November 2, 2020 
As a business owner and marketer, it is important to diversify and learn more ways to sell products, especially on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.
Instagram is one of the most prominent social media platforms in existence today and it recently, in June to be specific, hit a little bit over one billion monthly active users which is about an eighth of the earth’s population.
With a very promising growth trajectory that is showing no signs of going down anytime soon, it has now become important for you to know how to sell your products and services on Instagram.
As competition in the market is increasing just like Instagram’s trajectory, marketers and advertisers are unfortunately spending more money to promote products and services because they desperately want to take advantage of the platform and sell on Instagram.
However, thankfully, there are easy ways you can sell your products on Instagram as a startup or medium scale business without having to spend so much.
Remember, if you plan to trump the heavy competition, you must do something different from the conventional way. You need to automate your sales cycle with effective social media marketing tools like Zebrabuzz to ensure that you give your customers the best possible experience while on your page.
This will set you apart from the crowd and will leave customers wanting more. Zebrabuzz, for example, is a marketing software that can help drive up sales and engagements with its tools and features.
By integrating it into your Instagram, you put your business in pole position to deliver exactly what customers want and how they want it.
If you wonder why some businesses appear more often than others on your ‘Explore’ or feed tab, it is because they have taken the bold step of automating their Instagram marketing using tools like the Zebrabuzz Social Poster or features like the e-commerce in Messenger virtual store to ensure optimum service.
Hence, they get more publicity which will drive up sales.
One of the many advantages that Instagram has is that it is a ‘media-based’ social media platform. It is primarily for sharing photos and videos, and the instant messaging feature makes even more interesting for marketers as you can have real-time conversations with your customers.
Why You Should Sell on Instagram
The fact that there are about two million monthly advertisers on Instagram is a clear indication as to how much this platform has proven to be useful to marketers and business owners.
The first and obvious reason why you should sell your products and services on Instagram is that you already have a large market waiting for you.
The number of monthly active users on the platform is increasing daily. Although all of one billion users will most likely not be your customers, it is still large enough to have a very reasonable number of customers.
The possibility of getting millions of customers is highly possible, and that is more than what most businesses nowadays have. Such numbers are a dream for many businesses today, and Instagram makes it possible to have it.
Also, in a recent survey conducted by Facebook, 83% of the total respondents confirmed that Instagram helps them to research products and services.
Which means that more than 80% of people who use the platform come there whenever they need to find products and services. As a marketer and business owner, this is in your favour.
In addition, 90% of all Instagram accounts follow at least one business account.
Although not all of Instagram’s users are there to buy products or buy yours to be specific, there are massive opportunities to leverage the social media platform to sell your products and services.
While there are several reasons why you should sell your products on Instagram, it is time to analyse how to do it. It is important to do it right, and by following some simple and easy steps, you can start selling on Instagram like a guru.
How to Sell your Products and Services on Instagram
Now that you know why you should sell on Instagram, the next step is to know how to go about it. The following are strategies to employ in achieving this:
- Create a Business Profile
- Consistency is Key, be Consistent
- Always Engage your Customers
- Make Use of Shoppable Posts
- Run Ads
Create a Business Profile
Having a business profile is the first step to selling on Instagram. Either you want to convert an already created personal account to a business profile or creating a new one afresh, the point is to have a business profile.
Many businesses, especially small scale businesses, make the mistake of using personal accounts for their business.
If you already have an Instagram account, converting to a business profile is easy and straightforward.
After logging into your account, navigate to settings by clicking on the button at the top-right corner of your profile page.
Next is to scroll down and select “Switch to Business Profile” and voila, you are set. Although you can still switch back by going to the same place you switched, you have little or no reason to do so.
Someone may ask why you need to switch to a business account to sell your products and services on Instagram, well, here are some features which are important for businesses that are only available for business accounts.
Instagram Insights
There is no shortage of significant data that Instagram insights offer. You will be able to see insights about your customers and how your products are faring.
You can track how many people visited your page in the past week, the demographics of your customers, such as their location, gender, age, and the times that they are usually active.
In addition to this, the activity tab will show you metrics such as website clicks, impressions, reach, and as stated earlier, profile visits. You will also be able to access how well each of your posts is doing and their engagements as well.
If you want more detailed insights, Zebrabuzz can also provide that. For instance, asides the above, you can also get to see the traffic on your page within a specified time as well as how much improvement you have had.
If you have recently implemented a policy, Zebrabuzz can also help you check how customers are reacting to it. This is done by studying their buying behaviour within that time frame using the latest Artificial Intelligence features. How convenient!
CTA Buttons
These buttons are important for your business because it allows your customers to call or email you with just a single click.
Your customers will also be able to find directions to your business location among other needed information.
Facebook Linking
You can as well connect your business page on Facebook to the one on Instagram when you use a business profile. As Facebook is currently the biggest social media platform, it is important to have a Facebook business page where you can sell your products.
Thankfully, you can also link it with your Instagram page.
You will also need your Facebook business page to integrate your Zebrabuzz e-commerce in Messenger virtual store where your customers can buy your products without having to leave Instagram.
Story Links
This is very useful. As Instagram does not allow you to provide links within posts, stories help do the job. Your bio can also take only one link, so what do you do when you need to link more?
You can post as many links as possible on your stories which will help direct your customers to any page on your website.
Consistency is Key
Another thing to note when you want to sell products on Instagram is that you have to be consistent with your posts.
Create product and services posts with regularity. You can also have a set time of the day or week to make posts, so your customers build a habit of checking your products regularly.
However, manually posting your products can be tedious. You may also forget some times or just not feel up to it. Well, part of the many features on offer from Zebrabuzz is its ability to make your posts for you.
If you also want to target a specific time when the post should be made, you can do that as well. For instance, if you want a post to be made in two weeks at a particular time, you can schedule it.
Not only will it post on Instagram, if you want the post on the other social media platforms you may be on, this tool called Social Poster can do that as well.
Always Engage your Customers
Marketing nowadays has taken on a new look. Forbes has described conversational marketing as ‘the new way to do business.’
That being said, you need to engage your customers on your Instagram page. Comments, replies, and messages should not be left unattended to for too long. You should always be available to attend to your customers, answer their questions, and do their bidding.
Recent studies confirm that customers who reach out to an online business expect a reply within the first 10 minutes.
Competition in the market has increased, and customer expectation has increased with it too. However, being online 24/7 to reply to comments and messages is a tedious and burdensome task.
You have to agree with me that it is almost humanly impossible always to be available to reply to thousands of comments and messages within the first 10 minutes they are sent.
This is what puts many people off about Instagram; the tedious job of constantly engaging customers can be overwhelming.
Thankfully, there are chatbots. Chatbots like Zebrabuzz make it possible for you to engage your customers at any time constantly.
Not only will they engage your customers, but they can also make regular posts for you. Zebrabuzz chatbots are available for the major social media platforms like Facebook Messenger, Instagram and so on.
When integrated, it can help you sell your products, make posts, reply customers’ comments and messages, schedule appointments, direct users to human representatives, among many other features that make it one of the most sought after marketing software.
Make Use of Shoppable Posts
As Instagram limits the number of links, you can put on posts, and on your bio, another smart way to sell your products on the platform is by using shoppable posts.
Shoppable posts will serve as a portal to your website or online store. You must have come across a shoppable post at one time or the other; it looks more or less like a normal post, but the only difference is that it has a tiny white shopping bag icon at a corner.
Immediately the post is tapped, the names and prices of the products will be displayed. When the customer clicks one of them, they will be directed to your website.
The best part of this is that there is no need for an app-switching which can turn people off when they realise they may have to leave Instagram.
When you integrate your Zebrabuzz e-commerce in Messenger virtual store with your Instagram account, all your products will become visible to your customers whenever they click on your shoppable posts. This will be along with the prices and procedures to pay.
For example, if you have a bag to sell, you can use a shoppable post to place the bag on your Instagram page. Once your customers who like the bag and want to buy tap the post, the price will be shown.
To buy, they will tap again and your Zebrabuzz e-commerce in Messenger virtual store will be opened right there on Instagram with the product they want are interested in placed on the screen.
They can, therefore, proceed to do their shopping seamlessly without having to go through the process of redirecting to an external website.
Run Ads
Ads are very important for any business that wants to sell on Instagram. There is a common belief that ads are expensive and small scale business with little budgets cannot enjoy it. Nothing could be more further from the truth when it comes to Instagram marketing!
If run effectively, you will get more than what you paid for. To do this, just tapping ‘promote’ in the Instagram app may not do the job for you.
Simply promoting the post will limit your access, and you will not be able to customise your audience, which is very important.
Run your ads in tandem with Facebook ads and take the time to edit your campaigns in the Ads Manager.
By doing so, you will have access to targeting options as well as types of Brand Awareness campaign, reach and many more, which will give you massive viewers for a cheap price.
Another way you can advertise your business is by building email lists. The Zebrabuzz chatbot can do this too! You can advertise your business by sending promo offers, new arrivals notification, among many other others to the massive email list the AI chatbot can build.
Sending blasts and bulk SMS as well using artificial intelligence to suggest content and products for your customers based on their previous activities are also ways it can help advertise your business.
Other ways you can successfully sell your products on Instagram include:
- Always let your customers know they can shop directly from your Instagram business account.
- In some cases, display more than one product in a post. Do not overdo it though and ensure the products are closely related.
- Create exclusive hashtags. This is important so that when customers search for these hashtags, they see your products.
Asides that, you can also research on hashtags so you can use trending tags on your posts to push your products.
For example, when an hashtag is trending, it is usually smart to use them on your product posts. Those who search for that hashtag will get to see your products and some of them will be interested.
With these tips, you will be able to successfully sell your products on Instagram and therefore reap massive sales from it.
