Instagram is one of the most popular social media on the internet. It has over 1 billion active users worldwide, making it a perfect medium for online business.
In fact, Instagram has made it feasible for online businesses to establish their profile. You can add a phone number, email, and street address to let your followers contact you easily. The business profile will give you a professional look when setting up your account.
There are several features as well that are useful for your business.
Instagram Stories, for example, allows you to create moments to share with your followers. It gives you the freedom to make a quick announcement, so you don’t need to upload it on your feed.
However, there’s one underrated feature that marketers often forget: Instagram Direct Message (DM).
What is Instagram Direct Message?
DM is a one-on-one messaging feature on the Instagram platform. It enables users to have two-way communication with other users, including official and business accounts.
Instagram DMs are great for online businesses because it bridges the gap between brands and customers. Brands can professionally connect with their audience, whereas customers can communicate their problems seamlessly.
While it’s often seen as another simple communication tool, Instagram DMs are actually beneficial to increase outbound sales when used correctly. Businesses can directly engage with potential customers to make special offers.
Here is what you can do with Instagram DMs.
- Send engaging content like explainer videos to convey your brands’ message concisely.
- Share promotional images and fun GIFs to engage with your audience. (Also, before sharing, make sure the Instagram post size is correct.)
- Incorporate voice messages to navigate customers when they face problems.
How to use Instagram DMs for your business
Instagram DMs can be an excellent tool to increase sales. It works basically like other messaging platforms, where you can communicate with your audience. To optimize its usage, here are the five ways to use Instagram DMs better.
1. Interact with customers
Customers often demand a quick response when it comes to contacting the brand. They may be interested in your product, hence messaging you to get more information.
This is your chance to interact with your audience. With Instagram DMs, you can send and reply to customers’ messages on time. Communicating with customers is one of the effective ways to gain their trust.
Moreover, you can send personal recommendations about a product through Instagram DMs. Did you know that 49% of customers buy items they don’t intend to purchase due to the brand’s suggestion?
When you send personal messages as brands, your voice becomes powerful. Customers will be more interested in your suggestion because you’re the owner. You know what’s best for them.
By the way, since sending personal messages to each of your customers takes a great deal of time, we suggest you use an automated Instagram direct messenger like DMpro to save your time and energy. This way, you can also be sure that you’re not exceeding Instagram’s daily limits for DMs.
2. Connect it with Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories are filled with entertaining moments that people can enjoy several times. This feature has more components than Instagram Feeds that you can experiment with, for example, stickers, votes & polls, and shop tags.
Shop tags allow you to tag your products on Instagram Stories directly. It helps users to visit the product page when tapping on your stories. This feature is effective for your business because users can check your product without leaving the stories midway.
Your DMs are the key when creating stories. That’s because the message feature shows right at the bottom of every story, enabling viewers to contact you right away.
You might also increase conversion rates as people can immediately message you about the product tag on your stories. Therefore, make sure to give everyone access to message you through DMs when creating stories.
3. Provide customer support
Today, the communication gap between brands and customers is thinner. With a platform like Instagram and its communication feature DMs, people can interact with businesses representatives faster.
Customers often run into problems regarding their purchases. They will reach out to brands’ customer service to solve their issues. While emailing is one of the common methods to connect with brands, it may take a longer time to receive a response as most brands don’t activate email 24/7.
On the other hand, phone calls can be intimidating for customers, and they probably don’t want to get charged extra tolls for help.
However, instant messaging is different. People don’t need a huge effort to send small texts. In this case, Instagram DMs are the ideal method for customers to communicate with you.
DMs are quick and hassle-free. People don’t get charged as well. That’s why many have found this feature helpful because they can interact with brands anytime.
4. Build brand trust
Being responsive and providing helpful messages to the audience is the key to gain customer trust. When you accommodate their problems, queries, and simple questions, many will see you as a professional brand.
It isn’t easy to build company branding. It takes huge efforts and dedication to earn a title. Hence, brand trust is crucial to maintain because once broken, it’s even harder to make customers believe in you again.
Customers associate brand trust with the way the brand interacts with them. For example, giving poor service and becoming unresponsive is one of the bad company brandings. You don’t want people to identify you as an unprofessional company.
Your brand’s online presence impacts consumer trust as well. For instance, a well-optimized Google My Business profile provides prospects with brand reviews and is a source of credible information about your business. Besides, the quality of information and activity on your profile impact how your business ranks on Google.
Replying to customer messages may sound trivial for you, but it’s actually a vital approach. To ensure their satisfaction try not to neglect your customer queries for whatever it is. Use media like Instagram DMs to communicate with them effectively.
Or, you can ask an agency to give you a quote on their site. Think of this as a vote. The more votes your brand has, the more authentic it’ll look.
5. Generate leads
Another benefit you can reap from Instagram DMs is that you can collect more potential leads.
Here’s how it goes.
When you create feeds or stories, there will be people who aren’t your followers engaging with your content. These people are the potential to be your next customers if they’re constantly introduced to your brand.
You can hit their DMs and message them about their comments on your post. You might give them recommendations once you know their problems and generate leads to your eCommerce shops on Shopify, BigCommerce, or even their alternatives to grow your business.
This continuous interaction will leave an impression on them. Eventually, they’ll remember your brand more and possibly get back to you when they need your product or service. Click here to learn more about how to generate leads for your online business.
Bottom Line
Marketers often see Instagram DMs as a typical communication tool for brands. In fact, DMs offer many benefits, such as maintaining a cordial relationship with customers and increasing sales.
There are many ways to optimize DMs to improve your online business. You can connect Instagram DMs with your stories to let viewers know your latest update. Or you can use DMs to provide support by handling customer problems and solving their queries.
Instagram DMs are also an excellent tool to communicate with potential customers. You can message them and give them some recommendations. This way, you’ll generate more leads than other marketing strategies.
Author
Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order).
Find him here:
Twitter: @breadnbeyond/ LinkedIn: AndreOentoro