
Personas highlight the factors that make your customers who they are and what motivates them to connect with your company.
How to build a Persona
Utilize these tried-and-true methods to create Internal conversations
Before you start building personas, you must organize internal discussions to ensure everyone’s on the same. Every department has something to bring into the mix, from marketing to sales and customer support.
Ask your team at work regarding customer concerns, goals, and everyday behavior–before you start building personas.
The KICKOFF CALL
The initial step of developing personas is to have a kickoff meeting that includes the service, sales and marketing departments to clarify the personas and receive feedback on the kinds of customers who buy from them.
This meeting aims to present the personas using language your various departments can understand. It’s your job to create interview questions that will assist you in uncovering essential details.
INTERNET/SALES TEAM INTERVIEWS
Your sales team is in contact with customers each day. Salespeople possess the most valuable information about the factors that affect the likelihood of a potential customer making a purchase or not. They’ll know the questions asked frequently, the obstacles they often face, and the distinctive selling points most relevant to your prospective customers.
But, they may not know how valuable this information can be. Ask these questions during an interview to help you uncover this vital information when you create personas:
What kind of clients do you usually encounter?
What is the reason that different kinds of buyers typically purchase?
What are the reasons customers give for choosing your company over your competitors?
What are the top frequently-repeated objections that you’ve heard?
Collaboration with your marketing team in the process of persona development will allow you to identify better who you must connect with
Marketing Team Interview
Your marketing team is also aware of how your customers generally behave through indirect interactions rather than that direct ones.
Inbound marketing focuses on how your customers discover your company on the internet.
Even if your sales procedure stops working following the time an online lead has been taken, engaging with your sales team throughout the process of developing personas will allow you to comprehend better who you should connect with and how to get them in touch.
What demographic and technical data do you have on your site’s users?
What are you doing to advertise?
Define the campaigns in marketing that have proved the most effective.
Define the marketing strategies that have failed.
The blog entries that have gotten the most attention?
Do customers frequently ask any?
Which page on the website gets the most attention?
Interview with the Customer Service Team
What are the most common questions that potential customers want to know?
What are customers saying about it?
What are the skills users require to utilize this product?
What do customers have to say about Our product?
Customer Conversations
The data you collect from your team members is an excellent base for better understanding your clients. The only way to understand their thoughts is to talk to them directly.
After obtaining information from your marketing and sales teams, confirm your assumptions by speaking with actual customers.
By asking questions, you can comprehend their actions, and the obstacles they face will help refine their content and messages for marketing.
Consider persona development as an experiment in science—your internal conversations in forming the hypothesis of the personas you have. Talk to customers about your theory critically and determine whether you can challenge or prove it is true.
Utilize this information to customize your offerings and services to different types of customers. You will not be able to determine what they would like (or do not desire) until you ask them.
The goal is to comprehend the behavior of customers. Create your interview questions keeping this in mind so that you can create an accurate persona.
SEARCHING INTERVIEW CANDIDATES
Engaging with a wide range of clients with diverse backgrounds, buying experiences and market segments is essential.
Have your sales staff assist you in selecting the best people from each buyer group.
Don’t focus on just one type of customer. You want to draw inspiration from the entire range of possible customer types. The ideal kind for interview candidates is:
People who have decided to purchase your solution
People who have decided not to purchase anything
Customers who bought from competitors
Since they’ve just gone through the purchasing process, customers can give specifics on the way they evaluated your product. They will also be able to share insights about their positive and negative views toward your competitors. Then, they will be able to describe every step and the sources they used in making the decision.
Do not focus solely on one type of customer; you should draw inspiration from various customers.
HOW TO CONDUCT A CLIENT INTERVIEW
Interviewing with a client requires skill and the ability to communicate. Check any previous information about your client and establish trust from the beginning. It is your responsibility to make your client feel at ease, Try to be as transparent as you can and clearly state the purpose of your discussion and Pay focus to how you answer questions for your interview.
Open-ended questions give you more valuable data than a fundamental yes/no question. For instance, asking clients if they would buy the product you offer or services doesn’t provide you with a lot of valuable data. In contrast, asking to explain what they think would motivate them not to buy something will result in a wider variety of answers.
What questions should you ASK?
Each industry is unique. However, it can apply certain customer traits and behavior patterns to all industries to develop personas.
If you’re selling vacuum cleaners or providing accounting solutions, getting the answers to some fundamental inquiries will be the initial step toward understanding the personas.
Looking for questions you need to ask when creating your buyer personas? Use this template to guide you:
Questions You Need to Consider When creating buyer personas
Demographic and demographic questions
The basic details of customers won’t give the complete picture of a persona, but they’re a good beginning point.
Is your marriage legal?
What is your household’s income?
Where do you reside?
Is your home a renter or homeowner?
Which gender are you?
What is your age?
Do you have kids?
Career questions
If you offer items or products to different companies, You must be aware of the industries you work with and the customers with whom you’ll interact.
- Does the process of selling begin with an employee at the entry level or an owner of a business?
- What factors are customers considering when making certain kinds of purchases?
This information is crucial for marketers who sell to consumers, as the customer’s job (or lack of it) is a significant influence on the general character of their customer.
In what industry do you perform your job?
What do you think is your current work level?
To what level would you like to be?
How many years have you been at your current job?
What is your educational level?
Daily life questions
Knowing how your customers go about their day can help you figure out what frustrates them and what they would instead take time off as well as the other choices that they have to make regularly:
What kind of day take to you?
How much time do you devote to your home and office?
What are you doing to keep yourself entertained?
Which people in your family are the most important to you?
What kind of vehicle do you own, and for what reasons?
Which shows do you watch on TV?
Consumer habit questions
Consumer behavior is often difficult to predict, which is why the development of personas is vital. You should ask your customers how they decide to purchase to communicate with them more effectively.
Where can you find out more about a particular product or service?
How many offline tools do your use?
What websites do you make use of?
Which is the best place to shop?
What is your preferred way to engage with sellers?
Who do you contact for recommendations on products or services?
What’s the importance of securing a bargain?
What kind of devices for mobile do they have?
What kinds of indulgences or luxury purchases are you making?
Pain-point questions
It’s crucial to determine what causes them to be angry or anxious so that you can devise solutions to alleviate the pain. If you know your customer’s pain points, You’ll be able to identify their needs before they’ve even existed.
Highlighting the most critical pain points in communications with clients and marketing messages establishes trust, rapport and openness:
Which is the most challenging part of your work day?
What’s the worst customer service experience you’ve ever experienced?
What routine activity do you feel is stressful?
What causes you to be nervous?
What’s the quickest way to make someone furious?
What is the least enjoyable part of your work?
What’s the most grueling job you could ever imagine?
What achievements do you feel most proud of?
What are the top three items you want to see on your bucket list?
Industry-specific questions
The questions for interviewing above can help you create personas for each type of customer who typically purchases. Still, to maximize the value of the persona creation process, it is essential to ask specific industry questions.
Be aware that the people you interview are your current customers. They’ve purchased items (and have not yet made purchases) because of the following:
Which are the most frequent issues in your industry?
What is the typical value related to your business?
Which is your most popular kind of experience for sales in your field?
Which are your most frequently cited complaints about your product or service?
Which are some of the most frequently asked customer-generated questions?
Which are some of the most popular questions that prospective customers are asking?
HOW TO COMPILE DATA
When designing buyer personas, there are two types of data that you should consider:
1. Qualitative data collected from the customer and internal customer interviews
2. Hard data collected from web tools
Various tools are available to analyze data and increase persona development.
For instance, Google Analytics can segment users by keywords to find commonalities in searches. Knowing where traffic is coming from allows teams to group buyers into categories or themes and determine how they will provide content to meet buyers’ expectations.
The buying intent based on requests for demos of product engagement rates, engagement rates, and open rates of emails can also enhance the process of developing personas that allow organizations to determine why potential customers are selecting some aspects of content.
It’s not a matter of course, but using your data to show the commonalities between people is crucial.
It is essential to be able to adapt the information to fit the whole company. It involves analyzing data and making it available that is understandable by all. Although bulleted lists will show correlations, most of the time, it’s crucial to translate the data into a story format to allow different departments to utilize the information.
Elements Of A PERSONA PROFILE
Name: Many marketers use names like Thrifty Tom, Elegant Annie, and Practical Pete. You can use these nicknames to guide your design of new brands, products, and marketing strategies. If your attention begins to drift, you can return to it by asking questions like “What does Practical Pete think about this deal?”
Description: Each customer profile should comprise demographic data and a story of the client’s behavior. The narrative should contain the details of their daily lives as well as the most frequent challenges, buying habits, and other variables influencing how your marketing and sales teams engage with this type of customer.
Image: You are likely to find it beneficial to have an image corresponding to every persona. There may be stock images that match the persona, or you might be able to utilize photos of real customers if they’re willing.
Identifications: How do salespeople tell when they’re speaking to someone who is a Practical Pete or Elegant Annie? Give a list of characteristics that can help distinguish each persona so that your team members can quickly choose the appropriate marketing strategies when they come across an upcoming customer.
2. Get in touch with the right influencers.
Six out of ten people trust brand influencers over ads. Why? Because influencer marketing uses social proof and word-of-mouth, making marketing personal. Influencers can help to shorten buyer’s journeys and increase sales. However, influencers must be in the same target market as your brand.
Fashion Nova Curve partners with plus-sized women worldwide, such as ms_leon, based in Africa, Which allows them to promote their brand and reach their ideal market.
Not every influencer in your niche will be a good fit. Social Blade allows you to check their analytics, be aware of sharp spikes and drops, indicating that they purchased followers-–their audience might be organic if they experience a gradual increase in or decrease in followers.
These are some factors to consider when looking for influencers to help you build your Instagram sales funnel.
Credibility
Credibility is an excellent characteristic of your sales funnel as it brings in high-quality leads. Social media authority figures are known as credible influencers. It is evident in the way they openly promote their products. Partnering with influencers who have a track record is a smart move. The public will trust an influencer with a track record of being a trustworthy seller.
Engagement
It makes sense to partner with influencers with a reasonable amount of engagement to increase your Instagram leads; it doesn’t mean you have to collaborate with celebrities. Micro-influencers are also possible. However, ensure enough attention in comments and likes, as this will translate into more traffic and click-throughs for your business.
Authenticity
Depending on your industry, you can create original content that will convince your ideal customers. Original content is a great way to promote your products and grow your audience. This content could include a giveaway or contest encouraging people to follow your account.
3. You can add user-generated content to your account.
User-generated content (UGC) is content that your target audience creates. You can find it in many formats, including text, images, video, and audio. These are reviews or testimonials from customers. Do you know how guest posts can help build a strong brand reputation? UGC content is a tool that enables you to convince people you are worth their time and encourages them to purchase from you. UGC can use this content to persuade customers about the benefits of your products while also allowing them to experience them. Customers who create this content do not receive payment for it. It will help customers convince others to use the product and thus increase your Instagram sales.
There are several ways you can gather UGC.
- Create a #hashtag trend to promote your campaign
- Ask your followers to create a survey or poll and get tags
- Get involved in a global trending cause that is relevant to your brand
- To sponsor a contest, you can collaborate with an influencer
As we’ve already mentioned, this is possible by partnering with relevant influencers with a relevant audience.
Here’s how makeup brand HUDAbeauty leverages UGC to promote their new lipstick–Perfectionist–for women with a darker skin tone.
It is acceptable to use video-based UGC on your site. It will help if you avoid mistakes with UGC, such as posting them without permission. You can also promote the content on Instagram and Facebook as ads to increase your organic reach.
Pro tip: You can increase reach with your stories by adding a hashtag to your Insta story. The hashtag should be relevant to your brand and niche audience to avoid looking tacky.
This hack will allow you to reach a wider audience through Explore and drive new leads up to the top of your Instagram sales funnel. To reduce competition, you should use niche hashtags that have fewer uses. Choose something between 50,000 and 500,000 services to stand out from the noise
4. Add Product Links to Instagram Stories
Instagram stories offer a common feature: links within stories. However, this feature is limited to pages that have over 10,000 followers. It creates urgency and is excellent for creating a sense of urgency. This feature is great for getting leads to your Instagram sales funnel. The regular Instagram stories are only available for 24 hours. Imagine running a sales campaign using your accounts to create urgency will increase sales and traffic to your online store.
How to add links to your stories
To add a link to your Instagram story, use the Link sticker. The sticker will redirect people who tap it.
- Upload or capture content for your story
- Choose the sticker tool from the top navigation bar
- Tap on the “Link” sticker and add the desired link.
- Tap on the sticker to view color variations.
How to get the most from your Story
Instagram Stories’ versatility is what people love the most. Stories are great for showing glimpses of your brand and personality. They are quick-paced and can be used to grab attention without affecting potential website traffic. You can also add stickers, gifs and tags to help attract attention to your products.
You have many options for stories to tell people to come to your online shop. It is essential to stay true to your brand and not be afraid to experiment with new ideas. Try something new to grab your audience’s attention; this is how some of the most memorable Instagram Stories come to play.
Here are some ideas for stories that promote products and online shops to get you started.
Showcase Products
Using Instagram Stories products is the best way to promote your online shop. Stories allow you to showcase your products in action or real-life situations.
Your viewers should be able to visualize themselves using your product.
To showcase it, it doesn’t necessarily have to be physical. For example, take an ebook. USER included descriptions of her ebooks in her Story and links to buy them. She then added the stories as highlights for future readers; this is great for incorporating quotes and excerpts from an ebook.
Instagram Stories is a great platform to showcase products and advertise new content. You can get preorders started with Instagram Stories’ fun features.
Advertise a Sales
Instagram Stories are great for promoting sales and promotions. Stories are about living in the moment because they disappear in 24 hours. You can utilize the desire for “right now, right now” momentum by promoting any short-term promotions here. Flash sales are an excellent way for your followers to grab their attention. They will also keep them hooked to your Story for future savings opportunities. Stories are a great place for creating seasonal and current content.
Enter a Contest or Give Away
In addition to sales and promotions, you can also run a giveaway or contest through Instagram Stories, which will attract your audience’s attention. Make sure to include the contest rules in a bright, interesting graphic. To get more attention to your brand and online store, you can make it a condition for entering that they share the graphic on their stories.
5. Add a CTA Button To Your Bio
Your Instagram bio is your shop’s entrance. To make an impression, you’ll need your best foot forward. You must have a catchy bio and a Call to Action (CTA), which directs customers to your online shop. Instagram already uses CTA buttons that are customized on business pages. Your CTA buttons should not stop there. To promote a new product or ongoing promo campaign, optimize your bio by using shortened CTA hyperlinks.
Here’s an excellent example of what we mean.
A CTA is added to your bio to increase your chances of promoting your brand and generating leads for your Instagram sales funnel. CTA is used to improve your email subscribers or integrate your Instagram marketing into your email marketing.
6. Make your personal Instagram account a business account.
A business Instagram account allows you to upgrade the features of your account, removes restrictions, and lets you position yourself as an Instagram seller. In addition, creating an Instagram business account will help you beat the Instagram algorithm. It will also give your business more visibility. You get access to Instagram insights and analytics, which allows you to track performance metrics that will keep you motivated. It also includes Instagram Highlights and a CTA Button to promote your brand and drive traffic towards your eCommerce store.
Only Instagram business pages can run ads. You link your business page with your Facebook page. To run ads and reach more people, you can use Facebook Business Manager.
An Instagram sales funnel is a great way to engage your customers and drive sales. Your target audience is potential buyers. Ensure you address all touchpoints to ensure no leaks in your sales funnel. Ensure you know your buyer personas so that your Instagram ads target them. Insights and Instagram analytics can help you identify areas for improvement and partner with the right influencers to spread the word about your brand. While some tactics, such as influencer marketing, will give you quicker results, others, like adding CTAs in your bio or adding links to stories, may take longer before you see the desired results.
Try as many strategies and combinations as possible. You’ll eventually find the right mix. Keep trying!