How To Sell Your Products On Instagram Without Ads

In this guide, How To Sell Your Products On Instagram you’re going to learn how to use Instagram™ to generate sales without spending a dime on ads. But before we get started, I’d like you to take a different perspective on Instagram™. And this perspective will help you use the platform with a mindset that will generate the results you need for your business.

 

The Instagram™ Opportunity

 

Whether you’re starting a business, or you have an established business, there is one simple fact that you must understand: the more traffic you send to your offer(s) – by offer I mean however you’re presenting whatever you’re selling – the more you can and will sell. It’s a very simple concept, but it often is lost in the chaos of the daily grind of being an entrepreneur.

 

Look at it this way… there are over 7 billion people in the world, and if just 1% of people bought your product, you would have 70 million customers. If 70 million customers bought your product for an average of $25 you would make over 1 billion dollars. But none of them can buy from you if they are never presented with the opportunity.

 

So what does this all have to do with Instagram™?

 

Here’s the thing, Instagram is not only one of the largest social platforms out there (over 1 billion monthly users), it’s also a unique platform in the sense that it is incredibly open, and companies have all the same functions as personal profiles.  

 

Let’s look at Facebook as an example of a massive social media platform that has more restrictions, to help illustrate the unique opportunity on Instagram. 

 

On Facebook, you have a profile that represents you as a person, and with that profile, you are limited to 5000 friends. With your personal profile you are held back when it comes to reaching a national and/or global audience. 

 

You can really only interact with the people that you are “friends with” and searching for targeted customers is pretty difficult. Facebook was designed to keep people in small circles, which has its benefits in some cases, but the restrictions on interactions can be a big downfall for growing a business and selling products.

 

If you want to act as a business on Facebook, you’ll be heavily restricted from interacting with people on the platform. You can’t just search out people and connect with them and build an audience (for the most part).

 

Quick disclaimer. There are some amazing opportunities you can leverage with a Facebook profile to grow your business and sell products, but it’s not really what Facebook was intended for. We do teach people how to use their Facebook profiles to generate sales through groups, events, and other opportunities on the platform however in this guide we’ll focus on Instagram.

 

On Instagram, you can create a profile for your business, and utilize all of the same functions as a personal profile (or use a personal profile to grow your business). You can search for people, or companies, by hashtag or location, and even through followers of other accounts. The platform is incredibly open and you can follow, like, and comment on any account, unless they are set to private, which just means they have to accept you as a follower first. 

 

So in short, this means you have open access to interact with billions of people, and there are very few restrictions getting in the way of you making your message known. At the end of the day, you just need to search out your target audience, and instantly you can be in contact. You can even send them private messages if you want to. It’s crazy how accessible everyone is on Instagram, and that’s what makes it unique. 

 

INSTAGRAM GIVES YOU IMMEDIATE ACCESS TO ALMOST ANYONE!!!!!!

 

If you really look into it, almost every other platform, besides Twitter™, has a ton of restrictions that prevent you from accessing your target audience. Instagram is a gold mine of potential customers just waiting to buy from you, you just need the knowledge and tools to dig in the right place. 

 

The problem with people’s perception

 

Here is the problem – most people view Instagram™ as a platform to gain followers, then sell to their followers. Everyone has been brainwashed by this idea that you need to get followers first, and eventually turn your followers into buyers. The other misnomer is that all you have to do is create content and post, and your audience will find you (more on that later).

 

Yes, it is true that having followers will help you make more sales, but you need to understand WHY that happens. Then you can understand how in the grand scheme of things, having followers is great, but not necessary to have success as a business. 

 

Remember above how we talked about traffic? The goal is to make people aware of you and your products – but here’s the thing… they’re typically not going to click to your website and buy from you, or apply to your high-ticket service, after your first interaction with them. You have to continue to stay in front of them with more exposure, and more points of contact.

 

There is a famous saying that “repetition is the mother of learning.”

I say that “repetition is the mother of sales.”

 

The more times someone sees, or hears your brand name, or your brand content, the more likely they are to buy from you. Even if they just see your name pop up in comments, etc.

 

Studies have shown that in cold calling – you need to call your prospect an average of 7 times before they even agree to hear you out and take your sales pitch.

 

Studies show that people need to see your brand an average of 7 – 10 times before they take action, like clicking to your website or actually buying from you. So that means you have to get in front of your target audience multiple times, consistently, to generate sales. 

 

So having a following is great because people are choosing or “opting-in” to receive more marketing content from you. And the more content they see from you – or interaction they have with you – the more likely they are to buy from you. Again it’s all about repeat encounters with your brand. And turning as many of those encounters into traffic as possible. 

 

So at the end of the day, followers are just seeing more content from you and that’s causing more buying activity. They are just having more encounters with your brand.

 

And so the narrative is created, “You need to have followers to make sales”

 

But that’s not the case.

 

Followers just see more of your content, which causes sales to happen.

 

So your goal should be to get people to see more of you, whether they follow you or not, and to incentivize them or give them a reason to visit your store. 

 

And since Instagram is an open platform, anyone in the world can do this.

 

So, how do you get people to see your content even if they don’t follow you? How can you stay top of mind with your target audience, without them having to follow you at all? 

 

And how can you make more sales and gain more followers all at the same time?

 

That’s exactly what we’ll cover in this guide. 

 

Instagram Checklist

 

Now that you understand the potential of organic Instagram marketing, we’re going to get into exactly how you can use Instagram to grow your business. Below is a checklist of everything you need to take from this guide to get the most out of your Instagram strategy:

 

Audience ✅

 

Audience needs to be top of mind at all times when it comes to marketing of any kind… And with the somewhat personal Instagram approach, you really have to have an idea of who your audience is before you jump into implementing any of the outreach strategies we teach in this guide. Otherwise you’ll be wasting a lot of the time that you’re spending on Instagram.  

 

Outreach ✅

 

Too much time is spent on content by the majority of people utilizing Instagram in an attempt to grow their followers and convert sales. In order to make an impact for your business day in and day out, interacting with potential customers needs to be at the forefront of your strategy. 

 

Profile ✅

 

To make the most out of the users you drive to your Instagram page, you have to maximize the potential to drive traffic by optimizing your profile to attract those users to click through to your website. 

 

Content ✅

 

While it is true that most people spend too much time on content, that’s not to say content is not important. You still want to be posting at least a few times a week, and you want to use your content to educate your audience, highlight your products and services, and inspire your audience to take action.

 

Offer ✅

 

Use your sales page for just that, selling. Do everything you can to turn your traffic into buyers, and focus your sales page on one objective: selling a specific product or service. The better your offer, and the better your sales page, the more you will get out of your Instagram strategy. 

 

The Bigger Picture

 

Before I jump into teaching you exactly how to utilize the features on Instagram to seek out and interact with potential customers, I want to make sure you understand the bigger picture. 

 

You need to know what your Instagram page is really helping you do, so that you can utilize Instagram correctly from day 1. 

 

In today’s online world, the idea is to create an ecosystem of offers (products and/or services) and drive traffic to those offers – in order to create new customers, and continually raise the lifetime value of those customers.

 

And Instagram is an amazing resource for driving traffic.

 

Whether you have an e-commerce store, courses, affiliate products, lead magnets capturing attention for your high-ticket services, or any number of other things to sell. 

 

If you’re not driving traffic to those offers, no one’s ever going to see them, which means no one is ever going to buy from you.

 

Note: You should be focusing on your best offer, your most popular product, or at least only a few of them… Because the better you can match your product to the audience that you’re showing it to, the easier it is to sell. And it’s harder to match an audience to a multitude of products, than it is to focus on one. 

 

This is often talked about and referred to as “niching down”. And niching down is very beneficial to an organic Instagram strategy, especially early on in the life of a business/account.

 

So how can you utilize Instagram, even with little to no followers, to drive traffic to your offers?

 

It all comes down to AUDIENCE.

 

In order to drive the right traffic to your offers and create customers immediately, you have to know exactly who your target audience is. Who is the group of people that would be interested in purchasing your products/services? How can we define them? What are they interested in? What content do they interact with? What other products are they showing interest in? What tools and search terms can we use on Instagram to find them?

 

Audience – Customer Profiling

 

I’m going to say it again…

 

Audience is EVERYTHING when it comes to your Instagram strategy. 

 

Since Instagram is an open platform, as we touched on earlier, you have incredible access to specific people all over the world. 

 

And we’re going to tell you exactly how you can use the Instagram search feature to find those high-intent potential customers in order to increase traffic to your website, create customers, grow your following, and improve your business. 

 

But, before you go out on Instagram and start the process of gaining customers, you need to know exactly who your potential customers are, what they like, how they talk, and everything you can possibly know about their buying habits. 

 

A lack of understanding about the potential customer profile is what causes people to fail more than anything else. The reason is, they end up working really hard to get their message out to the wrong people. And the wrong people won’t buy from you.

 

So much of your social media marketing success will come from doing your research and understanding your customer before you start marketing, or at least early on in the process. So here are some things you should know before you start using Instagram to find and sell to your potential customers. 

 

Who are they?

 

After working with our client 3bar olives, who’s target customer is anyone who likes drinking dirty martinis, we were able to help them get clarity on their ideal customer. What we found is that most dirty martini drinkers are very enthusiastic about cocktails in general, and that they’re firm in their stance on a nice strong dirty martini. But we also learned a few other things.  

 

We found that dirty martini drinkers are usually 50 and older, and have disposable income to spend on a variety of products that would make their martini better. Many of these customers have at home bars, they continually try new products like new olives and olive juices, and they are constantly seeking the perfect martini. 

We also found martini enthusiasts typically drink more than the average person, so jokes about drinking too much and being hungover were very popular with that crowd. And since they are heavy drinkers, and they drink “dirty martinis”, jokes that played on the word “dirty” also captivated the audience. 

 

Knowing all of this about the dirty martini lover (the target audience of 3bar olives), we were able to help them develop a strategy to get in front of their ideal customers by using terms and  search tactics specifically related to them.

 

Critical thinking 

 

You must paint a very clear picture of your target audience. So you need to take the time to think about, even write down everything you know about your current customers, and/or your potential customers. Here are some questions you need to answer.

 

Who are they? What age are they? What products do they buy besides yours? What hobbies do they have? What content do they like and interact with? What do they talk about? What type of people do they hang out with? Why would they buy your products? What problem do your products solve for your audience?

 

You obviously won’t know the answers to all of these questions right off the bat… but you need to start somewhere. Start with asking yourself why someone would buy your product, and what problem you’re solving for your customers. Then expand from there.

 

After you’ve answered these questions yourself, continue to dig deeper and do as much research here as possible, because it is so important. Ask friends, ask your family, and ask as many potential customers for their input on your product and similar products they might use. This information could be a game changer and really be the key to unlocking your success in marketing online via social media and any other outlets. 

 

Then, finally, you need to understand what type of language your potential customers use, so that you can effectively communicate with them over social media. And that leads us to terms…

 

Terms

 

One of the most important things you need to know about your potential customers is the key terms that they use to describe the things in their lives that are related to your products or services. Let’s use my client 3barolives as an example again.

 

3bar olives sells olives and olive juice for dirty martinis. Their target market is dirty martini lovers so naturally their potential customers are using the terms…

 

Dirty Martini, Martini, Olives, Olive Juice, Olive Brine, Vodka, Gin, etc. 

 

But what we found after researching the target market is that many dirty martini lovers also love…

 

Stuffed olives of various types, like blue cheese stuffed olives, almonds stuffed olives, garlic stuffed olives, pickled stuffed olives, and anchovy stuffed olives. They also have other terms like filthy martini, salty martini, vodka martini, gin martini, and more. 

 

Dirty martini lovers also love martini glasses, martini picks for garnishes, martini shakers, cocktail napkins and the list keeps on going. 

 

The point is, we found a way to reach the ideal customer for 3bar olives through a number of different search terms, both direct and indirect. So as you continue to learn more about your audience, and you figure out what terms they are using, the easier it is to reach your target audience and expand your pool of potential customers. Plus, not only is it easier to find potential customers, but it’s easier to interact and connect with them.

 

A quick example. 

 

If you search the term “blue cheese olives” on any social media network, you’ll find dirty martinis. So that’s a great example of an indirect term that helps you discover your core audience…

 

Outreach – Utilizing Instagram Search

 

Hashtag Searching 

 

Now that you know and understand your potential customers, or your “audience”, it’s time to find them so you can interact with them and turn them into loyal customers. The first step to finding your ideal customers on Instagram is to use the search feature (little magnifying glass icon). In the search bar, type in a term that your ideal audience would use, and we can start with the hashtag feature.

 

If you can find a few relevant terms to your business, Instagram does a pretty good job of suggesting related terms to investigate as well. For this exercise we’re going to focus on the hashtag #dirtymartini. 

 

Once you click on the hashtag dirty martini you’ll have a few options. 

 

First, you can actually follow the hashtag. When you follow a hashtag, that means the content of that hashtag will show up in your Instagram feed so you don’t always have to go search out the hashtag and you can see new content pop up regularly. This is a great way to keep tabs on a popular hashtag that’s being used by your target audience. 

 

Second, you’ll notice related accounts and related hashtags, which are great to check out later on and they are great for research and uncovering new opportunities, but for now we’ll skip over those. 

 

Third, you’ll notice the posts that are using the hashtag that you searched. When I search #dirtymartini, I see that there are two options right above the pictures. The first option is “Top” which is the most popular pictures using the #dirtymartini hashtag. The second option is “Recent” which the most recent pictures using the hashtag #ditymartini. 

 

Because the goal is to get attention, you’ll want to focus your efforts on the pictures under the “recent” tab. Here you’ll find pictures from people that have a very low following, and you’ll notice that they get very little likes and/or comments on their posts as well. 

 

These are the perfect people to interact with because they will see your comments, likes, and follows when you interact with their accounts. 

When you interact with large accounts, they will rarely see your comments because there is so much activity on their account. Unfortunately the majority of the time you will get lost in the notifications. 

 

So, targeting the most recent posts is a great way to find individuals that you know will see the activity from your account.

 

Pro Tip: Make sure to look at the accounts that are posting using this hashtag. Many accounts will post something with a hashtag just for views and you might notice that their account isn’t really in your target audience, they just posted about something in relation to your products once. For instance, competing businesses to yourself might be posting using those hashtags.

 

As another example, in the #dirtymartini hashtag we’ve found a picture of a dirty martini. When we click into the account, we see that it’s all about travel and cool destinations. The account just happened to post a dirty martini to make one of their travel destinations look cool. 

 

This isn’t really an account that would be a good customer. It’s clear the account is trying to grow in the travel niche, and there is no real indication that they are a martini drinker besides that one post. And even though they posted a martini, they might not even drink them, they are just pandering to a luxury travel audience. 

 

You want to find accounts that look like real people, posting about their real lives. Those are the people who will actually become customers. 

 

And looking at an account can give you a great idea of where that person is located. Many dirty martini drinkers are spread across the world, and 3bar olives only sell their products within the United States, so there is no sense interacting with accounts outside of the US. 

 

Most Instagram accounts will have their country location within their bio, and many people use location tags as well. In most cases, you’ll be able to tell if the potential customer is located in a different country just by quickly viewing their account and content. 

 

Time Management

 

Pick 5 hashtags to start with, and make sure to follow all of the hashtags so they stay in your feed, that way you can see when relevant posts pop up. Make a list of these hashtags somewhere, like in a spreadsheet or a notepad on your computer. 

 

After searching these hashtags enough times instagram will keep these saved as the top results in your search for a while. Before you go out and try conquering 1000 hashtags, make sure you master 5 first. 

 

In a later section, we’ll go over the engagement strategy, but for now, you just need to know how to search, and what to look for in accounts. Just FYI, it’s really important that you actually take the time to look at the accounts and the content that they post. 

 

Location Searching 

 

Under the search feature, you’ll notice there is an option to search locations. Location search is an extremely powerful way for someone to find local customers, however, if you have a product that sells online to a national audience, you can take advantage of location search as well. Let’s take a look at how you can find your ideal customers with location search, and why it’s important.

 

Searching locations on Instagram is known as “Places” and you can find locations by heading to your search bar and typing in a keyword for a location you’re interested in. Then simply select a place from the search options.

 

Once you have entered a keyword or name to search, you will see that multiple locations are now showing in the search results. And the locations are mostly nearby if you allow Instagram to access your phone’s GPS signal. So just using the keyword “gym” , let’s say, is going to populate locations near me that use the keyword gym in their title. 

 

If you want to get more targeted, you can actually search for a specific gym like LA Fitness, or Gold Gym. These chains have multiple locations so you can search out LA Fitness in New York, or LA Fitness Minnesota.

 

If you own a local business, you’ll want to search out locations in your area, and if you sell a product nationally or internationally, you can search out locations all over the country or globe. 

 

This feature is very similar to searching a hashtag. The photos that are tagged at those locations are from people who have actually visited that location and there are two categories, “Top” and “Recent” just like in hashtags. 

 

So why is it important to search by location?

 

Locations are a great indication of someone who falls within your target audience. In order to be as clear as I can, I’m going to continue with my “gym” search example. Also because gyms attract people that buy all sorts of products and services. Let’s look at some examples.

 

1. If you’re a local cafe that serves up healthy foods, your ideal customer most likely goes to a gym near yours and you can access them by searching out gyms in your areas and interacting with the content in those feeds. 
2. If you sell gym products online, like exercise bands, jump ropes, workout programs, protein powders etc, then finding gyms across the country and interacting with the content tagged in their locations is a great way to get in front of your target audience. 
3. If you sell apparel, water bottles, watches, bathing suits, sports equipment and the list goes on, then targeting gym locations on Instagram is a great idea.

 

For location targeting to work the best for your individual product or service, you must find locations with high traffic volume and locations that people enjoy posting from. The gym is a great location to target because people love posting pictures at the gym and tagging the location. And tons of people go to the gym every single day!

 

Other high traffic location ideas.

 

• Dog parks
• Cafes
• Restaurants
• Bars
• Cities
• Office Buildings
• Companies
• Co-working spaces
• Coffee Shops
• Car Dealerships
• Activity Centers
• Churches
• Community Centers
• Bowling Alleys
• Paintball Courses
• Apple Picking Farms
• Museums
• Concert Halls

 

People love showing off their experiences so get creative in finding out which experiences your ideal audience likes to have, and then search for locations on Instagram that offer those experiences. 

 

More ideas.

 

For 3bar olives, the target locations are clearly bars, restaurants, and hotel bars. 

 

For another account that we used to run called Jesus Influcers (over 150k followers) we would target churches and christian organizations. 

 

Again, you must consider who your ideal customer is and figure out what they like to do and where they will be. Then you can easily search out those locations on Instagram and start getting in front of them.

 

Location or places search is one of my favorite ways to get in front of the right customer because their actions are so telling. And the locations they choose say a lot about their personality and the things that they like. 

 

One more example.

 

Fashion / lifestyle / food bloggers love to try out new restaurants and cafes just so they can post good content for their audiences. As a fashion brand I would look up all the popular food spots across the country to find these people. Or as a new cafe that just opened up I would use the same strategy except keep it local and I guarantee a local blogger would come try the food just to post about it. 

 

Utilizing Competitors/Large Accounts

 

Another way to find your ideal customer on Instagram is to find your competitor accounts, celebrity accounts, and/or large influencer accounts, and then interact with your potential customers that follow and engage with them. 

 

This is a little bit more complex, a little more time consuming, and a little less targeted in some instances, but it can be very effective to say the least. It can also be the easiest way to get started! And in the upcoming section on engagement strategy, you’ll see how targeting competitor accounts and celebrity accounts can drive volumes of traffic with the right strategy. Let’s start with finding competitor accounts / influencer and celebrity accounts. 

 

The first step is to research the competitor, or the celebrity/influencer that you are going to target. You’ll want to find people that have a following that fits your ideal customer profile. In the following example we’ll look at Joe Rogan’s account.

 

When I search for Joe Rogan, and then click on his account, I can see that to the right of the “Follow” and “Message” buttons, there is a drop down arrow that I can click.

 

Once you click that button, Instagram will suggest similar accounts, which can help you in your search for new accounts to target. 

 

If you click on the follower count at the top, you see a list of all of Joe Rogan’s followers, and you can go through that list to find the best prospects for your business. 

 

Another great way to find highly engaged followers is to look for people who liked Joe’s posts and or commented on Joe’s posts. 

 

The truth is, the best way to utilize large accounts is to find ones that might be considered your competition. Find accounts that are selling the same type of products and/or services that you sell. Once you’ve identified a few “competitor accounts”, look for their posts about those similar products/offers. And then look for the people that are positively engaging with those posts, that seem interested in the highlighted product. 

 

By interacting with engaged followers you increase the chances of gaining highly engaged followers and customers yourself.

 

In the engagement strategy section of this guide we’ll discuss in detail the negatives and positives of interacting with large accounts vs small targeted accounts. But regardless of the size of the following the competitor, influencer or celebrity has, the process of reaching their followers and engaged followers is the same.

 

Outreach – Engagement Strategy

 

Now that you know how to find your ideal customers through searching on Instagram, it’s time to develop an engagement strategy that is going to get you noticed, and help you drive more traffic to your profile and website so you can make sales. 

 

Once you have made your way to a list of comments, likes, or set of pictures for a given hashtag, as mentioned above, it’s time to start engaging with the accounts in order to gain recognition. 

 

Whenever we see a picture that seems to fit our customer profile, we first click to their profile, and make sure that the customer is actually a good fit for our products or services. And we do that by determining if they are in a location that we can service, and if their account seems to be real and authentic. Once they pass the “vibe” check as we call it, we begin the process of engagement.

 

3-Step Engagement System

 

1. Like the photo that is most relevant to your product or service.

 

1. Comment on the photo that is most relevant to your product or service. And this is important, leave a genuine comment that relates to the post. The more real your comment is, the better results you’ll get. To really have an impact you can even ask a thoughtful question about the post itself.

 

1. Follow the account if they seem to fit your ideal customer profile

 

Here’s a little extra tip that really helps increase awareness. Like the last 3 most recent posts. This will help send a little notification storm to the user and you’re guaranteed to gain attention.

 

Important concepts to know about engagement.

 

We need to clarify a few things in the engagement strategy. When it comes to engaging with accounts that have less than 50,000 followers, this strategy above works wonders. Accounts with under 50,000 followers actually pay attention to their likes and comments and followers and that means you have the chance of getting noticed. In fact, the less followers that an account has the more likely they are to notice your comments, likes and follow. And the more people that notice your likes, comments and follow – the more potential you have to drive traffic.

 

So I would highly recommend engaging with accounts that have a low amount of followers so that you have a better chance of grabbing their attention.

 

You can also like comments or respond to comments left by other people. I find that smaller accounts tend to hold more trust with their followers and joining smaller conversations in the comment section can be hugely beneficial. 

 

Let me use 3bar olives as an example again. One time we had the 3bar olives page like everyones comment on a post we found off of a location search, of a group of friends at dinner drinking dirty martinis.

 

We also responded to multiple people within this post especially those who seemed to have the best customer profiles. 

 

Out of just one small post we were able to gain the attention of the creator of the post and many of their friends who joined in on the conversation. We turned one small post into attention from 7 different targeted individuals all in just a few seconds of time. 

 

And I know that each one of those people eventually followed the 3bar olives accounts as well as one verified purchase directly from this post. 

 

Rinse and repeat! 

 

Engaging with large accounts is a bit different because you should never really be trying to get the attention of a large account, you should be trying to get the attention of their followers. Similar to the way we were able to get attention from someone else’s followers in the example above. 

 

Side note: If you are trying to get attention from a large account, you have to engage with them A LOT, basically like and comment on their photos all of the time. Even with a consistent approach, you’ll have to get lucky, or get really creative!

 

Large account engagement strategy

 

To return to another previous example, when you look at Joe Rogan’s account, you’ll notice that he has over 5000 comments on one post. This is an opportunity to read through the comments and find interesting people to interact with. 

 

After checking out their profiles and determining that they are indeed a good fit for your products and services, you can begin engaging with them by liking and responding to their comments. Of course they will get notifications of your activity so at the very least, you’ll gain the attention of the individuals you’re interacting with. 

 

Now with large accounts, tons of other people read the comment sections, so think of this as a public forum that 1000’s of people are reading. You want to insert yourself into the conversation and make yourself stand out so that other people enjoy your comments. When you do this correctly, you’ll not only gain the attention of the people you are commenting to, you’ll have the opportunity to gain the attention of thousands of other people as well. 

 

There are many “professional commenters” who have gained hundreds of thousands of followers because they are so good at leaving funny or interesting comments. All they do is find really popular accounts that already have attention, and they steal the attention in the comments section. 

 

Some of the Kardashians posts have millions of comments, and the viewership on the comment section alone is in the millions as well. If you made the right comment on a Kardashian’s post, you might drive an incredible amount of traffic back to your profile and generate sales. 

 

When it comes to engaging with large accounts, it’s important to remember that your goal should be to gain the attention of people who are interacting with that post, not the person who posted the content. 

 

Side effects of engagement.

 

When you go out and thoughtfully engage with content on Instagram, CONSISTENTLY, you will be handsomely rewarded. Here are some of the effects. 

 

• People will click back to your profile and click your links
• People will comment and like your content
• People will follow your account
• People will start buying your products and services
• Instagram sees you as an active account and starts recommending you
• This leads to more followers
• More followers leads to more sales

 

And the cycle continues and compounds and compounds until you’re growing and growing and making more and more sales every single day. 

 

Instagram and other social media accounts love consistent activity, so make sure that you execute your engagement strategy for at least 1-hour a day during the work week. And later on we’ll give you some more specifics about the 1-hour a day strategy. 

 

Outreach – Follow Your Way To Sales

 

Here is one of the biggest secrets to Instagram that nobody will tell you. It’s much better to follow a ton of people, then it is to have a ton of people follow you – especially when you’re starting out and especially if you have less than 50,000 followers. 

 

Here’s why.

 

Through all the search features that we listed above, you’re going to find amazing people that would be great customers for you.

 

Remember how awareness is the key to your growth? And remember when I told you that “repetition is the mother of sales?” 

 

Well, when you follow your ideal customers, you get to keep tabs on them and continually like and comment on their content as time moves on. 

So think of it this way, you are creating a hyper-curated Instagram feed of your ideal customers and that is right there for you to engage with every single day. 

 

All you have to do is scroll your feed and like and comment on every post you see, and you know you’ll be gaining the attention of your ideal customer. On repeat. 

 

The more times your ideal customer sees your likes and comments, the more likely they are to buy from you. So at the end of the day, it’s much better to follow your ideal customers so that you control their attention, when you want to.

 

Continued engagement

 

Once you do this, and you follow thousands of people and you’re liking and commenting on all the posts in your feed, every single day, you will start generating sales like crazy. It almost feels magical. And as you do it more and more, consistently over time – your activity begins to snowball and all good things happen. 

 

• You make more sales.
• You grow your account
• And everyone asks how you do it. 

 

And to tell you the truth, Instagram marketing becomes easy because you’re always gaining the attention of the right people. You can literally do this while you are on the couch watching a movie, or waiting at the dentist, or inline for lunch. You can do it anywhere anytime and know with 100% certainly that every like and comment you make brings you closer to making another sale. 

 

Profile – Profile Optimization

 

A simple but often overlooked piece of instagram is the optimization of one’s profile. As we all know, there are a few key things that we can do to make our profiles stand out. Such as the profile picture, the actual name you choose, the Instagram handle, the biography section, and the website link. And all of these things are accessible whether you choose to create a business profile or a personal profile on Instagram. Let’s take a look at all of these things to make sure you’re set up for success.

 

The profile image.

 

Your profile image really depends on the type of business you have and how you want to be represented to your target audience. Some businesses are service based, some are product based and some are a combination of personal brand and product or service. For example, you as a person might be the highlight of your business. In which case your profile picture should be a picture of you in relation to the products or services that you sell. For example, if you own a nail polish company, your profile picture might be you sporting some fancy nails.  

 

On the other hand, you might be trying to keep your personal life and business completely separate, in which case you might use a logo or picture to represent your business. For example, if you own a nail polish company, you might use a picture of nails being painted or a logo that says your company name.

 

 

Here are a few things to keep in mind. 

 

1. Your profile image should describe your product or service. It should communicate the theme of your products through the imagery. People should be able to look at your profile image and instantly know what you’re about. It doesn’t matter if you’re using a logo or picture, when people see the image they need to know what it represents.
2. Your profile image will attract more people if a face or person is represented in the image. For example a woman holding her nails out in a picture (face included) will attract more people on instagram vs just a picture of a hand or a logo of a hand with painted nails.
3. Be mindful of the colors you use in your profile image. Isolating one or two colors in your profile image will help it stand out.

 

Account handle and name

 

On Instagram, there are two names you must choose. You must choose the account name which is the @ followed by the name you choose. But you must also pick a name that is associated with the account name. For example my personal instagram account is @quintinford_ and my name is Quintin Ford. For a brand your account name might be @good_nails and your associated name might be Good Nail Company.

 

Selecting names

 

Selecting an account name is pretty straight forward but there are some things to consider before you choose your name. 

 

Search keywords

 

Some of the best Instagram names are things that are searchable according to the product or service you are providing. For example, Wendy’s Nail Salon would be something that might show up when people search “nail salon” so this account would get the benefit of free organic search traffic on Instagram. 

 

However, if the account name was Wendy’s Beauty, the account will most likely not show up for any nail salon related searches simply because the word nail salon is not in the username. Not to mention Instagram is searchable through Google and other search engines as well, so having a name with popular search terms incorporated will help you gain free traffic.

 

It’s obviously not required that you create a name with a search friendly term, and many brands and companies do not have a search friendly name. However, you will put yourself in a much better position for free traffic if you choose a search friendly name. 

 

Visual clarity

 

Another thing to consider with your Instagram handle and name, is how your name appears on instagram in comments, likes, and messages. For example, if Wendy’s Nail Salon likes a picture of yours, you’ll know exactly what the account is about immediately. That sort of recognition is important on Instagram because you have a very limited amount of time to make an impression on views who are quickly consuming information in the feed and elsewhere. 

 

Ideally your Instagram handle and your instagram name are not only representative of your brand or company, but are also common terms that people are searching for all while communicating the purpose of your company at the same time.

 

Biography

 

In the bio section of instagram you really have the chance to shine. Here’s where you can describe your business with your main selling point, and then add a link to your website so people can actually click through and make purchases from you. Here is something to consider in the bio section. 

 

People love to fill their bios with distracting information. Your bio should NOT be distracting, it should be very straight forward and it should aim to get people to take ONE action. 

 

You want people to click through to your website and that’s it!

 

So many times I’ll see people over complicate the bio section by adding other Instagram handles and hashtags and things that distract your potential customers from getting to your website.

 

Here’s an example of a distracting bio section:

 

Violin House

Personal account @voilin_lover

#violins #loveviolins

Violin lessons for elementary school students and up. 

Email us at violin@google.com

www.violinlessons.com

 

As you can see there is way too much going on in this bio and there are multiple things to click besides the website. The last thing you want to do is send people away from your instagram account to an area where they can not buy from you! When you add hashtags and other accounts to your bio section, you’re just directing people away from a sale. 

 

Here is an example great bio:

 

Violin House

Rated the best violin lessons for elementary school kids and older. 

Book a lesson today at…

www.violinlessons.com

 

As you notice in this bio section, there is only one possible action to take, and that’s clicking on the website to book a lesson. Everything in the bio is directing the user to go to the website to book a lesson. This is what is known as a CALL TO ACTION. 

 

In your bio section you need to have a call to action to let people know what your product is and how they can buy it from you. 

 

Keep in mind that bio sections are also searchable through Google, so adding good keywords in your bio is a great way to take advantage of organic search as well. 

 

Website

 

When you add a website to your instagram bio, I highly recommend that you use the actual name of your website. A lot of people will add trackable “short links” in their bios that look really funny. Usually these links look really suspicious and reduce the CTR (click through rate). They might look something like this https://bit.ly/485jdjd85  – NOT GOOD!

 

To increase consumer confidence, use your real URL (ex: commandtraffic.com) and then track click throughs to your website with the Instagram analytics tool (on business accounts) as well as your Google Analytics dashboard. Many web builders like Shopify also have analytics that will provide you with traffic sources as well. 

 

Pro-Tip: As I mentioned earlier, you can better take advantage of the traffic you drive to your website if you focus on a specific product or service and find the perfect audience for that offer. 

 

Content – Content Strategy

 

Here’s the best part. With our engagement strategy you barely need to produce any content of your own. In fact, it’s the least important part of our strategy. But, if you have a good content strategy in place you’ll get even better results. 

 

So here’s what we recommend. 

 

Post to your feed/reels 3 to 7 times a week. 

 

If you want you can do more, many people post 3 times a day but it’s really not necessary. 

 

Post at least two stories a day.

 

And that’s really it.

 

Now, you can always post more content, you can go live, you can post to IGTV, you can post videos, you can take polls, you can do a lot of content production but… what we see is too many people focus on putting out content and not engaging with other people’s content.

 

So don’t get sucked in by “the shiny object syndrome.” It’s easy to want to do what everyone else does and just post all day long, but that doesn’t really attract your ideal customer.

 

What you want to do is attract your ideal customers to your profile with your engagement outreach strategy, and then have those people come see your content and engage with it. And your followers will be reminded of you and your brand everytime you post so you do want to keep a good consistent posting schedule. 

 

Basically just post fun, interesting content, consistently, and you’ll be good to go!

 

If you are highlighting your products, educating your audience on something from your area of expertise, and/or inspiring your audience to take action and buy from you, then you are doing a great job with your content strategy. 

 

Pro Tip: Creating content that is relatable to your ideal customer is the best thing you can do. So always be on the lookout for jokes or memes, or content that your audience will love, and maybe even share with their friends. You can take those ideas and make them your own.

 

If you’re having trouble creating high quality content i.e. designing graphics or creating cool videos, or even writing captions…Check out these 3 amazing tools. 

 

• Jasper – Write Content In Seconds With AI.

This tool is incredible. It allows you to create unique blog posts, social media posts, salees pages, headlines, and so much more within just a few seconds. It’s probably the most amazing social media tool we’ve come across in 10  years. Click here to learn  more about how Jasper can help you with all of your marketing writing. 

 

• ClickDesigns – Create Amazing Graphics & Designs For Websites, Blogs & Sales Funnels In Minutes ​WITHOUT Any Design Skills!

• Viddyoze – The World’s Easiest Full-Auto Video Animation Software Perfect For ​YouTube And Social Media Posts

 

Content – Using Hashtags

 

Since you’ve already done your research and you know what terms your audience uses, you should make a list of 10 – 15 hashtags that you can use in each of your posts. 

 

Always add a few extra hashtags that are relevant to your brand/products just to gain the attention of more people while differentiating your hashtags from post to post. 

 

I’m going to continue with a 3bar olives example to explain why picking the right hashtags is important. 

 

When I search the hashtag #vodkamartini I can see that it has 46.4k posts which means it’s a relatively popular hashtag. Since there are a lot of people using this hashtag, that means there are a ton of people who are searching for this hashtag too. And when you search for a hashtag, you’ll see the most popular posts labeled “top” and you’ll see the most recent posts labeled “recent” as mentioned above. 

 

Most people searching hashtags are going to look at the most popular page or the “top” section. And the only way your post can make it into that “top” category is if it has a ton of likes and comments. So, popular accounts tend to dominate the hashtag search results because popular accounts get more engagement on their posts. 

 

That being said, even if you don’t have a very popular account, you can still show up on the popular or “top” category for a hashtag, if that hashtag is relatively unpopular. 

 

For example, 3bar olives would have a better chance of showing up in the popular posts for the #ditymartinis (24.k posts) than they would for the #vodka (9million posts). 

 

By picking smaller hashtags, you’re choosing to compete with less people, which may get your account more visibility to a smaller crowd. 

 

By choosing to use very large hashtags, you’re competing with a larger number of people. This might get you in front of more eyeballs, if you can get any visibility at all. There’s always a chance that you can get a ton of traffic from big hashtags, so it’s always worth using some of them. 

 

So here’s what we recommend. 

 

When doing your hashtag research you want to pick out 5 of the most relevant hashtags, regardless of the competition. You need to declare yourself in your niche and this is how you do it. 

 

Then you want to pick 5 relevant hashtags that are very popular, and 5 hashtags that are not as popular, under 100k posts or under 50k posts. 

 

This should leave you with 15 trusted hashtags that you can use on all of your posts. Save these in a notepad on your phone or somewhere easily accessible. 

 

And since Instagram likes to see you change up your hashtags a bit, we recommend that you add at least 5 more hashtags (per post) that fit the content of your post. 

 

These could be things like #weekend #friday #lovethis #freinds etc. 

 

The easiest way to go about this is to use hashtags that describe some element of the post and don’t worry too much about the size or the hashtag on these last five. 

 

With this hashtag strategy, your content will be getting discovered and liked by new people every single day, and this will add to your growth and sales. 

 

The 1-Hour A Day System

 

The 1 Hour A Day System is designed to give you an easy-to-follow game plan, to help you have success with Instagram without feeling overwhelmed.

 

1. Search out one hashtag with plenty of posts in the “recent” tab and like, comment and follow all of the posts and accounts that fit your ideal customer profile. Do this for 15 minutes. 
2. Search out one or more locations with plenty of posts in the “recent” tab and like, comment and follow all of the posts and accounts that fit your ideal customer profile. Do this for 15 minutes. 
3. Search out one or more celebrities, competitors, or influencers, find your ideal customers in their followings, comment sections, and posts. Like and interact with these accounts for another 15 minutes.
4. Spend 10 minutes a day creating or preparing content to be posted on your feed and stories – and schedule out your posts over the week. This way every week you know how much you’ll post, and when you’ll be posting.
5. Spend 5 minutes a day replying to comments from your followers and interaction from other posts. 

 

This is the easiest way to get results, however if you do more activity everyday, you’ll increase your results. Just keep in mind that consistency is better than anything else so only do 2 hours a day or 3 hours a day if you can maintain it all week long. As soon as you start doing random bursts of activity on random days, you’ll begin to lose momentum and results.

Offer – Convert Your Traffic

 

I’ve touched on it a few times throughout this guide, but in order to take full advantage of the strategies we’ve discussed here, and in the 1-hour per day that you will be spending on Instagram, you have to be set up to convert the traffic you drive to your page into sales…

 

The easiest way to convert sales from your Instagram traffic is to drive it to a sales page with an offer focused on 1 single product and/or service. 

 

Now, you can send to an e-commerce store with multiple products, and still have some success. 

 

But the data proves that the less options you give someone, and the less clicks you require to complete a purchase, the more likely you are to convert buyers on your website. 

 

So, 1 sales page focusing on 1 product, with one checkout page (2 clicks and the purchase is complete), the better your conversion rates will be. 

 

Not to mention, it’s going to be easier to focus on the perfect audience for a single offer, than it will be to find the right audience for multiple different products. Especially when it comes to utilizing competitor accounts, and posts about specific products. You can easily find users interested in specific products, and if that remains your focus throughout your strategy, you will get the most out of every minute you spend on Instagram. 

 

There are a number of resources that can help you improve your sales page for higher conversions. But keep in mind the 5 keys to a high-converting sales page:

 

1. Make it clear who exactly your product/service is for early on in the sales page so that when a potential customer reaches your page, they stick around to read it
2. Clarify exactly how your product/service provides a solution to a major problem that your audience faces
3. Build up the perceived price of your product by stating all of the value you are providing with your product/service, and include free-giveaways to help increase the perceived value even more.
4. Quiet the nerves of the buyer with proof. Proof that you are who you say you are, proof that your product/service is real, and proof that it will provide the solution you claim it will. History of your results, statistics providing context for your claims, and reviews.
5. Make your call-to-action to buy very clear. Big colorful “buy now” buttons are great. 

 

A few more things that you should keep in mind while your constructing your sales page:

 

Design matters. Keep it simple and clean. Make sure it looks good on mobile, and do your best to tie your Instagram page into the design. Using comments and reviews from your Instagram comments and messages is a great way to tie the Instagram page in. 

 

A biography section can go a long way towards building trust with the people visiting your page. Especially if you’re a service provider such as a consultant or coach. For e-commerce shops it can still be powerful, whether it’s a personal bio or a company bio. 

 

Go above and beyond when highlighting the features and benefits of your products. Don’t just state the obvious like “we sell cool t-shirts”. Really dive into everything that makes your product different, what makes it better, and all the ways those differences are beneficial to the buyer. 

 

Instagram Paid Advertising

 

Now that we’ve covered the organic marketing opportunity that Instagram presents- aka without ads – it’s time to take a quick look at the “other side”.

 

A complete marketing plan for any business should include both organic and paid techniques to maximize traffic and sales. 

 

But, there’s a few things you need to know before jumping into Instagram Ads in order to give yourself the best chance at success, and to avoid wasting money on paid strategies. 

 

It’s important to note that we’re only going to cover the tip of the iceberg here, so if you want more information on advertising please email quintin@commandtrraffic.com

 

Boosting Posts Vs. Conversion Campaigns

 

If you have a business account on Instagram and you’ve posted content on it, you’ve probably noticed that Instagram gives you the option  to “boost” your posts. 

 

Maybe you have even paid to boost one or several of your posts in the past.

 

And you’ve been left wondering if paid ads are worth it, because you’ve never seen it result in any sales…

 

In order to reach your goals with paid ads, you have to understand the fundamental difference between boosting posts and other options for paid ad campaigns on Facebook™ and Instagram™. 

 

Post boosting was NOT designed to drive traffic and find conversions for your website/online store. So if you’re boosting posts in the hope to drive people to your store and get sales, you’re wasting your budget. 

 

The boosting tool was actually designed as a “page growth” tool – meaning the algorithm is going to attempt to find you followers and engagers for your Instagram page. And in order to find people likely to follow you and engage with your content, the algorithm is going to target an audience that “looks like” your current followers and/or engagers. 

This is very different from the algorithm helping you find BUYERS for your business (which it can do!). 

 

So, when should you be paying to “boost” your posts?

 

You should only boost posts with the goal in mind to grow your follower count on your Instagram page.

 

AND, you should only start boosting your posts after you’ve already garnered a small following of a very targeted audience, using the techniques from this guide. That way, the money you spend on boosting your posts will give you a better chance at garnering targeted followers that might one day be customers. 

 

Don’t expect to see an immediate return on budget you put toward boosting, as it will rarely result in immediate sales. 

 

What are conversion campaigns?

 

Now, as mentioned above, there is a way to have the algorithm help you find buyers, and to get an immediate return on your paid ads. 

 

When you create campaigns through the Facebook Ads manager, you can select conversions as your objective, and purchases as your website objective. All you have to do to be able to properly run conversion campaigns is install the Facebook pixel on your site, and set up purchases as an event. 

When you’ve properly set up a conversion campaign, you’re telling the Facebook™ and Instagram™ algorithm that your goal is to have people buy from your website…

 

And the best part is, it doesn’t matter how many followers your page has, or who is following and engaging with your page. 

 

You can choose from a huge list of interest and demographic options to narrow down the targeting for your ads to help the algorithm get started on the right foot. 

 

But as your ads start to convert sales, you can give more and more freedom to the algorithm so it can find you more buyers while you sit back and watch the sales roll in!

 

Conclusion

 

Instagram™ presents an amazing opportunity to build a targeted following around your brand and garner interest for your products. 

 

With minimal content, and consistent engagement with targeted users, you can turn every day Instagram™ users into customers for your business, day after day. 

 

After reading this guide here’s what some of your biggest takeaways should be. 

 

1. Instagram™ is one of the greatest social media networks for sales.
2. Instagram™ allows you to connect with your ideal customers instantly.
3. Searching for your ideal customer and engaging with them is the best way to get attention and generate followers and sales.
4. Creating a curated feed of people you follow is just as powerful as having followers.
5. Great content is helpful, but engaging with potential customers is the key to growing a targeted audience.
6. Consistency is crucial for success.
7. Instagram™ is a traffic opportunity – the better your offer, the more traffic will convert into sales!
8. Paid Ads is another effective way to drive traffic to your offer – if done correctly.

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed this guide and I’d really appreciate it if you write in and let us know how you’re doing. If there is anything we can do to help, please don’t hesitate to reach out. 

 

If you’re interested in learning about other marketing strategies that can help you grow your business, such as paid advertising for sales, improving website conversions, email marketing, utilizing other social media platforms, and more… please email quintin@commandtraffic.com