I often hear business owners say they don’t bother spending time or advertising dollars on Instagram to either build relationships, leads or achieve sales. They see Instagram as a B2C platform and believe this platform works great only for eCommerce or B2C companies.
I understand that Instagram isn’t the right platform for some companies. Many elements need to be considered before using any platform to generate leads or sales including the amount of time being spent by yourself or a team member, costs involved in paid advertising and consideration of how long ROI will take.
Here are the reasons why I use Instagram to build B2B relationships and leads.
- My potential and future clients use are using Instagram to generate leads and sales for their own company. In fact, once they are a fan of my Instagram page, I can send them a direct message. I find the success rate of their response using an Instagram direct message much better than receiving a returned phone call when calling their office or sending an email or a message through Linkedin.You’ll find that the director of the company is usually the owner of their own Instagram page and most direct messages will go straight to them. Not many businesses are using Instagram to connect with other businesses directly using direct messages. Before everyone jumps on this bandwagon or before Instagram changes the platform, I would highly recommend this strategy to message directly those businesses you want to hear from.
- If you know your business Avatars or Personas, you can now rely on Instagram Advertising to attract B2B leads or at least fans by identifying your potential clients’ interests.You may not obtain a lead right away using Instagram Advertising. However, you can use advertising to build your Instagram fan base and develop a relationship with your new fans over time.Once a fan of your Instagram page, you can invite your fans and the business owners to view your webpage through the link on your bio. This strategy can be much more cost effective than using Google AdWords to generate clicks on your website and an excellent way of driving targeted individuals to your website.We’ve only started our Instagram marketing campaign and I’m impressed with the amount and level of businesses that have decided to follow us in just a couple of weeks. I’ve been able to reach out to specific companies both here and abroad and generated some great quality leads too.
- You can use specific hashtags and develop engaging content specifically for B2B fans and leads. For instance, Digital Marketing Specialists writes content for medium size businesses, mostly male, aged between 30 – 50 years, have an interest in tax savings, love to dine in high end or trendy restaurants, great travel destinations, are sometimes adrenaline junkies, love property investing or investing in their own homes. Therefore, not all content we develop is about digital marketing. We cater images and content that will be of value to them and their interests.
- The old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” is very true with Instagram. Sometimes one spot on Instagram image can drive a lot of engagement because the visual is so compelling and hard to ignore even with B2B fans. Some of these images can effectively capture the essence of your unique value proposition in the B2B market place and emphasise ‘how are you different’ as well as showcase the type of clients or partners you work with (which often times will attract further like minded clients or partners).
Semrush, a B2B company wants to engage with SEO companies or those who would rely on their software, mainly SEO specialists. Therefore, they are engaging with the business owner who either uses the service themselves or will be hiring an SEO expert. The content and images on Instagram is for the benefit of the decision maker.
For more information about this blog post, feel free to get in touch by visiting Digital Marketing Specialists, a Digital Marketing Agency based in Sydney or calling Sonia directly on (02) 9239 3113.
