Over the past few years, social media platforms such as Instagram have evolved from mere social interaction platforms to robust advertising platforms that offer the best return on investment.
Instagram marketing for eCommerce businesses has pretty much become a vital component for every brand that aspires to continue growing.
Ecommerce businesses often face skepticism from potential customers due to a lack of visibility and brand awareness, but through Instagram marketing, brands can put their best foot forward.
With the increasing competition, you may ask how is it even possible anymore?
In this guide we tell you how to get started with Instagram marketing for eCommerce.
What is Instagram marketing for eCommerce?
Instagram is a thriving platform with over 2 billion users spread worldwide. For eCommerce businesses, this platform presents a vast customer pool which they can connect with in more than one way.
As such, Instagram marketing is one of the most prominent, and popular ways for eCommerce businesses to advertise their products and services, make them appear more appealing and something that the users would greatly benefit from.
Instagram marketing can help eCommerce businesses by providing various options for advertising like making posts in the form of images, videos, and reels; hosting lives to interact with followers; and leveraging Instagram ads.
The diverse Instagram eCommerce strategy options for marketing is aimed at increasing brand awareness, helping businesses boost sales through greater exposure and reach, acquire new customers, and build brand reputation in the industry.
In short, Instagram marketing is a means for brands to improve their reach and visibility towards their target audience, particularly if their audience falls between the ages of 18-34 years. People in this age group tend to be very active on Instagram, and use the platform for engaging with friends, trends, and brands. Knowing the right way to market your brand, products and services through instagram marketing tools is a great way for businesses to gain a competitive edge.
Why Use Instagram for eCommerce Marketing?
When it comes to recognizing whether or not Instagram eCommerce marketing is the right choice for your business or not, it is essential to take a look at some statistics which demonstrate its impact.
Ecommerce Instagram marketing strategies benefit not just from the platform’s tools and algorithm, but also from the people who are using the platform:
- About 50% of instagram users fall between the age group of 18 to 24 and 25 to 34. So, a large portion of the user base of Instagram is made up of Gen-Z and Millenials.
- Instagram is the 2nd most popular ecommerce marketing platform, closely following facebook.
- More than 130 million instagram users leverage shopping posts for their purchases.
- Instagram reels get 22% more user engagement than other forms of instagram posts.
- About 50.3% of Gen-Z individuals report relying on instagram for finding new brands or products.
- 90% of instagram users follow at least one ecommerce brand on the platform.
These statistics, among others, display how versatile the platform is, and why it can benefit businesses, provided they have a planned strategy to reach their target audience, and create posts that connect with them.
- Ecommerce businesses can also promote Shopify stores on Instagram, which results in improving site traffic, and even boosting conversion rates, and enhancing sales. By creating intriguing posts, and linking them with your shopify store, you can lead users to explore the shop, find products which interest them, and perhaps even provide some discounts to turn shop browsing into sales. This is one of the popular ways in which ecommerce businesses enhance their sales revenue.
- Finding other platforms as well is another strategy to approach with instagram marketing. 99.99% of instagram users also use other social media platforms as well such as facebook. For brands that want to ensure they leave a mark in the users’ minds, they can explore marketing their business on other commonly used social media platforms as well.
- Instagram marketing is also a great way to build brand trust, and customer loyalty. By engaging with customers in the right way, not just through posts and stories, but also through one-on-one interactions like answering their comments, resolving their queries, and more, brands can establish trust, which further boosts brand perception in the market.
How to Get Started With Instagram Marketing for eCommerce?
Getting started with Instagram eCommerce marketing strategy requires a thorough and planned approach to ensure that you yield the most favorable results.
Before you can get started on with your posts to establish a dynamic identity, you need to create a business account on the platform. Why?
- A business account, as opposed to other types of accounts on instagram, allows users to leverage a whole bundle of features and tools, which are not provided to regular users. By using these tools and features, you can create more effective content, aligned with your content strategy for marketing.
- A business profile is also advantageous because it allows users to believe in your legitimacy more readily.
- Businesses can also provide their contact information through which customers can reach out to them for direct interactions.
In order to create a business account, you simply need to choose the ‘business account’ option when creating your profile, and choose the option which best defines your business from the selection provided. If you wish to transform your existing profile into a business one, the platform offers that option as well. To do this, you need to:
- Go to your profile.
- Click on the three dots located on the upper right corner.
- Go to the option for ‘settings and privacy’, then ‘account type’, and then select’ switch to professional account.
- Choose the option that best defines your requirement (in this case: business).
Once you have completed these steps, you can get to creating content aligned with your strategy. It is essential to remember that your strategy should be agile and able to keep up with instagram trends in order to retain continued engagement and user interest in the brand. This can include posting creative reels on trending audios, adding locations tags, hashtags, and much more.
What are the Types of Instagram Content Formats You Should Use for Marketing?
There are various types of instagram content formats which ecommerce businesses can leverage for their marketing initiatives. In simple diversification, instagram content formats can include:
- Instagram Reels
- Instagram Stories
- Instagram Posts (including images and videos)
However, more specifically, instagram content formats which can benefit eCommerce businesses include the following:
- User-generated Content: User generated content refers to content reposted by users related to your brand. This leads to organic marketing as their followers get exposed to your brand and may find interest in it.
Eg: GoPro is prominent for its user generated content, that aces this kind of content by motivating users to post content with their hashtags like #GoPro #GoProAwards, and more; and incentivizes them for the same.
- Behind The Scenes Content: Businesses put in a lot of hardwork in their products and services. People like to see what goes into making the products that they love. This type of posts, as such, can be very helpful in increasing engagement.
Eg: Glossier is a leading beauty and skincare brand that has been successful in establishing a significant online presence across its community. The brand’s approach to the creation of BTS (Behind the Scene) content plays a vital role in its Instagram marketing strategy.
- Announcement Posts: Brands can come up with interesting announcements like reaching a certain follower base, opening new branches, launching new products and services, and more. Announcement posts can ensure they reach the target audience easily.
Eg: Nike, a renowned footwear brand for athletic shoes, apparel, and equipment, recently mastered the use of social media for announcing collaborations, product launches, and company news. Its approach to announcement posts through Instagram is highly strategic.
- Discounts and Offers Content: Nothing attracts people to purchase something than discounts and exclusive offers like seasonal sales, clearance sales, and more. If you happen to organize these, make sure you create content and instagram posts to get the word out.
Eg: Papa John’s Pizza posts content for its Two for Tuesdays Offer which is a BOGO offer applicable on Tuesdays on the purchase of large pizzas.
- Trending Content: To enhance user interest and engagement in your brand, businesses can try to leverage trending content such as reel audios and formats and give them a unique twist aligned with the brand. This can be something humorous and out-of-the-box for maximum impact.
Eg: Swiggy is regularly posting brand related reels with trending reels audios as background sounds. Its promotion on the sound of the trending ‘chor’ became viral for its humorous bent.
- Informative Content: This is the kind of content which brands can create to provide information about their products and services. This can include lesser known facts, interesting information about the products, its benefits, usage instructions, and more.
Eg: Kidstack.in posted an informative post about why Indian kids lack focus during playing whereas european and american kids are able to play with anything for hours, to inform parents about overproviding, which leads children to feel overwhelmed.
Best Tips for Instagram eCommerce Marketing
If you feel overwhelmed with all this information, here are some of the top tips to make the process simple for you.
- Understand Your Audience: Before anything else, it is essential to define who your audience is. What age group do they fall under and what kind of people they are. A businessman would, for example, be interested in different things compared to a housewife or a child.
- Understand Trends: When you begin your journey, it might feel overwhelming with so much activity going on. However, it is essential to understand the basics of the algorithm, and the ongoing trends to create an effective strategy.
- Diversify Posts: Do not just post images, or just videos, or just reels, or stories, or lives, or ads. To maximize impact, the posts should be diversified. Post a combination of images, reels, and videos.
- Collaborate With Influencers: Depending upon your products, find relevant instagram influencers to further expand your reach and post engagement.
Eg: Revlon Pro Canada partnered with prominent influencer Carajourdan, who made a post to promote their hair and nail products.
- Be Consistent: Taking off on instagram takes just one viral post or reel. However, making that one viral post can take a while. And even after that, you need to maintain consistency to ensure the engagement rate does not fall.
- Keep Monitoring Performance: This is perhaps the most essential step in maintaining growth. Use instagram performance analytics tools to keep monitoring the performance of your posts and modify it as needed.
Conclusion
Social media is the new ‘It’ platform for businesses to market their products and services. With the global reach and exceptional conversion rates, social media platforms, particularly instagram, promise quick growth of brands.
Needless to say, brands across the globe are eager to leverage instagram to gain visibility quickly, rapidly expand their consumer base, and multiply their sales volumes every month.
To stay ahead of this competition, and ensure that your content strategy and engagement beats the competition, reach out to us at Content Kettle today. We tailor our services to help your brand thrive in this cut-throat business landscape.
FAQs
How much should I expect to spend on Instagram marketing?
Marketing for eCommerce brands on Instagram can vary depending upon your goals and targets. If you choose to expand through organic marketing, the process can be virtually free. However, if you choose to do it through a social media marketing agency who can provide faster growth and more tangible results quickly, your expenses will depend upon your budget. A good rule is to research the market and find out what the prevailing rates are and define a realistic budget.
How can I optimize Instagram marketing?
In order to leverage instagram marketing tools, you must have a business account, and an idea of who your target audience is. This is essential for creating a content strategy, which will define what you post, when you post, and how you post. It can help you understand if influencer marketing is suitable for you, how to present your products or services, and more. Beyond that, it is essential to interact with your audience, take feedback into account, and keep track through analytics tools.
