5 Ways to Leverage Instagram to Grow Your Email List
If you’re like most business owners using Instagram, you’re using it as:
- A platform to showcase your products or services
- A sales channel and selling directly to your audience
- A marketing channel to build your online community
What many business owners who use Instagram are missing out on is an opportunity to use it as a channel to grow their email list. Over 80% of retail professionals and small-medium sized business owners claim email marketing is their top channel for customer acquisition and retention.
That means you should be leveraging the channels you already use to grow your email list. Today, I’ll be showing you 5 simple and effective ways to leverage Instagram to build an engaged subscriber base.
Create and Connect an Email List
If you’re not using email marketing as one of your primary channels for communication and sales, it’s never too late to start.
If you have an Instagram following, you’ll be able to build an active email list quickly.
But before you can start building your list, you need to set up a way to capture emails and build your list. Here are some free email marketing services you can use to get started.
Once you decide which tool to use, you can share links that redirect users to your landing page where they’ll subscribe.
Once you start building your list here’s two things that you should focus on:
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Active Audience Number
The active audience number is the number of subscribers that are engaged. In other words, subscribers that open and click through your emails.
If you have a large number of inactive subscribers (haven’t opened your emails in 3 months), segment them and send emails to re-activate them, or remove them.
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Auto Responders
Setting up an automatic series of emails for new subscribers is one of the most effective and cheap methods to get your subscribers to take action. You can create a series of emails that provide value to your subscribers, and eventually you’ll be able to send them offers for your products or services.
5 Ways to Leverage Instagram to Grow Your Email List
1. Update Your Bio with a Subscription Link
Your Instagram Bio can only have one link, that means it is essential to keep it updated with products or services you are currently trying to promote. Many businesses cycle links throughout the week, starting from a simple link to their website and ending at a current offer or lead magnet.
To get the most value out of this single link, try to add an incentive for your followers to click it. You might not think it is very important but a well structured Instagram Bio is one of the keys to converting your followers into customers.
For you to have a successful Instagram Bio keep your goals in mind and plan ahead for what you are trying to promote. Here is an example:
Green Blender sells fresh ingredients by delivery, and to grow their email list they have a link in their bio which people can click on to download a free ebook with guides on how to use their products in exchange for their email address.
2. Provide your Audience with Compelling Incentives
In order for a visitor to give you their email address, you need to provide them with a worthy incentive.
The most common examples of incentives are:
- Giveaways – most of your audience would most likely love to get your product or service for free!
- Discounts – giving your audience discounts to your product or service gives both incentive to subscribe to your email list as well as boosting your sales and product awareness.
- Free guides – give your audience a chance to win a free guide, ebook or training video
Of course, there are countless ways to provide incentives for people to subscribe to your email list and you should try to find the best way depending on what product or service you are providing.
3. Take Advantage of Instagram Stories
Instagram stories are a great feature to connect with your audience daily. The best part about stories is that they are interactive when used the right way this means a higher conversion rate.
Video content on Instagram stories is currently booming, 54 percent of consumers want to see more video. Make sure to spice up your stories with a mixture of images and videos.
Add text, create swipe up links to take your audience to your landing page, and even promote your weekly newsletter. You can easily create calls to action for your audience by using incentives; here is an example:
Here is a basic example of a call to action story:
Crate and Barrel use limited-time discounts to create call to action for their audience, however, the possibilities are endless. Use giveaways, free video guides, or whatever you find relevant and valuable for your audience.
4. Use Creative Copy in Your Call-to-Actions
To you it might seem obvious that you want your Instagram followers to subscribe to your email list, but it isn’t always obvious to them.
Aside from providing them with compelling incentives, you also need to use creative copy in your calls to action to encourage people to visit your page and sign up to your email list.
Crafting creative copy isn’t easy. But by using power words such as free, you, and now you can create yourself a swipe file or cheat sheet that you can always refer to when writing copy for your CTAs.
Using power words or phrases in your Instagram Bio, post descriptions, and all your CTAs to increase your conversion rate and exposure to new followers.
In this example you can see the average conversion rates depending on the phrase used, more power phrases to use can be found here.
5. Use Instagram Ads
Instagram ads are still underpriced considering how engaged Instagram users are. When I had an Ecommerce store, of all the paid marketing strategies I was using, Instagram was one of the most cost-effective channels.
Make sure your Instagram is set to business as this allows you to have links leading to your other social media as well as sharing your Instagram on other platforms.
A simple ad with a short call to action leading to your landing page will have pretty solid conversion rates if your targeting is right.
You can also create a customized landing page for a better customer experience for viewers of your ad. Redirecting people to a thank you page once they subscribe will also help you track your conversion rates and adjust your ad’s or page accordingly.
This Spotify ad is the perfect example of a simple, call to action ad that uses both the Install now swipe up paired with creative copy that uses power words: “Music You Love, Free”.
