INSTAGRAM MARKETING FUNNELS: THE 5 STAGE CUSTOMER JOURNEY.

112.5 Million users in the United States alone!!!

That’s the number of U.S. based users Instagram is expected to hit in 2020. But, overall Instagram has over 1 Billion users worldwide.

That means if you’re running a business, the chances that your ideal clients and customers are Instagram users are pretty high.

And if you’re ready to add Instagram to your marketing toolbox, so you can start being seen by those users, then this could be the most important thing you read today.

Luckily, Instagram marketing doesn’t need to be a challenge, you can just model the successful actions of other Instagram marketers.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at how we can use Instagram marketing funnels to create a 5 Stage Customer Journey. One that can lead people from being strangers to being loyal brand advocates.

STAGE 1: AWARENESS ADVERTISING

Let’s define awareness advertising as our initial step out of the darkness and into the minds of our potential clients and customers. We do this by promoting solutions to common problems or ways to help people achieve certain goals.

These solutions could be delivered in the form of social media posts, video series, mini-courses, e-books or numerous other resources. Our goal here is to let our chosen audience know that we exist and that we have ideas that could be helpful to them.

When it comes to promoting these solutions we want to use the business manager of Facebook to create campaigns under the brand awareness, reach, and video views options. Yes, we are using the Facebook business manager. The reason, if you don’t know, is because Facebook owns Instagram and business manager is where we will create and run ads for both platforms.

The great news about this is that the same tracking tools we use for our Facebook ads can be used on Instagram too. Which leads us to our next topic.

STAGE 2: ENGAGEMENT

Now that our chosen audience has become aware of us, we can begin to engage with them more specifically. By retargeting people who engaged with our posts and watched our videos, we can now go one step deeper and direct these people to our websites and our messenger channels, if we haven’t done this already.

The types of campaigns we want to use in this section of our funnels are the traffic, messenger, and video views objectives. It’s at this point in our funnels that we will start collecting contact information from our prospective clients and customers.

There are two big reasons we want to collect contact information. One is to safeguard us against unforeseen changes that social media companies can make any time they want. The second helps us to create an even more personalized back and forth conversation with clients and customers. Which leads us to our next point. 

STAGE 3: PURCHASE

At this point in our funnels, we have established enough of a valuable relationship that our clients and customers now feel comfortable exchanging their hard-earned money for the information or services we can provide them. In this section when it comes to campaign objectives we’re going to be using the conversion objective. The whole goal here is to drive people who already know us to a website or a brick-and-mortar store to make a purchase.

Now, you may have wondered why I referred to these people as clients and customers even before they gave us money. And, if you had that question, I don’t blame you. Many people would ask the same thing but, the truth of the matter is when somebody gives you their contact information they are, in a sense, paying you. They trust you enough to give you their personal information in exchange for something that they see value in.

The main difference here, is now you have something to deposit in your physical bank account.

But, this is not where the story ends.

Now, it becomes even more important for you to continue to nurture this relationship and reinforce the fact that your customers and clients made a good decision. That decision was trusting you with their information and their money. And, when you do a good job of this it leads to our next position in the funnel. 

STAGE 4: REPURCHASE

The repurchase section of your Instagram marketing funnel means that you have taken the next step in business that leads to 80% of revenue, for most businesses. The fact that your clients and customers are purchasing from you time and time again means that you’ve hit that marketing and sales trifecta of people knowing you, liking you and trusting you.

For this section of your funnels, using dynamic ads are an excellent way to show your clients and customers what other products and services you have. And of course, once you hit stage 4 we flow seamlessly into our final stage of the Instagram marketing funnel.  

STAGE 5: LOYAL CUSTOMER

Here at Stage 5 of the customer Journey our clients and customers become much more than that. They’ve been elevated from clients and customers to the status of loyal clients and customers or, I think a better name would be, brand advocates.

A Brand Advocate is someone who happily and enthusiastically spreads the message about your company, your products, and your services to everyone that they know. They use your products and services, they wear clothing representing your products or services, they share your material with their friends and family and they will go to war for you on the internet, or in-person sometimes, if somebody dares to say anything bad about you.

IN CLOSING

When you lead a person from being a total stranger all the way to being a loyal customer and a brand advocate, this person now becomes part of your tribe. They are part of your business family, which is a great way to view them, in my opinion.

If you merely look at people as dollar signs, I believe, you will only make it so far in business. But, when you look at the people you serve and provide products to as family members and friends, then your heart and your business will always be in the right place.

See you next time.