I guess that if you’re on Instagram, you’re there for one reason only, and that is to use Instagram for selling your products and services.
Well, then why so many of the “gurus” tell you not to sell if you want to grow?
I think it is because they are dumb.
You can’t grow unless you can sell more of your products or services on Instagram. There is no reason to be there if you don’t do it.
The question is, how can you do it?
Well, that’s exactly the thing that I’m going to show you in this article.
So, what are you waiting for?
Turn off your Instagram for a moment and don’t go back until you read this article in its entirety…
So, let’s dive in!
Leverage The Last Slide Of Your Carousels To Sell Your Stuff
This is one of the easiest ways to start promoting your things on Instagram.
All you have to do is to leverage the last slide of your carousels and you will be able to sell more of your products and services.
If you have no clue how to do that you can just model the examples that I have shown you above.
It is more than effective.
I use this principle to sell a ton of my books and other stuff. It’s great and it is easy-peasy to do.
All right! This is the basic thing that you should do, but let’s move to other things…
Sell In The Footer Of Your Captions
This one is something that you’ve probably recognized before. It is incredibly simple, but it can drive a ton of traffic to your website.
What you want to do is simply end your caption with a footer that contains a call to action.
It is going to work even better if the whole caption is going to work as a cliffhanger. That means you are going to talk about the topic in the caption and then end it up with something like:
“Do you want to discover exactly how to build a powerful sales funnel? Then click the link in my bio and check______right away!”
It is working more than well. In fact, when I used it I saw a 300% increase in the amount of website traffic I got from Instagram.
It is really powerful.
But remember that there are also some guidelines that you are going to use to create the call to action.
Here are some of them:
- Be clear and concise
- Include only one CTA to make sure they are not confused
- Use a sense of urgency
- Use emotional power words like astonishing, immediately, and breath-taking to encourage them to take action
If you will follow these guidelines for writing killer CTAs, the amount of traffic and sales that you are going to make is going to increase even more.
It is powerful!
So, what are you waiting for? Start promoting your products in your Instagram captions right away!
But what’s even better is that you can also sell in your highlights…
Sell In Your Instagram Highlights
That is exactly the thing that you want to do. Instagram story highlights are not here to show your best moments from your holidays.
If you use them for that purpose you are silly or you hate money.
You want to use Instagram story highlights for selling your products and services. But how are you going to do that?
Well, if your first thought was…
“I am just going to record myself using the product, and they will buy!”
…you are WRONG. This is not the way you do it.
Selling in your Instagram story highlights is copywriting, not dancing in front of your camera.
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Or if you are a salesperson, it can be one of the strategies you use for selling. But using a copywriting formula here is going to be more effective.
What formulas am I talking about?
There are two of them that I love to use:
- AIDA (Attention – Interest – Desire – Action)
- PAS (Problem – Agitation – Solution)
Why do I love using these formulas? Well, you will see in just a minute.
But before I dive into how it works understand that to sell a ton of stuff through your Instagram highlights you need to act strategically.
So, let’s see how these formulas work.
Instagram Highlight-Selling Formula #1 – AIDA
If you’ve never heard of it, AIDA is a model that is widely used in both copywriting and marketing circles.
The concept of AIDA originated in 1898 when Elias St. Elmo Lewis, who was eventually inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame, wrote a column (anonymously) about three advertising principles that he found useful throughout his career.
That column appeared in The Inland Printer, one of the most influential 19th-century American magazines, and stated that all successful advertisements should follow a certain copywriting formula.
So how this formula works? Nothing too complex…
Attention
In the first stage of this Instagram highlight-selling formula, you have to grab consumers’ attention. That is done with your headline and opening on the first few “slides”.
The headline needs to contain a big promise, arouse curiosity, and appeal to their emotions.
When the consumer will read the headline they should think “I will just DIE if I won’t find out more!”
That’s when you got something.
The next thing you need to pay attention to is your opening. You want to resonate with them in the opening as much as you can.
You can use a video where you tell a story (which is the most powerful thing that you can do) or just ask a few questions that will appeal to their emotions.
The opening is super-important because it’s the part where you will lose most of the people who will check your Instagram highlight.
But this is just the beginning…
Interest
Attracting attention is one thing. But HOLDING attention is completely another thing.
And that is the second part of this Instagram highlight-selling formula.
You can do this by mentioning a problem your audience is facing. A problem that is eating them alive. A problem they would beg on their knees to solve.
If you will talk about it, you will hold their attention.
Desire
Most people have the “A” and “I” but they completely forget the “D”.
The desire stage of this Instagram highlight-selling formula is where you appeal to their desires by showing them what you have to offer.
This is where you will explain the features and benefits, that you will make them imagine how they are using your product or service.
You also want to use bullet points to make sure they won’t miss a single benefit of your product or service. And this is also the part where you will make the price a non-issue.
This is the stage of this Instagram highlight-selling formula where you will make their lives better and where you will appeal to their emotion as much as you can.
[Logic matters as well!]
If you have done this properly, then you the reader should be ready to buy, so we need to move on!
Action
Now it’s time to make them act!
The way you are going to do that depends on whether you have reached the 10K followers mark and you can use the “swipe up” feature or if you are below that level and you can’t use it.
However, I will show you how to create an effective call to action for both of these.
First, you should follow the CTA guidelines that I have given you in the “selling in Instagram captions part”.
Second, you will create a call to action “slide” that looks like this (if you have less than 10K followers):
Or like this, if you’ve passed the 10K followers mark:
It is more than essential to include one. Otherwise, you have written and recorded the whole stuff just for fun. That’s the truth.
Unless you make them take action nothing happens. So, don’t forget to include this “slide.”
Instagram Highlight-Selling Formula #2 – PAS
This formula is my favorite one. I am using it all the time for copywriting, marketing, and even selling on Instagram.
But how the hell does it work? Well, let’s take a look at it:
Problem
In this stage of the PAS formula, you are going to hook them in and dive deep into a problem they have.
Again, storytelling is the most powerful technique that you can use here. If you will record yourself telling a resonating story they will feel you and you will trigger all of their emotions.
Otherwise, you can do the same as I told you in the AIDA formula. Use your own words and dive into the problem by asking questions and talking about it.
Agitation
This is the part that is the most misunderstood, but here you are going to make the problem way more dramatic than they think it is.
FEAR is going to play a huge role here.
Tell them how things are going to go worse if they won’t solve that problem immediately. Make them afraid of the things that can go wrong.
Again, if you can tell it in a story it will be way more powerful than if you will use words. But of course, you can do it even through them.
Solution
This is the last step of this extremely powerful formula. Here you will present the “holy” solution for their problem.
And if you have done the agitation part right, they will jump on it like rabbits on carrots.
Present your product, explain the features and benefits, show them some social proof, and build a huge desire in their mind.
Then, don’t forget to ask for the action and you will be able to sell like crazy.
All right, do you have your highlights set up? Fantastic, but don’t forget that you should also sell in your Instagram stories…
Sell Your Products In The Instagram Stories
Well, if you are reading this you probably think that it is a slam dunk. The problem is that it’s not.
Most people use their Instagram stories for selling only when they have something new to announce.
However, that is not the way you are going to drive traffic to your sales funnels and make some serious money.
In my opinion, you should promote your products and services through your Instagram stories at least once per week.
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I mean, I am glad that everybody is trying to be helpful on Instagram, but you will see a ton of gurus with 100K followers that are amazing when it comes to Instagram growth…
…however, when it comes to making money they suck. They don’t understand that you can’t deposit likes in the bank.
And that’s why you shouldn’t listen to “Instagram gurus” that haven’t done anything else than Instagram growth when it comes to selling.
So, don’t forget to use your stories to promote your products and services…not just your new posts.
Create At Least One Promotional Post Per Week
Whether you like it or not, if you want to make money you have to start being the “slimy” salesperson your parents told you not to be.
But I don’t mean co-calling and interrupting everybody no matter where you go. I mean promoting your stuff at least once per week.
If you don’t consistently show your audience your products and services, they will never buy.
You have to do it. You have to promote, promote, and promote using this formula:
80% of your content should be just valuable (no huge selling or any other promotional things) and 20% of the posts that you create should be just selling.
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If you will promote more than 20% of the time, you are going to turn your audience away as they won’t receive any value from the stuff that you are creating.
But if you will follow this amazing rule, you will be able to sell like crazy.
So, don’t forget to promote…but also don’t forget that you must not over-promote.
Leverage The Power Of Instagram Shops
This is something Instagram has started to promote heavily for one simple reason…they want to support small businesses in these hard times.
Well, that is one reason why you should create them.
But there are many others. For example:
- You can sell all of your products and services directly through Instagram
- You can show all of your stuff in the shop
- The shop is searchable so there is a chance of getting “free” customers
- And many more!
The thing is that, if you are a business and you are not leveraging this amazing feature, you should try applying for it right away!
It is going to help you a lot.
(By the way, I just noticed a little thing when I was creating the visual of the shops. When I’ve written my 10X Instagram Secrets book I had no clue about Grant Cardone’s 10X Movement. I am not trying to steal his brand or anything like that. I just found that title cool so I used it and wrote the whole book around it.)
Filip Konecny 