Some marketing managers forget about social media leads. They often focus on leads they generate through their website or email marketing. However, social media channels like Instagram are a great lead generation platform.

Instagram leads are consumers who show interest in your company and products. Marketing professionals can use this information, gather leads, and convert them to paying customers.

With over 1.9 billion daily active users, marketing professionals should tap into Instagram marketing and lead generation.

Why Instagram Marketing?

There are plenty of social media platforms available for businesses to generate leads, build brand awareness, and increase their revenue. However, Instagram is one of those channels that provide more benefits to any type and size of business, and here’s why.

• It indirectly affects SEO ranking and increases web traffic
• It attracts users due to its visual media like images and videos.
• Connects with the audience to other social media channels
• Engage with customers/ build better relationships
• Use user-generated content as a marketing strategy
• Easy to target and retarget the audience
• In-depth insights
• Catch up with trends

Now that you have an idea of why we recommend Instagram as one of your marketing strategies, here’s how you can use the platform to generate leads.

Lead Generation Strategies for Instagram

Work Your Bio

Most people who come across an interesting post often visit the profile or account of that post. The first few lines and even images will say everything about your brand. It is here that your audience will decide to follow you, make a purchase, or leave.

It is crucial to give a good impression right away. So, the first thing is to create an interesting bio.

Instagram offers a short bio, so you have to be direct and creative with it.

Make sure to add a CTA and a link, depending on what is your goal. You can direct the audience to sign up for your newsletter, by adding a CTA on what to do and adding a link to it.

Other ways to make your Instagram profile interesting:

• Use the logo of your brand on your profile pic
• Add your brand’s name
• Turn the page into a business account
• Select a category of your business
• Add a brand hashtag

Share Valuable Content

When it comes to marketing, one rule of thumb is to provide value to your target audience. Your brand will get greater credibility and trust if you continuously provide useful materials to your audience.

Make sure to share inspiring and valuable content by avoiding promotional content. You can do it but not frequently or you might scare away your audience.

By learning more about your audience, you’ll know what content will work for them. Use the insights on your Instagram to see what content works and whatnot.

Do not forget to add hashtags related to the photo, content, and your industry. People use hashtags on Instagram to look for products, so make sure to add relevant ones.

The content that must be shared should meet your end goal. So, it is crucial to set a goal first before creating content for your Instagram.

Try to post once a day if you can, or use a scheduling tool to do so.

Engage with Audience

One of the advantages of Instagram for businesses is that it permits businesses to connect with their customers. By communicating with your followers, you can generate leads and increase revenue.

You can respond to comments by talking with your audience. You can answer their questions or show how grateful you are for them by dropping by your profile. Furthermore, you can also react or comment on posts that feature your brand.

When you appear more friendly and accessible, people will like to commit to your brand.

Use Instagram Stories

You can also share valuable content on your stories. Add some human touch by sharing behind the scenes on your Instagram stories. You can also share testimonials of customers too.

On your Instagram stories, you can share photos or videos or even go live.

Unlike Instagram posts, it doesn’t matter how many videos or images you post, it won’t seem to look invasive or annoying.

If you have more than 10,000 followers, you can add a link to your Instagram stories, which is a great way to feature your product and ask customers to follow the link by swiping up.

Collaborate with an Influencer

Collaboration with influencers can be a successful strategy for generating new Instagram leads.

Influencers are established in their industry and they have a community that will support them with whatever they say. So, partnering with influencers that are within your niche can bring in more leads.

If you are a small business, working with micro-influencers is a great option. They are far more affordable and they have a group of followers who are more engaging than big/celeb influencers.

There are many ways you can promote your business with an influencer. They can mention your brand, make a review, post a shout-out, and so on.

Run an Instagram Contest

Running a contest or offering a sale or promotion is a great way to earn some leads. You can ask your audience on Instagram to sign up for your newsletter or answer a survey to get a chance to win a prize. You can even ask them to tag a friend, leave a comment, or you can partner up with an influencer to get more leads.

There is also an option to create an Instagram-only sale or promotion. By making a sense of urgency, people are more likely to shop, according to the Instagram blog. This will help get more leads for you to convert.

Use Instagram Lead Ads

Lead ads on Instagram is a way of collecting data such as email address, phone number, birthdays, and more. Businesses can utilize this information to get to know their customers, improve their campaigns, and deliver valuable content.

If you want to gather such information, make sure your Instagram account is converted to Instagram business. When creating your ad, it has to be done at Facebook’s Ads Manager.

After which, you have to choose your objective, you can choose lead generation as your objective for the ad. It is then followed by defining your audience by choosing the gender and age. It is followed by selecting automatic ad placement, picking how your ad appears, and creating a lead form.

Instagram leads can be utilized to perfect your Instagram ad targeting strategy.  These audiences allow you to target people on the site who have similar profiles, increasing your exposure and allowing you to reach out to new potential customers.

Share User-Generated Content

User-generated content is a way to showcase your products without making any effort to create content. All you need is permission to share the content of your customers. User-generated content is unpaid content that you can use as social proof. Furthermore, user-generated content can be a way to tell about your brand or product.

Since people trust what other people say, using such content will give others an idea about your brand. It even increases engagement on your Instagram account and you get more leads for your business.

Create a Landing Page that Delivers

When someone clicks on your link, you have to make sure they land on a page that they won’t regret. Create one that matches your goal and what people expect it to look like. You can test your landing page before launching them.

Create a Shoppable Post

Instagram for Business mentioned in a post that 44% of people use the app to shop weekly. By tagging your products on your post, you can increase your sales or even collect leads from interested customers.

When such information is given to marketers, it is priceless. You can use it to see what products your audience is interested in or to create ads for customers who have interacted with your content.

You can use Instagram Insight to see how many people click on your product, the number of who make a purchase, and more.

In addition to making shopping easier for your audience and collecting data, shoppable posts often show up in the Explore feed. Hence, this gives your brand more exposure to a new audience.

Conclusion

Increasing your Instagram lead generation will help you take your business to the next level. What’s vital to remember is that it takes time for your strategies to pay off. In addition, you have to find out which strategy works best and also utilize new ones to see if they can meet your goal.

Furthermore, you just don’t end your goal by gaining leads. You have to find ways to convert your Instagram leads to paying and loyal customers. This is how businesses continue to grow and maintain their presence for years.