5 Ways to Increase Sales on Instagram Without Spending a Dime

Aside from being an entertainment platform, Instagram can be an excellent way of increasing your business reach and engagement with your customers. Generally, using Instagram for business purposes can be beneficial for several reasons. With more people using this social media channel, your business will more likely achieve success with a good Instagram marketing strategy. Whether you run a small or large business, you can rest, knowing it’ll thrive on Instagram by maintaining an active presence on the platform. 

Moreover, if you want to establish credibility and rapport with your target audience, having a business Instagram account can be a good option. With some Instagram features, like Stories, you can show your audience the human side of your business, making your brand more trustworthy. On the other hand, Instagram allows you to engage with your customers more effectively. It’s a social media channel that gives users an opportunity to like, comment, or share posts. This means that the more likes and comments your business gets, the more you can make your organization visible. When this happens, you can improve your chances of acquiring more sales. 

Lastly, using Instagram lets you know what marketing content would work best for your business by seeing what the users are liking in terms of content. Before, it’s easy to know what posts people were liking if you follow them. In 2019, however, Instagram removed this feature. But, with the help of some applications, you can easily see what someone likes. As a result, you can obtain essential information that your business can use for your marketing efforts. 

So, if you run a business on Instagram and want to learn how you can increase sales for your business without spending a dime on Instagram ads or influencer marketing, then this post is for you.

Now, this post is not to talk against running Instagram ads or paying influencers to promote your products/services on their page. To be truthful with you, if you have the budget, I will advise you to invest in running Instagram ads or pay influencers to promote your product or service. Because if any of these is done correctly, you will be smiling to the bank.

This post is majorly for business owners who may not have the budget to spend on advertising their products/services because they are either just starting or have not made enough sales to be able to invest in ads of any kind.

So, without wasting much time, here are 5 tested and proven ways to increase sales on Instagram without spending a dime;

1. Hashtag Marketing

Having the ability to capture the attention of your target audience is the only way you can make sales off Instagram as a business owner. Grabbing attention is key. If you can grab the attention of potential customers, then there is a possibility for sales.

Hashtags are one of the ways to grab the attention of your target audience organically without them expecting it. Hashtags help to increase your visibility on Instagram. It is one marketing strategy that helps to announce you to people who don’t know you exist.

Here is a simple explanation of what hashtags can do for you: Hashtags take your post from your page to the page of people following the hashtags you used for that post. This means, if you don’t use any hashtag for any of your posts, only people following your page will be able to see your post. So, you won’t be able to drive new potential customers to your page.

The purpose of hashtags is for discoverability. If you are not using hashtags at all for your page, you are just wasting your time on Instagram and there is no hope for growth.

To take advantage of hashtags marketing, you have to use hashtags that your target audiences are following. Use hashtags related to your niche. You shouldn’t be using #30bg when you are a shoe vendor. Or be using #marlians when you are a parenting coach.

Yes, these are trending hashtags but they are not trending hashtags in your niche. You should only use trending hashtags in your niche if you want to use trending hashtags at all.

If you don’t know your way around conducting hashtags research, you should reach out to an Instagram expert to help you out.

Also, avoid spammy hashtags such as #shoutout4shoutout, #follow4follow, #like4like. Hashtags like these can get your page banned by Instagram. Your hashtags must be related to your posts. And importantly, never use the same hashtags with every post to avoid being shadowban. Ideally, you should have 3 sets of relevant hashtags.

2. Content

Content is not just king for SEO, it is also king even for Instagram marketing.

As an expert in Instagram marketing, I have come to discover that the people who only post promotional content on their page don’t always make the most sales.

The truth is, people are tired of seeing one kind of content every time. The highest they can do is either hit the like button or comment that the product is beautiful.

Instagram is a social platform, not a trade fair center. Nobody came online to be seeing shoes, bags, or cakes of different sizes and colors on their feed all the time.

If you want people to land on your page and easily follow you, then you have to balance content on your page.

Content on social media platforms should be 50% entertainment, 25% educational and 25% promotional. This is the correct ratio of the kind of content you should be posting on your page to ignite sales.

As a page manager and an entrepreneur, I hardly promote my services on my page and that of my clients. I use the above formula and I have never shifted from it. Sales come automatically.

No matter what you are selling, there is always a way you can educate your audience. Whether it is cake, shoe, weight loss program, there are always tips you can share with your audience.

3. Be Actively Engaging

Here is one strategy that I use to get my followers to my side and turn them into paying followers.

Three times every week, I devote 30 minutes to engaging with my follower’s posts.

Why?

They are some accounts that just followed me because I followed them. Others followed me and forgot that they are even following me because of the huge distraction on their feed.

So, this is what I do – As I log into Instagram, I just start commenting on every post that I see. I comment on the first and scroll down. Comment and go to the next. I do this till I get tired.

I don’t just drop comments like, “this is beautiful”, “nice post”, “congratulations”. I drop something that someone will read and want to check who the person is.

I view their story and engage with them.

The result?

It has led to numerous amount of sales for me and has helped grow my page.

How?

People I was following that were not following me started following me because when they noticed me, they checked my page, saw one or two posts that they found interesting.

Many of them even went further to engage with my posts too because I engaged with theirs.

I do this just to create awareness for my brand. The same awareness you crave for that makes you want to run ads. When people know you exist and find your product or service useful to them, they will surely buy from you.

Why you? Because now you are already their friend. You were not only following them; you were engaging with their posts.

I just shared with you a top sales hack. The wise will apply this strategy on their page to see results for themselves.

Let’s push further.

4. Instagram Story

Do you know that Instagram Stories normally get more reach than posts? Yes, it does. You can easily turn followers into customers with your stories.

Types of Instagram Stories that Sells;

• Product Launch: If you are launching a new product or service, you can easily use your story to boost sales. Since you already know that Instagram stories only last for 24 hours, you will announce your offer with a price stating that the price will go up to 3X the present price when the story drops. This will make your offer irresistible as people will want to take advantage of the price so they don’t miss out.
• Question and Answer: This one has worked for my clients so many times. What you need to do here is to put up a question on your story and promise that the first to give the correct answer to the question gets to win a prize or get a 30% discount on a particular product. It is a powerful way to add a personal touch to your brand. People will get to participate by engaging with your story, and this can help your story get to show up on the explore page.
• Discounted Offers: Just like for product launch, you can use your story to announce an offer that will only be available for 24 hours. It can be Valentine’s offer, Christmas or Black Friday sales offer. This put an urgency in the minds of your followers and will make them thirsty to claim the offer so they don’t miss out.

These are the three ways I use Instagram stories to market and drive sales.

5. Engagement Group

Another name for engagement group is pod group. You can take advantage of engagement groups to increase sales for your business.

For those who don’t know what an engagement group or pod is, it is a group where members like and comment on each other posts just to boost the reach of the post. The more a post on Instagram gets engagement, the more the post travels and ends up on the explore page. This is the reason most people join pod groups.

Now, how can you take advantage of pod groups?

I have already answered the question. When you promote your product or service, your engagement group helps you boost the post by engaging on the post. As the engagement increases, the reach increases and this helps your post go further. They also help you rank top for the hashtags you used for the post.

When your post generates the most engagement for a certain hashtag, that post stays at the top of the hashtag you used. And more people following the hashtags you used for the post get to see your post too.

Do you get my point?

It has worked for me and that is why I am sharing it with you now.

Whenever I want to promote any of my services, I take advantage of the pod group I belong to, to increase the reach of the post.

So, there you have it.

These are the 5 ways you can increase sales for your business on Instagram without spending a dime.

Now, for this to work for you, you must stay consistent. Don’t just think you will immediately get the result as soon as you try any of the strategies. You may not get it right the first time. You will need to stay consistent with them to get your desired results. These are proven strategies.

You are free to drop your questions if you have via the comment section below.