When it comes to marketing, no business should avoid missing out on the great benefits that Instagram offers – especially this upcoming Black Friday weekend. 

As I addressed in a previous blog post, you ideally want to start your Black Friday sale early this year due to the current climate. People are shopping more wisely and searching for the best deals in advance, so you want to get ahead of your competitors when it comes to marketing your products. 

With continued growth, Instagram is making it easier for eCommerce sellers to promote their offerings across the platform, turning it from a simple photo-sharing app to an easily accessible shopping hub. 

Today, I take a look at the tools to utilize across the month of November, and even right through the festive period with the end goal of turning over a higher return on investment. And, guess what? 

They are all free to use!

Set Up Instagram Shopping

The main goal of Instagram marketing here is to draw potential customers to your website & Instagram shopping is the ultimate solution for this. 

With a short set-up time, it grants you the opportunity to connect your online catalog to the app and link your products within real-time and pre-made content for a visually appealing, interactive shopping experience. You can showcase your products to online shopping lovers and do it in a way that boosts your social engagement. 

You are basically creating a shopfront on Instagram, where you can build collections based on new arrivals, or seasonal trends for example, and produce product detail pages. 

From here you can add product tags to your posts, within paid advertisements, and also deliver enticing product launch campaigns. 

Many of the UK’s retail giants already utilize Instagram Shopping throughout their feeds and are continuing to turn over great revenue because of it. Using John Lewis as an example, below you’ll see a visual representation of how simple the shopping experience can be.

Including Direct Links in Your Instagram Stories

Whilst they are short-lived and disappear past 24 hours, Instagram Stories are a fantastic way for inviting interaction, and are ideal for engaging with your followers. But did you know you can also include direct links to your products within your stories? 

Once reserved for users with a following over 10K, everyone now has the ability to include a direct website/or product link within your engaging stories through stickers and swipe-up links. 

These are fantastic ways of promoting new product launches, in-demand re-stocks, and also for when promoting certain products within sale periods. Say, for example, beauty-giant Boots wants to feature their star gifts within their stories, they can include a direct link to each individual item leading to a quicker shopping journey for customers.

Being Creative With Your Content

As I mentioned above, Instagram began as a simple photo-sharing app – who else remembers the classic 1977 filter? But now through the introduction of Reels, & due to its unpredictable algorithm, users are encouraged to think outside the box and to be more creative to ensure they stand out against the competition.

If you wish to go down the video route, it’s all about showing your brand’s authenticity and creating content that will keep your users watching. And in all honesty, if you’ve got a great in-house team or agency behind you, creating great video content isn’t as time-consuming as it may seem. 

Another option across the festive period is to reach out to influencers and content creators to produce content for you. They’ll already have the knowledge of what it takes to produce engaging content and you can either pay them for their time or work on a gifting basis & in return receive a portfolio of digital assets. 

Finally, what is a Black Friday sale without some eye-catching graphics? 

For this, I would highly recommend using Canva – a free-to-use online graphic design tool. With hundreds of Instagram posts & story templates, you can create professional-looking promotional visuals in a matter of minutes.

Happy Black Friday!

Thanks for reading,

Myk Baxter, eCommerce Consultant