Instagram lead generation: the gold mine behind Instagram

I used to think at Instagram as a fancy social just for models, VIPs, selfie lovers and sometimes posers.

When you own a website, or you start a blog, you have always to think about which are the best social you need to focus on in order to grab the attention of new readers or get new leads.

Usually Instagram is the last one when it comes to content marketing, or at least written content. But things are changing.

Here’s why:

Instagram has now over 300 million users, most of them millennials. A high engaged audience using the app probably more than Facebook.

People love pictures cause they don’t need to spend time reading long post and if they want, they can spend a little more of their time reading a caption.

Instagram engagement is higher than any other social. 60 times than Facebook and 120 than Twitter. Basically if you post a picture on Instagram you get 60 times more likes, comments and engagement than posting the same picture on Facebook.

If you want you can try 🙂

Instagram engagement and conversions

Many people say that if engagement is really good, conversions suck. That’s not correct. I’ve recently tested different conversions techniques using different Instagram pages, some of them between 300k and 700k followers.

As you know, the only one place you can add (today) a link, is in the bio. When you post a new picture you can just add a caption and mention other accounts.

This is where the real business now is

There are several pages out there willing to host your links and mention you for money. Technically is paid ads, but it’s not official, since Instagram still doesn’t have and advertising solution open to everyone.

So, as I said, Instagram is very good when it comes to posts engagement. But what about conversions?

With conversions I mean actions your followers take over related to a like, comment, follow or repost. Since your followers can be considered leads, you want them to take a specific action related to your business.

So, if you sell physical products you’d may be like them to see your ecommerce or get a coupon. In my case I use a landing page to drive visitors and invite them to join my list.

This lead generation process is already pretty known and used on Facebook and in other social media. The news is that you can do the same on Instagram with very good conversions.

“Yes, but what if I have just 200 followers and a low engaged page?”

This is not important, in fact you can use bigger pages to promote your business with a really low-cost per lead. (the price you pay to get a new potential client)

Here’s how.

How to boost your conversions on Instagram

So, as I said, the first thing for you to do is to create a landing page. A landing page is a simple web page where you visitors will “land”. It’s the first impact they have with your brand and it’s very important the overall design.

Since the goal is to attract your visitors, it should be engaging and appealing.

You have just a few seconds to impress your visitors and invite them to take a specific action. As I said, we want them to become real leads, not just random people who like your page and your posts.

The best thing you can do is to invite them to join your email list. But, in oder to do that, you need to create something valuable that you will give away for free. It’s called a freebie.

A freebie should be a mix between something people really want and something you really want. It MUST be related to your business and it needs to be valuable. It can be an ebook, a list, a guide, a white paper, a video, a song (if you are a singer :-)) or anything that creates value.

In my particular case, I have created a list of rules to follow to grow your business on Instagram. 

Once you have created it, you are ready to start creating a landing page.

-> SEE HOW YOU CAN CREATE HIGH CONVERTING LANDING PAGES WITH THIS BRIEF COURSE 

But, again, everything depends on your goal. Your landing page could be your website (if optimized) or a sales page, if you sell products. For example I have seen many fashion brands promoting one product at the time. They post a picture of a specific product, they invite followers to check out the link in bio, and then they link to that specific product. In this case conversions could be higher than just linking to a general page.

So in this case a conversion in represented by a purchase. You can easily monitor the performance using Analytics or Bitly.

Of course, your page MUST be responsive and mobile ready.

How to promote your products on Instagram without even having a page or an account

When people say Instagram is not converting, it’s because they don’t promote the link in bio properly. Remember the example I did before?

In order to do that you can regularly (not too much) invite your followers to have a look at it. But what happens if we don’t have any followers or we have just created a new account?

Well, it’s simple. You just need to reach out the accounts with a high number of followers and engagement related to your industry, and ask them to promote your link.  The cost might change based on number of followers, type of page and length of promotion.

This method is less expensive than running a Facebook or any other kind of paid ads. Mainly for three reasons:

1. You are using an established page with a fellow audience as a testimonial
2. You are not directly paying Instagram and so you can negotiate the price
3. You will deal with a person (usually really young guys!) that knows pretty well the industry and can give you tips

-> GET MY GUIDE WITH THE ESSENTIAL RULES TO GROW ON INSTAGRAM

Instagram lead generation: 300 new leads in a few hours

What you need to do now is to invest in paid ads to promote your link or your page. You can do paid shout (big pages will mention you and drive new followers to your page and eventually new visitors to your link), or you can pay these pages to post your link.

You can do it for a day or a week, but consider that the biggest boost you’ll have is when they invite their followers to click on the link. The top visibility will be gained within the first three hours.

My suggestion is to engage pages with at least 100k followers, better if over 500k. Also, make sure to target the one related to your business.

If you sell sport wear, target a sport account or an athlete. If you sell mobile games, target a tech page or a related account.

You have literally thousand of options and there are several pages with many followers.

I have generated over 200 leads (new subscribers) in a few hours driving traffic to my landing page from a 300k followers account. The cost per lead was way much lower than running a similar campaign on Facebook or any other paid ads.

The future of Instagram

Instagram won’t stand forever watching money passing by. In fact, ads are already available but just for a few companies. The goal of Instagram is to use native ads and carousel (a sequence of sliding pictures) where users can click on links without even leaving the app.

Facebook has recently announced a new in-app purchase install ads, which will probably be implemented on Instagram in the future. it also has introduced a new ad banner, the lead ads, which allows to fill out an opt-in form in three simple taps.

Using those ads format on Instagram would be absolutely game changing.

What you can do to start now

If you want to start testing Instagram for your business or personal account, you can do it in two ways:

1. Grow your followers and page engagement with paid shouts campaigns
2. You can create a landing pages and reach out to page owners and post your link in their bio.

May be the first one is more appealing if you want to nurture your personal account or acquire new fans for your business, but the second one is the  best investment in the long-term.

In fact, it will be easier for you to nurture your audience, may be a mailing list, and start engaging your leads outside Instagram.

If you want you can purchase a short list of high converting pages where you can promote your account HERE. It will save you a lot of time instead of looking personally for accounts details, pricing and contact information.

You can also send me an email if you need help to set up an Instagram campaign. I have already successfully helped pages to grow their audience and nurture new leads.

If you haven’t done it yet, I would like to invite you to download the guide I have created about the “14 essential rules to grow your business on Instagram”. You can do it clicking on the button below:

Get the Instagram guide now