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How to Sell the ‘Value Proposition’ on Instagram

How to Sell the ‘Value Proposition’ on Instagram

The old saying goes that you ‘don’t sell hats, you sell warm heads’. This is one of the most useful sayings in business and one that everyone should always keep in mind.

What does it mean? It means that you are not selling the materials themselves, but rather the way those materials make your customers feel and the way they improve their lives.

This is what makes any business tick. And the most successful companies are the ones that truly understand this.

And the great news is that there is no platform better suited to this kind of marketing than Instagram.

How it Works

The reason for this is that it’s much easier to communicate a value proposition – or to ‘sell the dream’ as it were – when using images.

And to use an example of Instagram, we can turn to fitness brands. Fitness brands make money from selling products like clothing, supplements, or training tools. And the way they work, is by using images of people with six packs running on the beach with attractive members of the opposite sex.

The viewer will then see those images and they will feel a sense of longing – they will wish that they could be that healthy, attractive, and happy. And in doing so, they will be moved to a) follow the brand for more inspiration and b) buy the product.

This is a simplification, but it’s exactly what makes Instagram work.

How to Use This Strategy

So how do you use this strategy yourself? The key is to understand first and foremost what your value proposition is. What are you selling? How do you want to make people feel? Even if your business is a relatively straightforward and corporate one, there is still that value proposition. For instance, if you sell life insurance, then you are really selling peace of mind for family men and women.

If you sell EPOS systems, then you are selling the dream of having a restaurant, hotel, or similar.

The next step is to identify your target audience – your buyer persona – and to understand what they want and who they are. Speak to their deepest desires and you will be able to sell them anything!

Finally, make sure that your posts all work within that context and framework. That means that you should be taking photos that perfectly illustrate the point you’re trying to make.

5 Tips That Will Make Your Instagram Account Grow More Quickly

5 Tips That Will Make Your Instagram Account Grow More Quickly

If you’re posting regularly to an Instagram account with beautiful images and you still aren’t seeing growth, then you might understandably find yourself feeling very frustrated. Perhaps Instagram just isn’t right for your business, you may think. Perhaps you’re doing something wrong?

Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that organic growth on Instagram takes time. With that said though, here are five tips that can make a big difference and ensure you grow that bit more quickly.

1 Use Portrait Orientation

Taking photos with a portrait orientation is generally considered the best practice in Instagram marketing. If not, then you should at least choose square images. This way, your image will stay on the page longer while the users are vertically scrolling, meaning more engagement and hopefully more likes.

2 Post at the Right Time

Posting at the right time of day has been shown to be hugely important when it comes to your Instagram success. This way, you maximize the number of people who are awake and who are using the app. Research suggests that posting some time between 10am and 3pm on a weekday will net you the best results. BUT this doesn’t account for global time differences. If you’re aiming for a global audience, then posting at 6pm GMT might just be the smarter strategy.

3 Post Frequently

How frequently? Ideally you should be posting 2-3 times per day. This will ensure that there is a steady flow of content on your site, and that it doesn’t seem as though the page has been abandoned. What’s more though, is that posting this regularly will mean almost all of your viewers will see at least one image from you per day.

4 Use Hashtags

Hashtags make a big difference on Instagram, so make sure you use them often and use them well. One of the most important tips is to use as many as possible (30) in order to maximize your chances of a big hit. Find the sweet spot in terms of popularity too – 30,000 is a good number of posts to see.

5 Choose a Look

Many accounts are all over the place, with every image they post looking completely different and the end result being a page that has no consistency. Making sure the majority of your images have a consistent look – even picking the same filter for every photo – can prevent this issue and help people to better understand what you’re about and whether they should follow.

How to sell on Instagram

How to Sell From Instagram

Instagram is an incredibly popular and potentially hugely powerful marketing tool. Did you know that Instagram has 1 billion active users? That’s 1/7th of the population!

Moreover, Instagram is extremely effective when it comes to promoting products and brands that have any kind of visual appeal. This will allow you to create an account filled with pictures of people using your products or services, or living the lifestyle that you are promoting. That can be highly motivating and encouraging for your followers, and thereby ultimately encourage them to make a purchase.

But how do you go about turning those views into sales?

This is where things can get a little trickier, and the problem here primarily lies with the fact that Instagram doesn’t let you place live links in your descriptions. You can include the URL sure, but your users won’t be able to simply click that link in order to be taken to the store page. And what this means, is that they likely won’t make the effort to go there – and you can’t elegantly convert those views into sales.

So what can you do? What some marketers will do, is to add the buy link in their bios. The text that is used as the image description can then point to that link (link in bio!) and this way, interested viewers can follow it.

This still isn’t perfect however, and what many creators will end up doing, is changing that link practically every day as they update their page with new offers. A better option then would be to link to a storefront, and then to simply move the hottest items to a more prominent position in the store as they are promoted on Instagram.

Better yet though, would be to link directly to the product. Thankfully there are a few ways to do this now. One is by using an Instagram story, which is an image that appears for a short duration of time. If you have 10,000 followers OR a verified account, then you can use this in order to link directly to any items you like – the user just has to swipe upward.

Otherwise, you might be able to use ‘Shopping on Instagram’. This relatively new tool allows images to directly link to buy pages through tags. It’s not available for everyone, and you will need your business to be approved first. But if you can manage it, this has huge potential for sales.

How to Succeed On Instagram Without Taking a Single Photograph

How to Succeed On Instagram Without Taking a Single Photograph

Instagram is extremely popular among internet marketers for a large number of reasons. This is a marketing platform with a great ROI, as well as a huge reach (1 billion active users). It’s also extremely trendy and popular right now, and showing no signs of slowing down or losing momentum (unlike Facebook).

But there are several things that might be holding you back from fully exploiting the potential of Instagram. One of those things, is the fact that Instagram – at least on the face of it – appears to require you to have some skill when it comes to photography. This is a visual medium and it trades in photos that have been taken on smartphones.

If you don’t have a high quality camera phone, if your business doesn’t have a particularly visual aspect to it, OR if you have zero confidence in your own ability to take artistic looking photos… then you might find yourself avoiding this particular social platform.

But here’s the good news: you can actually be highly successful on Instagram without taking a single photograph. Here’s how…

Stock Photography

One way to accomplish this is by using stock photography. Stock photography is photography taken from the web: websites that share photos for creatives to use, either for a fee or in some cases for free!

Most of these sites let you simply search for a term and then download the images you want to use. It’s a great way to find a large resource of images that you can share.

Editing

Another option is to use photography and then edit it. This can likely work in tandem with the stock option. In this case, you might search for photos of people standing on mountains, or making other accomplishments, and then simply add artistic filters and quotes about success and the like. It’s a simple and easy method that has worked for countless people!

The Work of Others

Many Instagram accounts are highly successful simply as a result of sharing photos that other users have taken. Alternatively, this could mean sharing art from others, or video.

The only thing to keep in mind is copyright and fair play. Make sure you get permission from the creators. The good news is that in most cases they will be flattered you asked and excited to get the free exposure. Everyone wins!

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