Crafting the perfect Instagram marketing strategy

This is originally a podcast episode. Listen to it on different platforms!

Today we’re in the planning part of the plan-create-post on Instagram process, and I want to talk to you about creating an Instagram marketing strategy.

Why is it important to have an Instagram marketing strategy?

Direction and purpose

An Instagram marketing strategy provides a clear direction and purpose for your presence on Instagram. It helps you define your goals, target audience, and key messages, ensuring that your efforts are focused and aligned with your overall marketing objectives.

Consistency

Also, a strategy helps maintain consistency in your branding, content, and messaging. Consistency is crucial for building brand recognition and trust among your audience. It also helps establish a cohesive and professional image for your business.

Relatable content

With a strategy, you can create content that resonates with your target audience, encourages engagement, and drives meaningful interactions. By understanding your audience’s interests and preferences, you can deliver content that they find valuable, increasing the likelihood of likes, comments, shares, and followers.

Resource optimization

Moreover, a strategy helps optimize your resources, including time, budget, and manpower. It allows you to prioritize activities that yield the best results and avoid wasting resources on ineffective tactics. This is particularly important for small businesses with limited resources.

Track and measure results

Having a strategy enables you to track and measure your Instagram efforts. You can monitor key metrics like follower growth, engagement rate, website traffic, conversions, the most successful content and more. This data allows you to evaluate the success of your strategy, make data-driven decisions, and refine your approach over time.

Stay ahead of competition

Instagram is a dynamic platform that regularly introduces new features, algorithms, and trends. Having a strategy helps you adapt to these changes and stay ahead of the competition. It allows you to experiment, learn, and adjust your approach based on evolving best practices and user behavior.

Maximize ROI

Lastly, a well-defined strategy can help you maximize the return on investment (or ROI) from your Instagram efforts. By aligning your activities with your goals, targeting the right audience, and measuring your results, you can identify what works best for your business and allocate resources accordingly.

In summary, an Instagram marketing strategy provides structure, focus, and guidance for your marketing efforts on the platform. It helps you build a strong brand presence, engage your audience effectively, and achieve your marketing objectives.

What does a good Instagram marketing strategy contain?

A good Instagram marketing strategy typically contains the following elements:

Goals as the basis of your Instagram marketing strategy

The most important thing and the thing that should be done before everything else is setting clear goals. You should define the purpose of your Instagram presence. Whether it’s to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, generate leads, or engage with your audience, clearly define your goals to guide your strategy. Here are some questions you should ask yourself when setting your goals: Why am I on Instagram? What am I trying to do or achieve? What is the purpose of my Instagram profile? Where do I want to be in 3/6/12 months?

Target audience

Target audience is another crucial part of your strategy. Understand your target audience’s demographics, interests, and behaviors. This knowledge will help you tailor your content and messaging to resonate with your audience and attract the right followers. Here are some questions you should ask yourself to establish your target audience: Who would benefit from my products/services the most? Who am I talking to? How old are these people? What do they do? Are they even on Instagram?

Branding

Branding should definitely be in your Instagram marketing strategy as well. Consistent branding, to be more exact. Establish a consistent visual identity for your Instagram account, including colors, fonts, and overall style. This helps create a cohesive and recognizable brand presence. Pick 3-5 colors and about 3 fonts you will use throughout your content. Once your content pops on someone’s feed, they should know that this is your post. Here are some questions you should ask yourself: Are my colors used consistently? Do these colors go with each other? Is my style all over the place? Would I stop the scroll and take a look at my own content?

Content strategy

Next is your content strategy. While a content strategy is definitely a topic on its own, I have to mention it here. You should create high-quality and visually appealing content that is relevant and interesting to your target audience. Use a mix of photos, videos, stories, and captions to engage your followers and encourage them to interact with your posts. I will definitely do a whole episode on creating a content strategy for your Instagram, but ask yourself these questions right now: Am I using different types of content? Would my content be worth saving/sharing? Am I providing value in terms of education, inspiration, entertainment or motivation? Would I interact with this piece of content?

Hashtags are vital in your Instagram marketing strategy

While I already talked about using hashtags on Instagram, a hashtag strategy is definitely something that should be included in your Instagram marketing strategy. Research and use relevant hashtags that align with your content and target audience. Hashtags help increase discoverability and reach on Instagram. They are NOT dead! If you want to learn more about using hashtags, listen to episode 3 of this podcast. Here are some questions to ask yourself: Am I using relevant hashtags? How many hashtags am I using (and the answer should be as close to 30 as possible)? Am I using big hashtags (over 1M, and the answer should be no)? Are my hashtags driving traffic (if not, it’s time to change some things)?

Posting schedule

You may have noticed that people talk about consistency on Instagram a lot on. While it may sound like they are talking just to talk, it’s still important to have a consistent posting schedule. Determine a regular posting schedule that suits your audience and stick to it. Consistency is key to maintaining engagement and growing your following. Consistency definitely is the key on Instagram, and it definitely doesn’t mean posting every single day. It means posting consistently, even if it’s only once a week. So ask yourself this: What can I sustain? Am I able to keep up with my current posting schedule for the next 6 months? Would I be able to do more than I currently do? Should I do less than I currently do? This is how you come up with your schedule.

Engagement strategy

Engagement strategy is another huge part of your Instagram marketing strategy. Instagram is still a SOCIAL media platform. Which means that it’s important to be social. I also talked about engagement strategies already, so if you’ve missed that episode, it’s episode 10. Make sure you give it a listen. However, the jist of it is: Actively engage with your audience by responding to comments, liking and commenting on other users’ posts, and participating in relevant conversations. Building relationships with your followers helps foster a sense of community and loyalty. If you can do that for only 15 minutes a day, that’s okay. Just remember, the more you do it, the more engagement you’ll get back.

Ask yourself this: Who are the leaders in my industry? How much time can I take every day and engage with others? When was the last time I engaged with people on Instagram? Is my engagement low or dropping? If so, it might be time to start changing some things.

Influencer marketing

The next thing is not really applicable to everyone, and not everyone wants to do this, but it is a big part of many business’ strategies. I am talking about influencer partnerships. Collaborate with influencers or relevant accounts in your industry to expand your reach and tap into their engaged audience. Choose influencers whose values align with your brand to ensure authenticity. If you have a product that you want more eyeballs on, this is definitely something to consider. Influencers (big or small) have a great way of helping you reach more people with your offer. However, make sure you never ask influencers to do something for free. Exposure doesn’t pay the bills. Ask yourself this: How much money am I willing to spend on influencer marketing? Who would be an ideal influencer for my business? What do I expect from the influencers promoting my business?

Instagram stories

While Instagram Stories are a part of the content strategy, they do deserve a separate spot in this episode. Why? Because they are a very powerful tool for selling on Instagram. Take advantage of Instagram Stories to share behind-the-scenes content, sneak peeks, polls, Q&As, and other interactive features. Stories provide a more casual and immediate way to connect with your audience.

What’s great about stories is that you don’t have to stick to your content pillars. You can talk about different things, you can show your breakfast or your dog, you can sell your offer. I will definitely talk about Instagram stories in one of the future episodes, but here are some questions to ask yourself: When was the last time I posted a story that wasn’t just my latest post share? Am I using stories to connect with my followers? Am I using different stickers to interact with my followers? When was the last time I talked about my offer in my stories?

Performance analysis of your Instagram marketing strategy

The final, but probably one of the most important parts of your Instagram marketing strategy is the performance analysis. Regularly analyze your Instagram insights and metrics to track the performance of your posts, understand what content resonates with your audience, and make data-driven decisions to optimize your strategy. Yes, your strategy is not a done deal. It’s a work in progress. Once you create your strategy, never think you’re done with it. It’s just a starting point. That’s why it’s so important to measure your results.

Listen to my episode number 5, Tracking Insights, to learn a lot more about Instagram insights. But here are some questions to work on this part of your strategy: What content performed best in the last 6/12/24 months? Why did it perform well? What content got me the most follows/saves/shares/interactions? Is my reach or engagement down recently? Am I doing anything to bring it back up?

Remember, an effective Instagram marketing strategy is tailored to your brand, target audience, and specific goals. It should evolve and adapt based on audience feedback, platform updates, and emerging trends.

Do you need help crafting the perfect Instagram marketing strategy?

If you’ve answered all of my questions, you should have a great starting point for creating your Instagram marketing strategy. However, if you need more help with it, there are a couple of things I can do for you.

Number one is my Insta Game Plan service, where I help you create your Instagram marketing strategy. We will have a 1-hour call, where we discuss all your goals, expectations and availability. Based on your input, I will create a strategy for you, and then we will have another call where I explain everything and tell you how you can implement the strategy for optimal results.

The second one is the The InstaCraft Academy. It is a 5-Hour Instagram Strategy Coaching. In just 5 power-packed hours, I’ll guide you through crafting the perfect strategy that aligns with your business goals. Learn how to engage your audience, drive growth, and convert followers into customers. You’ll gain the skills to adapt and thrive on Instagram for the long haul, and you will never need another person to help you create another strategy again.

If you’re interested in any of these services, feel free to send me a DM on Instagram or an email.

And that’s it for today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you have a wonderful weekend! Bye bye!