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Square AU Pty Ltd is not paid or endorsed by Instagram. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. For specific advice applicable to your business, please contact a professional.
As the summer holidays approach, it’s time to prepare for the busy season. From selling Christmas or Hanukkah presents to spruiking local tourism, festivities are a key time to capture the attention of your audience on Instagram and boost sales. This year, meet your customer not just online, but in their pocket by selling on Instagram. Here are some ways to leverage Instagram for the Christmas sales.
Create seasonal content
The festive season and Christmas time evoke strong feelings for many people. You can use the power of these emotions to attract customers to your brand and products by posting beautiful photographs and videos that are designed for the festive season
This could look like curating and photographing your products in festive settings, whether that be by a Christmas tree, a menorah, or the pool over the summer holidays. You should also focus on promoting the products that suit the silly season, for instance highlighting accessories for parties, or catering products .
Better yet, consider tweaking your products to suit the festive season! For instance, by releasing limited edition Christmas-themed patterns on your products.
Switch on Instagram Shopping
Once you’ve created beautiful, festive product imagery, make it even easier for your customers to buy by promoting it on Instagram through Shoppable posts! On Instagram, you can tag products just like you can tag people, so users can tap a post they like and see the product name and price pop up. They are able to click right through to the product page on your online store, and purchase via the shopping cart in the usual way.
To set up Instagram Shoppable posts, you need to check your Instagram Shopping eligibility, set up your product catalogue on Facebook, then link the catalogue through the Instagram platform.
Start promoting sponsored posts
Once your content is optimised for the holiday season, consider putting ad spend behind your posts to reach more users. You can create sponsored posts using photos, video, carousels (series of images), or use Stories to get your content out there. You can also ‘boost’ posts that have performed well among your organic followers to reach new ones.
You can target Facebook lookalike audiences to your current customer base (an audience that shares similar qualities to your existing customers), or people in a particular location to reach the most relevant audience for your brand. Watch your ad performance through the Facebook Business platform and adjust to ensure your conversions and cost per purchase (among other metrics) are reasonable based on your product and operating costs.
Run a competition
To create buzz around your products during the festive season, encourage your followers to engage with your brand and share your content with their friends. A great way to do this is run a competition with a suite of products that people can win if they engage and share. Make sure the terms require your followers’ friends to follow you too, to build your audience.
You can team up with other brands to create relevant offerings like a Christmas gathering hosting pack (for instance a set of festive drinking glasses or lights, and a speaker), or a summer pack (think sunnies, a towel and a book voucher). Increase the value of the cross-promotion by involving other brands’ products and asking them to share the competition on their channels, increasing your reach to new audiences.
Offer a promotion for a limited time
With presents to buy, holidays to book and friends and family to entertain, people will be looking for a good deal to save where they can. It’s a perfect time to offer your followers a discount to cut through the noise (not all brands will offer discounts at selling season) and increase sales. You can create a discount code that can be shared in posts and applied at checkout, on either organic or sponsored posts.
Look at what products you think are best suited to the holidays and make sure to check your inventory so you can support sales volumes. And don’t forget to put a time limit on your offer to create a sense of urgency!
Encourage User Generated Content
At a time when a lot of shiny product imagery will be filling up feeds, you can build trust by posting user generated content (UGC) from influencers, or your current customers. This helps show how actual customers are using your product. You can use Instagram Stories or posts to ask your customers to send you pictures of them using your products to repost. With their permission, tag them in your posts, and chances are they’ll reshare, reaching their audiences with your message.
The festive season is all about connection and celebration, so UGC is a great way to humanise your brand and create a sense of fun.
Selling on Instagram is an engaging and potentially low-budget way to reach your target market during the summer season. It’s all about creating festive content (selling in the Christmas holidays should share abundance and joy with your customers!) and sharing the love with your followers and other brands to increase your reach and cut-through at a very busy time.
