Marketing & Advertising

Did you again overspend on the promotion budget this month?

Marketing and advertising are essential for a company to bring itself to the limelight. However, sometimes, businesses go overboard with promotions.

It is important to understand your marketing needs and their outcomes and set a budget accordingly. You may need to alter a few marketing strategies, but it is all about the best promotion in the right budget.

Here are the different approaches to promotion budgeting to make sure you spend within the limit.

Percentage Method

The budget for advertising is calculated per a percentage of the total sales. Most companies follow the percentage method to take out a budget for promotion. You may figure it according to current, previous, or anticipated sales.

It is not a scientific method, but many companies follow it successfully. You may increase or decrease the advertisement budget depending on the sales. For example, if you see a product performing outstanding, you can use a percentage of the revenue to highlight another product simultaneously. It is a preferred method of estimating the promotion budget because it is correlated to the company’s sales. You wouldn’t have to move anything else to accommodate promotional needs.

Objectives and Task Method

Unlike the percentage method, the objectives and task method is a scientific method to prepare a promotion budget. This method consists of defining goals and deriving the tasks to achieve them. The objectives and task method are customized per the company’s environment instead of sales. The objectives refer to the goals to be completed by advertising. The cost of performing the tasks to accomplish the goals or objectives is the estimated budget for advertisement. It does not offer financial parity like the percentage method. This method comprises four steps:

Selecting the Objectives for Promotion

• Dividing the goals in terms of profits, sales, stability, brand loyalty, etc.
• Determining the tasks that would lead to accomplishing the goals
• Estimating the cost of each task involved in the process to calculate the total budget required

Competitive Parity Method

Why is there a need to advertise your company?

The answer is competition.

Competition in the industry drives the need for marketing and advertisement to grow your business.

This approach of promotion budgeting considers the budget of competitors and creates a budget for the company accordingly. The promotion budget is based on the competitor’s advertising budget. This method helps understand current trends. However, you must not follow your competitors blindly. A company creates a promotion budget considering many other factors like their long-term goals, product life-cycle, company values, shareholder’s demands, leadership, financial conditions, etc.

Leaders following this kind of budget approach believe that rivals in the business are more or less right. They are doing their best, and there is no harm in trying the same for your company. Yet, ensure you do not copy their budget. Make sure to consider the situation of your company before making a decision.

Fund Availability Method

As the name suggests, the fund availability method refers to utilizing the available funds for advertisement. While it is not a scientific method, it is among the different approaches to promotion budgeting. Companies that think they cannot allow a specific percentage or amount to the marketing budget every year opt for this way.

The fund availability method emphasizes that a company should only spend according to its capacity. Let’s say it means to spend on marketing and advertisement after meeting all other expenses. So, a business that follows this approach might not spend anything on advertising if nothing is left for it. A large enterprise may spend more on promotion than a small business with fund availability.

While it may look like a suitable approach, it can damage your business in the long run. In the era of social media and multiple marketing options, ignoring the importance of promotion can be fatal for your reputation and sales.

Zero Method

Many companies do not believe you require proper marketing or advertising to sell your product. They believe in lowering the costs as much as possible. While some utilize the fund availability method, others resort to the zero method. The zero method for determining the promotion budget is not a favorite among experts. Businesses following the zero method try to keep the budget as close to zero as possible. It helps businesses cut costs on advertisements. Yet, let us not forget that killing the advertisement budget can also kill your business.

Sales Force Opinion Method

Salesforce is an essential part of any organization. They not only help increase sales but may also enable you to derive better marketing strategies. The sales force personnel help the business market in the right direction by pointing out areas for improvement. Salesforce has in-depth knowledge about their respective area sales. They can also predict the coming season or year.

The Bottom Line

Promotion budgets are critical to boosting your business and achieving your business mission. Different companies adopt specific approaches for marketing and advertising. Some of the commonly utilized approaches to promotion budgeting include the percentage method, objective and task, fund availability method, zero methods, and sales force opinion method. Some organizations also opt for expert opinion, co-op only, profit maximization, arbitrary allocation, and incremental methods. Promotion is essential to any business. Compromising the promotion budget may damage your business.

FAQs

What is a Promotional Budget?

The promotional budget refers to the amount allocated for marketing and advertising a business to grow sales. It also sometimes includes the cost of maintaining a brand name.

What is the Best Approach for Determining a Promotion Budget?

The percentage method is one of the widely followed promotion budgeting methods. You may determine a percentage of your budget for marketing considering the previous year’s budget, forecasted sales, or your competitors.

What are the Characteristics of Successful Promotions?

Successful promotion is convincing and persuasive. It utilizes the promotion budget in the best way to provide relevant, factual information to the consumer and present your product in the best way. Lastly, a successful promotion is repetitive until you achieve the objectives.

Social media marketing is an integral part of any marketing strategy. It reaps a plethora of benefits ranging from visibility to brand awareness, revenue, and more. There are many components of social media marketing ranging from content curation on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc., monitoring social media platforms, and more.

If you are currently not implementing social media marketing in your business, you are missing out on an exceptional marketing opportunity. Below are some of the advantages of using social media to market your business.

Increasing Brand Awareness

If you are running on a tight budget, social media marketing is one of the most cost-efficient ways to increase the visibility of your brand and business. You will not only be engaging with a broad audience through social media, but they will also be interacting with the content you curate by sharing them, liking them, adding comments, and more.

Engaging New Customers

Without using social media, it’s likely that you will mostly be marketing to the same customers again. By using social media, however, every piece of content that you post is a great opportunity to acquire a new customer.
Furthermore, each social media platform targets a different audience, and using these different platforms to talk about your business, allows a wide audience to organically reach your business.

Gain Fantastic Insights

Unbeknownst to most, social media is a great way to gain valuable insights. You will be able to know the thoughts and needs of your consumers by monitoring their activity, looking at their interests, and more. You will also have a better idea of the demographics of your audience, such as where they reside and what their age bracket might be.
If you aren’t sure how to go about understanding these insights, you can always have a social media marketing agency assist with breaking down and analyzing this information for you.

Increased Customer Satisfaction

Social media is a great way to interact with your customers as they might reach out through messages and even add comments to your posts. By responding to their messages and interacting with them, you’ll be helping to increase overall customer satisfaction.

In some instances, customers might also want a response fairly quickly. Rather than having to email your company, it’s always easier if they can reach out via message and receive a personalized response to their answers.

Time to get Started with Social Media Marketing

As seen above, there are plenty of advantages that can be reaped from incorporating social media marketing into your business strategy. Not only will you be increasing overall brand awareness, but it will also increase customer satisfaction and more.
By having a social media marketing strategy, you will also be able to target a wider audience and gain valuable insights into your preferences and demographics. If you’re not sure where to get started with social media marketing, feel free to reach out to a social media marketing agency to help you get started.

Are you looking for ways to increase your visibility on LinkedIn and grow your network? If so, you’re in luck! In this blog post, we will share some tips that will help you accomplish just that. LinkedIn is a powerful platform for business owners and professionals, and it can be a great tool for networking and growing your business. We will discuss how to create an effective profile, build relationships with other members, and make the most of LinkedIn’s features. Let’s get started!

Stay up-to-date

Your profile is one of the first things people see when they visit your LinkedIn page. So, it’s important to make sure that it is up-to-date and includes relevant information about your professional background and experience. One way to increase your visibility is to announce your job on LinkedIn. You can do this by updating your profile and adding a post about your new position. Be sure to include details about what you’ll be doing in your new role and how it will benefit your career. This is a great way to let people know what you’re up to and get them excited about following your journey.

Optimize your profile

Your LinkedIn profile is one of the best ways to introduce yourself to potential connections. So, take some time to optimize it! Start by adding a professional headshot and writing a compelling summary that highlights your skills and experience. Then, be sure to include links to your website or blog, as well as any articles or resources that you have published. These will help people learn more about you and what you do. You can also use keywords throughout your profile to make sure that you show up in search results.

Build relationships

LinkedIn is all about building relationships. So, don’t be afraid to reach out and connect with other members! When you do, be sure to personalize your request so that it doesn’t come across as generic. Also, take the time to read through someone’s profile before you connect with them. This will help you get a better sense of who they are and whether or not you have any mutual connections. Once you’ve connected with someone, be sure to engage with their content and participate in conversations. This will help you build a stronger relationship and increase visibility on LinkedIn.

Make the most of LinkedIn’s features

LinkedIn offers a lot of great features that can help you grow your business. So, be sure to take advantage of them! For example, LinkedIn Groups are a great way to connect with like-minded professionals and learn about opportunities. You can also use LinkedIn Jobs to find job postings that match your skills and experience. And, if you’re looking to connect with influencers, LinkedIn Pulse is a great place to start. These are just a few of the ways that you can make the most of LinkedIn’s features.

join groups

LinkedIn groups are a great way to connect with other professionals in your industry or field. Groups provide a space for members to discuss relevant topics, share resources, and network with each other. You can join groups that are specific to your industry or interests, or you can create your own group. To find groups, simply go to the LinkedIn homepage and click on the “Groups” tab. Once you’ve joined some groups, be sure to participate in the discussions and contribute value whenever possible. This will help you build relationships with other members and grow your network.

share content

Another great way to increase your visibility on LinkedIn is to share relevant content. This could be blog posts, articles, infographics, videos, or anything else that would be of interest to your target audience. When you share content, be sure to add a brief description and include a call to action so that people can learn more about what you do. You can also use LinkedIn’s publishing platform to write original articles and share your expert insights with the LinkedIn community.

These are just a few tips that will help you increase your visibility on LinkedIn and grow your network. If you’re not already using LinkedIn, we encourage you to give it a try. It’s a great platform for business owners and professionals, and it can really help you take your career to the next level. Thanks for reading!

We hope you enjoyed this blog post. For more tips on how to use LinkedIn

Video marketing is no longer a novel concept, and many small businesses seem to have a hold on this type of marketing. With the gradual decrease in the price of video equipment and software, it has become much easier for any small business to foray into video marketing. If you are new to video marketing, you need not worry about it being an expensive and complex affair.

Some initial planning and a dose of original creativity are all it takes to create videos that appeal to viewers. Undoubtedly, video marketing is here to stay. With businesses of all shapes and sizes jumping onto the video marketing bandwagon, the quality of your videos plays a huge role in attracting and retaining viewers. In this blog, we list out some of the benefits of video marketing for small businesses:

10 Benefits of Video Marketing for Small Businesses

1. Higher Ranking on SERP

YouTube is the second most visited website after Google and can be termed the second most popular search engine. There are close to 2 billion users on this free video platform. Little wonder then that YouTube is a sought-after video platform by marketers. To put things in perspective, YouTube has the potential for unmatched reach to a broad global audience that directly translates to potential buyers searching for your product or “solution.”

It is an established fact that most search engine users never go past the first page on SERP. To increase your chances of landing on the first page of Google results, it is a good idea to add video content on YouTube. This increases your probability of being discovered by new users as search engines are known to prioritize video content on the SERP.

2. Increased Brand Awareness

One of the best ways to increase brand awareness through video marketing is to upload videos on YouTube. With close to 2 billion users and a watch time of 250 million hours every day, the power of video marketing on the free video platform is unmatched.

Once your content gains traction on the platform, it can do wonders for your brand awareness and sales thereafter. Such videos can be easily made with an online video maker that comes with an interactive and beginner-friendly interface.

3. Best Medium to Acquire Information

Today, people are completely involved in their fast-paced lifestyle and do not have the luxury of time. This has resulted in diminishing attention spans, where people are averse to written content and are more inclined to watch videos.

Regardless of the complexity of the subject, a combination of audio and video provides an immersive experience that provides much better knowledge retention than any other medium. This makes it the best medium to disseminate information and provides better insight and a refined view of the product. The best way to make such impactful videos is through an online video maker with good UI and UX.

4. Improves Digital Presence

Currently, it is tough for a small business to survive without an online presence. With the help of video marketing, a small business stands a much better chance of being seen and heard by the audience. Video not only improves brand recall but can also prompt viewers to take action after they view the entire video, often even before the video ends. There are options to prompt viewers to share the video link of the content, vastly increasing the digital presence of the brand and the associated product.

5. Increases the Click-through Rate

It could seem tempting to attach the video content to your email campaign. However, the increased size of the email would get it filtered into the spam folder. Instead, create a thumbnail of the video and redirect the customers to the source of the video, which could be your website or landing page. This is one of the best ways to increase click-through rates.

6. Improves Social Engagement

In recent times, it has become increasingly pertinent for the brand to have a social presence. The bigger the presence, the better the brand awareness. To increase social media presence, it is prudent to create videos for different video platforms to enable the customer to connect directly with the brand and product. Furthermore, if they like the product, there is always the prospect of the brand’s word spreading far and wide. In case you are wondering how to make such videos, they can be easily made with an online video maker available from several new companies.

7. Promotes Trust

The great advantage of video marketing is that it can directly appeal to the audience’s emotions. This is vital for a small business to create that all-important connection with the audience. Such connections can reinforce trust in the brand and create loyally and repeat customers. There are numerous ways to cement this trust, including testimonials, behind-the-scenes perspectives, etc.

8. Improves Understanding of the Product

There are many concepts or products that cannot be explained well with a text or any other medium. With such products, it is always a safe bet to create videos, specifically product demo videos. This gives the audience a chance to better understand the product before they make the purchase decision.

Another way of doing this is through explainer videos where you explain how your product solves the problem and fits into the overall picture. Increased understanding will naturally translate to improved sales.

9. Increases Sales

There are validated figures that point to the fact that companies that carry out video marketing outshine the companies that don’t. Video content has the potential to convert a cold audience through landing pages, email campaigns, or social media presence. Although the initial capital investment tends to be high in some cases, the company can easily recoup the amount once they have the video marketing in motion.

10. Video can Provide Critical Metrics

Having created your video marketing campaigns, it’s natural that you would be eager to measure its performance and impact. All video platforms come with analytics that allows you to delve into the performance of the video in close detail. Such data points will allow you to fine-tune and refine your future strategy and give insights into the target audience.

Final Thoughts

Video marketing is a strategy that is not going away anytime soon. So, if you are a small business, do not wait to start with video marketing. Else, there is a good chance of your competition doing it better and grabbing the lion’s share of the market. That being said, it is also pertinent for marketers to think originally and come up with concepts that leave a mark and strike a chord with the audience without which it is hard to succeed with video marketing.

Business and marketing go hand in hand. These days, the best platforms to market products or services are social media platforms. Particularly, Instagram has risen to be a great app for all things business, advertising, and brand awareness. And if you know how to maximize the platform, you will get plenty of conversion benefits.

Instagram marketing is all about promoting your brand on Instagram to increase awareness and improve sales. It is the strategy by which businesses can reach their target audience.

Understanding how Instagram works will put you in a better position to run and market your small business successfully on the platform. Before you start your business on Instagram, you should acquaint yourself with some principles.

These principles will steer you in the right direction.

Instagram Marketing Principles To Note Before Starting Your Business

1. Research

It’s a jungle out there on the streets of Instagram and only the informed survive. Thankfully, all the information you need about your potential clients is readily available. You just have to do some research to find them out and channel them for your brand growth on Instagram.

Start by studying your industry, and then learn about your target audience. Figure out what people want from your brand. Running surveys is a good tactic to do this.

Ideally, you want your products and services to proffers solutions to the problems your customers face. But the only way to find out about your customers’ problems is by researching. Study the demographics that suit your brand. Also, the age range of your target audience, their gender, and their location matter, especially when you’re about to run targeted ads.

Another important tactic is to find out about your competitors and see the things they do differently. Make notes about the mistakes and positive actions taken by top brands. And make sure to use them while designing your own Instagram marketing campaigns.

2. Listen

After proper research and survey, you need to listen to your target audience. It’s useless to research only to ignore all your findings, especially those you can use to help your audience. Remember that you are there for your followers, not just for yourself or your personal gain.

From the notes, you make while researching, see how you can implement steps to cater to your audience. For example, if people complain about poor customer service, then you should make sure your brand provides a quick and helpful response to customers.

2. Participate or Interact

Instagram accommodates communication and interaction between users. Before the social media era, there was a limitation to brand-customer interaction. You either had to send an email or make a long inconvenient call to a customer care service. However, things have changed and it’s way easier to reach brands via their DMs and get quick replies.

To successfully run a business on Instagram, you must interact with your audience. Comments and DMs shouldn’t go without a fast reply from you. Like, share, and comment on your follower’s posts especially if they relate to your brand. Your captions should encourage your audience to participate or give their opinions in the comment section.

Customers want brands that they can reach out to or connect with. So to become that brand, you must increase participation and interaction with your audience.

3. Build

This principle is not mandating a brick-and-mortar location. Nope! It simply means that you should build a community for your brand. Your business needs a loyal customer base, also called a community, that will support your business.

A brand community will help you gain more awareness. Imagine you have an amazing following that shares your posts or tags friends to follow you, your growth will be explosive! This is why some users buy Instagram followers and likes. It increases their community and also their engagements and gets them the favor of the algorithm.

4. Reward

Rewarding your consistent customers or loyal followers can give you headway. People have the motivation to interact or make purchases when there is something more to gain. Giveaways and discounts are excellent marketing strategies. They bring practical results as you will see in follower counts, engagement rates, and sales.

Occasionally, make giveaway posts to encourage your audience’s participation. Ask your followers to tag their friends and follow you. Give discounts on products and services. You will find that more people will make purchases because an item has a 20% discount.

5. Measurements and Analytics

Businesses, regardless of their mode of operation, always need to analyze their performance. Measuring your progress will guide you in designing future strategies. From analytics, you get to see what works best and what doesn’t.

You should evaluate how well your content on Instagram reaches the right audience. All these will help you see how you can turn visitors into customers. The task of analysis will be easy if you work with an analytics platform or software. Already, Instagram has the insight feature that is an asset in this area.

6. Empower

As your business grows on Instagram, it may become tedious to run it all by yourself. As such, you should consider hiring people with social media management skills. Empower your business with the necessary skill sets.

Since Instagram is a visual platform, you can invest in a camera, a professional photographer, and a graphic designer. As you grow, make your Instagram posts better.

Not every business can afford to employ a social media manager or designer. If your business is a small one with a little budget, don’t worry. There are other things you can do to improve your Instagram page. Here are some helpful tips:

• Look out for Instagram updates so that you can use the latest business features.
• Bring into play editing apps and software like VSCO, Snapseed, Lightroom, etc.
• Graphic design apps like Canva can be beneficial.

6. Collaborate and Partner

To thrive on Instagram, you must consider partnerships with other brands and creators. This is where influencers can help. Instagram influencers can help you make sales and increase the reach of your brand.

By venturing into a partnership, you are opening doors for more followers and engagement. Even as a small business, you can partner with nano-influencers. Do Instagram stories takeover, collab posts, paid partnerships, etc.

7. Share and Promote

Your brand needs recognition and awareness to generate leads and make conversions. Sharing and promoting your brand in any way possible can bring the awareness you desire. Let people know that you have a business. Below are two tips to help you with business promotion:

• Run Instagram ads or campaigns: ads are well targeted to ensure that the right demographics see your sponsored posts. Examples of Instagram ads are image ads, carousel ads, video ads, stories ads, and shoppable or collection ads. Choose an ad type based on your ad objective. If you wish to boost sales, try out shoppable or collection ads.

• Promote your Instagram page on other social media sites, blogs, and websites:  On your Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest profiles, you can put in your Instagram profile URL. Users on these platforms can connect with you on Instagram using your link. If you have a blog or website, you can also embed an Instagram post in your blog content.

In Conclusion

Your marketing strategy can make or mar your business on Instagram. For this reason, you need to employ the best methods and approach.

Listen, engage, partner, analyze and share. Also, be open to new updates and trends from Instagram and see how to use them. As you start your Instagram business, make sure you tick all principles we have highlighted.

A brand name is the face of your brand that represents the first image of your brand. The logo also plays a major role. But, if someone hears about your brand from another person, they cannot see the logo initially. It makes the brand name the most crucial part of marketing your brand. 

A good brand name is a critical element of any business. It allows your customers to remember your brand and make a place in their minds. Brand names must be attractive and functional. Let’s tell you all the qualities of a good brand name.

What is a Brand Name?

A brand name refers to a distinct name given to a product, service, or concept. The brand name gives your product or service a unique identity and enables people to remember you. Mostly, people associate a brand’s name with the product’s function. That is why choosing an appropriate brand name is vital. 

Brand names are of different types and decided based on your intention behind the name. Some names are descriptive, while others are acronyms. A few brands prefer abstract and emotive names, while some choose names based on origin. Each brand name is specific and stands for the product or service offered. Besides being attractive, a brand name should tell your customers everything about your brand in just a few letters.

Qualities of a Good Brand Name

Choosing a brand name can be challenging, especially when many are already taken. Yet, it is also relatively easy. Why?

Brand names are unique to the brand’s product, service, origin, and theme.

You can draft an entirely unknown name and still convey to people what your brand is about. Here are all the qualities you must consider while choosing a brand name for your product, service, or concept.

Unique

With many other businesses in the marketplace offering the same services as you, it is important to have a unique identity that distinguishes you from others. Brand names should be specific to your service, product, and the company’s theme. You might not want to go overboard with it. However, a little bit of personalization can make it easy to associate with you and remember. It is one of the important parts of brand positioning.

Easy to Pronounce

While you may want to have a unique name, the best brand names are easy to pronounce. An easy-to-pronounce and identifiable name are convenient for people of all ages. As a brand, you want people to remember your name without reminding them repeatedly. And isn’t that we all want? 

Should Portray the Product

One of the essential characteristics of a good brand name is how well it tells people what your brand is all about. Let’s say you choose a fancy brand name that is easy to pronounce, depicts your origin, and is attractive. But, it’s not a great brand name if it does not clearly indicate what your product is about. For example, you name a cleaning company, crystal. The first thought that would come to people’s minds is that it is a crystal or gem company. 

Attractive

Sometimes brand names can be unique and easy to pronounce but not attractive. In today’s time, it is all about learning to sell your product wisely because of rising competition. The first step to selling your products or services is selling your brand name. And a boring brand name is less likely to be remembered and preferred by young buyers. Think of a compelling name that also expresses the qualities of your product.

Adaptable and Extendable

You do not want to choose a brand name that suits one product only and restricts you. A brand name must be versatile, adaptable, and extendable. It would merge well with other products you wish to introduce in the future. Suppose you introduce a new beverage line of cold drinks and name it COOL. After a few years, you expand your business and plan to add hot beverages to the line. 

But, hot drinks from a company named Cool? Ironic, wouldn’t it be!

Positive Meaning

You may be surprised to know that sometimes brand names can backfire and leave a bad image of your organization. When choosing a name, make sure that it has a positive meaning and may not hurt anyone’s sentiments. The brand name should be politically correct.

Appropriate

Besides having a positive meaning, it should be appropriate for the product line and region and carry an appropriate meaning in all languages. At times, you may opt for a brand name that seems fine in your home country. But, it may not be appropriate when sold in other parts of the world. Make sure to do thorough research and avoid inappropriate names.

Legally Protected

Do you spend a lot of time deciding the perfect name for your brand, and another business pops up with the same name? It is terrible!

We understand that deciding on a brand name is not easy, and it requires lots of brainstorming, consuming quite a lot of time. 

After deciding on a name, it is a must to get it registered. If you do not get your brand name registered, you cannot stop anyone else from using it. And you will lose the unique identity of your brand.

The Bottom Line

The brand name is your primary identity and leaves a long-lasting impression on the customers. Branding is important in today’s competitive market. Make sure to choose it for decades. A good brand name must be easy to read, attractive, unique, adaptable, and extendable. It should also depict the qualities of your product, so more prefer your products over others. Make sure to trademark your brand name after you have chosen one to make sure no one steals it.

FAQs

How to choose the right brand name?

Choosing the right name for your brand can be an effort-taking process. Yet, it is crucial to find the best name. Brainstorming ideas is the first step in choosing a brand name. Pick a few concepts, use clear words, add unique elements and pick the one that resonates with your brand the most.

What are meaningless brand names?

Meaningless brand names do not typically have a proper meaning in any language. You may also say that they are improper words. But, sometimes, they are used as brand names to depict uniqueness. Lululemon is an example that does not have a meaning and is intentionally difficult to pronounce.

What are some great brand names?

Gap, Pepsi, and IKEA are among the most popular brand names. Gap gets its name from the style gap between young people and the older generation. Pepsi originated from “dyspepsia,” which means indigestion. Whereas, IKEA is a combination of the initials of the founder’s name, his farm’s name, and his village’s.

Imagine these scenarios: company essentials = 5,000 comments per month, bills payment = 2,000 likes per month; employee salaries = 15,000 shares per month. How easy life would be if these are possible, but the bitter reality is that we can’t convert Instagram engagements to pay for our bills or any other bill.

However, it doesn’t mean your engagements are useless. Improving your Instagram marketing strategy and making it effective can convert these comments, shares, and likes into sales. Yet before diving further into details, it’s crucial to understand the power of selling on Instagram.

In case you don’t know, more than 50% of Instagram users follow different brands. Around 500 million active users visit at least one brand per day. The same goes for other social media platforms, but Instagram has better potential than them.

Instagram is more than just a tool you can use to catch up with your family and friends. Most of its one billion users use it to communicate with their favorite brands, research new items, and purchase influencer-approved products.

Now that you understand how effective Instagram generates sales, it’s time to look at some of the most effective tactics that convert engagements into sales.

Use Instagram Automation Tools

Responding as quickly as possible to customer queries may seem impossible sometimes, especially when you’re out of business hours. Fortunately, some tools can automate repetitive processes, such as real-time responses to customers’ comments and messages.

You can provide relevant answers to your customers with these tools, even if you’re not around. Likewise, don’t forget to include destination links in your automated response that will redirect your customers to your site once they click it.

In addition, automation tools will help you become more efficient to stay on top of the growing and intense competition in the market. However, not all tools available in the market are the same. Therefore, it’s critical to choose only the best Instagram automation tool to help meet your needs.

Optimize Your Bio

Customers will visit your page if they want to know more about your brand. With this, the first thing they’ll see is your bio. Instagram bio is similar to your calling card; it’s brief and includes everything prospects should know firsthand.

A successful bio converts engagements into customers and generates potential prospects. However, it’s not easy to construct an effective bio that drives conversions and sales. In that case, you might want to look at the tips and tricks below for creating the best Instagram bio:

Use It To Target Ideal Users

Write a bio that discusses what your ideal audience would want to hear. It will help them understand your business more. Should they find your bio meets their interests, they’ll unhesitatingly click that ‘follow’ button.

Add Call-To-Action Statements For Your Link

When writing a call-to-action statement in your bio, let your audience know what’s inside the link in your bio. Here’s an example: “Check out our tips, guides, and tools below.” Moreover, don’t be afraid to use some icons and emojis to highlight your link and add a touch of personality to it.

Add Your Contact Details

Don’t forget to include your contact details in your bio to allow prospects to reach out to you in the manner you prefer. You may add your email address, website link, local phone numbers, etc. Here’s an example you can use: “PLEASE EMAIL ONLY, NO DMs: youremail@example.com.”

Set Up Your Instagram Shopping

If you have an E-commerce platform, you can use Instagram shopping to boost your engagements and increase your conversions. It will allow you to upload your entire product selection directly on Instagram. This feature lets viewers browse your products and make purchases without leaving the social media platform.

If you’re not satisfied, how about this: around 140 million users visit Instagram shopping every month. Therefore, you’ll miss out on the opportunities to increase your sales if you’re not using it. Indeed, it can help you boost your page traffic up to 2,000%.

Here are the simple steps to set up your Instagram shopping:

• Link your Instagram business account to your Facebook page.
• Then integrate your E-commerce website account and create a product catalog using Commerce Manager.
• Connect your product catalog to your Instagram business account and wait for the approval.
• Once approved, you may start tagging your products from the catalog every time you post new content, reels, or stories related to your products.

When people see your posts, they’ll see a shopping bag icon below. Once they tap it, tags will show up, and they can tap them again to see other details, such as prices and product names.

Create Reels

If you’re serious about converting your engagement into sales, you need to avoid repeating the same strategies. Instead, look for new tools and features that may generate better yields. One of the best examples of this would be Instagram’s Reels.

Reels work the same way as Instagram Stories. Both will let you add stickers, emojis, music, overlays, and other elements. However, Reels aren’t gone after 24 hours, unlike Stories. They remain on your profile permanently so that new followers may see them anytime.

On top of that, Reels have a 2,200-character limit for captions, giving you a lot of opportunities to produce educational content that encourages every viewer to engage.

Some tips and ideas to use Reels effectively are as follows:

• Show the reality of your business through behind-the-scenes footage, even if some may look bad. You may also show expectations vs. reality to garner more attention.
• Tell the story of your business and introduce yourself and your brand to everyone, especially to your new followers.
• Post educational content, such as tips, guides, etc. Make it as comprehensive as possible to keep your audience engaged.
• Release a sneak peek or teaser trailer of products you’ll be launching soon.

These ideas can help up your engagement and possibly convert them to sales. Try and test each of these ideas and see what will benefit you the most.

Final Words

Instagram is a powerful social media platform that can take your business to the next level. One of the purposes of using it for business is to improve brand awareness through engagements.

However, gaining engagement alone is not enough to boost your sales. Instead, mix the appropriate techniques and strategies presented here to convert these engagements into sales and transform your Instagram into a profit-making platform for your company.