4 Strategies For a Successful Sales Campaign on Instagram
As a small business owner, you know the power and importance of marketing your business on social media, but maybe you are feeling stuck and overwhelmed with how to SELL on Instagram.
Maybe you feel…
… like you aren’t good at selling.
… like your audience will get annoyed with you.
… like you don’t even know what to post to effectively drive sales.
And that is TOTALLY reasonable, understandable, and so many other entrepreneurs have gone through the exact same thing.
Selling doesn’t have to be difficult or feel gross. Selling is a crucial part of your business. If you weren’t selling, your “business” would just be a hobby.
So let’s talk about a sales campaign! To put it simply:
A sales campaign is a strategy to convert leads into customers over a short period of time.
For larger businesses this can get REALLY complex. But for you, as a small business owner, it can look like promoting just one product over a short period of time on just one platform like Instagram.
The whole point of a sales campaign is to MAKE MONEY!!!
And now, before we dive into 4 strategies you can use to ensure a successful sales campaign, if you aren’t sure HOW to create, the 8-Day Campaign is the perfect place for you to start. You can learn the strategy behind running a campaign, spreadsheets to calculate sales, Canva content templates, and caption templates!!
But now - let’s dive into 4 strategies that you can try to ensure a successful sales campaign on Instagram!
Small Audience? Focus on High Ticket Offers
You might be thinking - “Is my audience even big enough to run a campaign?”
Short answer: YES!!! It doesn’t matter your audience size.
Long answer: You can be very successful with a sales campaign, but you have to price the offer at a much higher price point to hit monetary goals of your sales campaign. A $29 product just won’t cut it!
It boils down to psychology AND the Instagram algorithm. It’s a numbers game.
Marketing psychology tells us that a customer needs to have 7 touch points with your offer BEFORE they make a purchase.
The average engagement rate for most accounts is 2-5%, so the vast majority of your audience is NOT seeing your content that you put out on Instagram.
Then you also have to remember that when you post “sales-y” content, even if it is VERY strategic, your engagement rate will typically go down or underperform when compared to other content.
Put allllll of this together, and think about the math behind it when looking at your follower count. If you have less than 1,000 followers and take all of the information into account you might generate 3-10 sales. WHICH IS AWESOME!!
Let’s say you sell your offer to 5 people on Instagram.
If that offer is only $29… your sales will amount to $145
If that offer is $997… your sales will amount to $4,985
BIG difference right? So if you audience is smaller, or you are just getting started, you need to focus on selling high ticket offers!!
Focus on One Topic During the Campaign
A confused mind says NO! So think about that when you are crafting your sales campaign. You don’t want to overwhelm or confuse potential customers by offering too many things, by selling different offers, or by creating content that does not align with what it is you are selling.
Throughout the duration of an 8-Day Campaign there is PLENTY of opportunity to sell your product AND create other types of content. You just have to make sure it resonates with what it is you are selling.
Moral of the story: talk ONLY about your product and things that relate to it
For example: Let’s say you are a wedding planner who created a course for brides that want to DIY most of their wedding planning.
YOUR MAIN FOCUS: Selling that course
Not every piece of content will explicitly say “buy my course.” You will create other types of content to educate, entertain, and inspire your potential customer.
But during the duration of your campaign you WILL NOT:
try and sell your wedding planning packages
talk about that $1,000,000 wedding you just planned
promote your freebie or other digital products
During the duration of your campaign you WILL:
Directly sell and talk about the benefits, features, and results of your course
Create content a DIY bride would resonate with (tutorials, tips, hacks, etc.)
Feature budget friendly options or alternatives
It all comes down to making sure the content you post on Instagram, for that particular time period, relates to and focuses back on your main objective!
Answer DMs and Link Your Sales Page
During a sales campaign, just posting content won’t automatically sell your offer. Of course that content WILL lead to a sale for some, but not for all. You are going to have to do some selling in the DMs!!
It’s very common, and natural, for people to have questions about your offer, especially if this is your first time selling it to the world. Allow your community to come to you with questions - you should actually encourage it!
Make sure you are posting a question sticker in your stories.
Make sure you are writing a call to action in your captions asking for questions.
Make sure you are connecting with your community.
And every time you see a new message in your DMs as it relates to your offer…
… answer their question.
… have a conversation.
… then drop in the link to your sales page.
It doesn’t have to feel slimy and sleazy - selling can be as simple as a conversation!
Don’t Push a Purchase
Now, in the small business world, entrepreneurs sometimes have a bad reputation when it comes to selling because some people will push for a purchase even if they know someone isn’t a good fit for what they are offering.
It is unethical to push for a sale if you know your offer isn’t the right solution for someone.
If someone comes to you with the question: “do you think this is the right fit for me?” and you have a conversation with them and determine your offer IS NOT RIGHT - you should not encourage them to make a purchase.
That is a great way to lose trust with your audience, have to deal with the headache of a refund, and it’s just not good karma. Period.
PRO TIP: If you know that the product you are selling during a particular campaign is NOT right for someone, you can kindly send them a different freebie or product that WOULD work for them - and it is best to do it privately so you don’t confuse your audience (like mentioned above).
Need help creating those organic sales campaigns on Instagram?
Try out our 8-Day Campaign Kit with the strategy and all the Canva templates and Caption templates you will need for your whole campaign.
Works for any niche and any type of business: service or product-based businesses, as well as influencers, coaches and entrepreneurs!
The 8-Day Campaign includes Canva templates for Reels, Carousel, Feed Posts, Stories and Covers. All our Canva templates are easy to customize for your brand, but also come with a demo video, if you need extra help!
Our templates are easy to customize, come with demo videos and work for any business in any niche: Product-based businesses, Service-based businesses and Personal Brands, including influencers, celebrities, coaches and more.
We also have a pack of Captions created specifically for your business.
Manu Muraro is the founder of Your Social Team, an Instagram training membership and content shop to help social media managers and Instagram savvy women entrepreneurs to beat the algorithm and grow their organic engagement (yes, even in 2021).
This year she also launched Your Template Club, a Canva Template subscription to provide social media managers and Instagram savvy business owners with content templates designed for engagement in their inbox.
Born and raised in Brazil, Manu moved to the U.S. in 2000 right out of college to work for Cartoon Network, where she made an award winning career in creative and strategy. In 2017, Manu started Your Social Team with the mission of helping women entrepreneurs and social media managers grow engagement and sales through Instagram without the overwhelm.