How to Create an Effective Sales Funnel Using Instagram Discover what you need to do to begin attracting more prospects and closing more deals with help from your Instagram account.

The following excerpt is from Kim Walsh Phillips's book Ultimate Guide to Instagram for Business. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound or click here to buy it directly from us and SAVE 60% on this book when you use code SOCIAL2021 through 5/27/21.

One of my favorite quotes is from Og Mandino: "Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later." This thought is certainly true for your Instagram account.

One of the most challenging parts of getting an ROI from Instagram is that you have only one link to use. The link inside your bio is the only spot you can use to actively drive a prospect into your sales funnel. This link should be used wisely and never simply as a link to your home page.

Related: Harness the Power of Stardom With Instagram

Since Instagram isn't a place people go looking for goods and services, to use this networking platform as a lead generation tool, you need to offer your prospects something of value in order to get them to click on your bio link.

Enter your magnetic offer

The goal with your Instagram link is to provide something so valuable that the prospect would pay for it if it wasn't free. But of course, they don't need to pay you. All they need to do is give you their contact information. This could be a free guide, ebook, report, coupon/certificate, video series, webinar, mind map, check list or ticket to an event.

Following your magnetic offer (or lead magnet), there should be an opportunity for your prospect to become a customer. If you own an ecommerce business, this offer could come immediately following the initial magnetic offer, while high-end luxury products might use a few messages in between to nurture the relationship before asking for the sale. For consulting services and health care practitioners, your goal is to drive your prospect to an offline conversation.

Creating your lead magnet

My husband and I have been house hunting for three years now. Through several mishaps, houses we've gone after have fallen through. In these three years, we've seen close to 100 houses.

In many of the homes we've looked at, there's wallpaper we know will have to be removed. I've done this job before, and if you have, too, you know that it sucks. If we did embark on such a project and I just happened to see two ads in my Instagram newsfeed that day, one for an "Ultimate Guide to Taking off Wallpaper" and one for "A Magic Wand That Will Take off Wallpaper as You Blink" -- which do you think I am going to choose? (If you happen to have the second, I will gladly take it as a gift.)

The reality is, no one wants more information. Information itself is useless. What we all want is the outcome the information will provide, and if there is something else that can provide us with that outcome, such as an "Easy Button," we'll take that over any guide, report or ebook. We want to know that there will be transformative value for our lives in anything we spend time saying or doing.

The same is true for your Instagram platform tribe. If you can help them solve their problem quicker with a tool, you not only have a new email subscriber, you have a new customer. I have split-tested the biscuits out of this, and tools beat information every time.

Tool ideas for lead magnets

1. Checklists
2. Templates
3. Copy-and-paste scripts
4. Plans or programs

And then, there's another strategy we've been testing for our own funnel and for some of our ecommerce clients that has been working better than anything else we've tried -- ever. And that's attracting prospects with information laid out like above, and then offering an opportunity to purchase something for $1 afterwards that can help make their lives easier quickly.

Related: How to Make the Power of the Hashtag Work for You

My best-performing funnel of all time is one where I offered a free chapter of The No B.S. Guide to Direct Response Social Media Marketing (information), followed by an offer for 113 social media posts plus bonus images for $1. The first step is something with value (chapter of a book you normally have to pay for), and the second is a tool that helps you get something accomplished quicker. The tool also includes an option to take a 60-day trial of our Marketing Insiders Elite Club.

This funnel rocks because it's focused around the interests and needs of my chosen tribe of fabulous get-er-done marketers and helps them get their job done faster. This funnel brings us members for less than $5 each. And since our mission is to empower as many people as possible to get an ROI for their business, this helps us to go a heck of a lot farther with our budget. We have a similar funnel working for several of our clients with comparable results.

Here are some ideas for you to do the same:

Step one ideas:

• Chapter download
• Guide
• Blueprint
• Template

Step two ideas:

• Software program
• Copy-and-paste templates
• Done-for-you service
• Completed item you give them like a PowerPoint template or pop-up for their website, or something like our 113 posts plus bonus images

I haven't done a ton of testing of different price points for step two, but I have split-tested free-plus-shipping versus a straight $1 offer, and the dollar offer wins every time.

Related: Make the Most of Instagram's 'Vanity' Features

A quick start lead magnet blueprint

Here's how to do it:

1. Visit www.Quora.com.
2. Look up the top questions asked about your industry.
3. Record yourself answering the questions through the voice memo app on your phone.
4. Upload the recording to www.InternetTranscribers.com for a transcript (about $20).
5. Send the transcription to www.TextBroker.com to flesh out the report (about $10).
6. Request a report cover design from www.Fiverr.com (about $5).

You have your lead magnet for $35 in.

Sweet, no?

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