In Case, you ever wondered, how you can turn your Instagram Followers into engaged Email subscribers, you may have already stumbled over this awesome case study by Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income.
In this guest post by Nathan Chan, the founder of foundr writes about, how they grew their Instagram Following to more than 400k within their first year, and used this influence to grow an email list of 100k suscribers.
After reading this post, I wondered, how I could take this information and put it into action for my own business. To make this easier for the both of us, I turned the post into a handy checklist, with a step-by-step instruction on how to copy the Foundr success-story.
Do you have a great blog post or case study on your website, that is stuffed with information, but could be more actionable? Shoot me an email at louisa@richincollege.com or text me on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter to get your blog post „checklisted“. All I ask in return, is a backlink to my site and the right, to post the checklist on my site as well (with a backlink to the original post – of course).
Overview: How to Get 10k+ / Month Email Subscribers from Instagram
Who developed this strategy? Nathan Chan from Foundr.com
Why should you follow it? Because it allowed Nathan to build an Email List of 100.000 and an Instagram Following of more than 400.000 within his first year. Their Instagram Landing Page has a conversion rate of 70%.
Who is this strategy for? – Anyone, who wants to build an engaged following on Instagram. – Anyone, who’s target audience is born in the 1980s or later.
Step 1: Building a Solid Sales Funnel to get Email Subscribers from Instagram
An Instagram Funnel: Content → Caption → Bio Link → Landing Page
Design + Value = Content That Converts
Foundr: Quote Images offer Immediate Value for the user.
Not all audiences are interested in the same stuff. Test, what your audience likes + what engages them.
Value Ladder: Design → Attention Value → Interest
Tools: WordSwag, Typorama
The Caption
Without clicking on it, people can only see the first 2-3 lines of your captions. → Include your CTA at the beginning. Ex.: – „Double tap, if you agree!“ – „Tag a friend!“
The Opt-In Incentive
Create an Opt-In Incentive, that you can offer your followers via your bio link.
Considering all the spam in our Inboxes, it is only reasonable, that people don’t just give away their email addresses, without getting anything in return. This is, where the opt-in incentives comes into play.
Offer your readers a simple download – like a cheatsheet, a checklist or a template – that makes their life easier, and ask for their email adress in return. It’s a win-win.
To make creating your opt-in incentive even easier, head over to Podia. Podia isn’t just the best way to sell downloads, membership sites or online courses, they also offer great free tool on their website (no registration needed). One of them is the Digital Download Generator, which will help you create your Opt-In Incentive in 10 min or less.
Hint: If it fits your niche, use an Instagram guide, bc. people on Instagram are interested in Instagram.
The Bio Link
Give people a reason / motivation to click your bio link. The easier, the link is to understand (aka uses real words), the more likely people will be to click on it. → e.g. yourwebsite.com/free
Instead of: link in the bio, write link in the @yourhandle bio, so that people can directly click on the handle
Tools: Bit.ly, PrettyLink
Landing Page
An appealing and highly-converting landing page is essential to get email subscribers from Instagram. Here are the most important features, your landing page must have, in order to collect as many email leads as possible.
- must be optimized for mobile
- minimal design
- headline: clear + outcome driven
- appealing offer
A Word of Caution:
Only use a promotional image with a CTA to click through your funnel in every 10th picture. → Give more than you get, because people hate, being advertised to.
Now you might think: “I know, I need a Landing Page, but what the f*ck am I supposed to write there? Writing a highly-converting landing page can be pretty overwhelming. To make it easier, you can download these 4 fill-in-the-blank landing page templates.
It includes fill-in-the-blank templates for:
- Free Downloadable Guide or Report Page
- Webinar Registration Page
- Thank You Page
- Checkout Page
- + Bonus Swipe File
Grab your free Fill-In-The-Blank Landing Page Templates Right Now!
Build a Solid Instagram Sales Funnel:
Save
Print- Find 10 Quotes, that fit your topic
- Search for Stock Photos with Quotes on Stock Photo Sites like Unsplash.com
- Use WordSwag, Typorama, Canva or Adobe Spark to Design an Instagram Image for each quote from Step 1
- Decide on an opt-in incentive, that you want to offer your Instagram followers, if they sign up to your email list.
- Put together the opt-in incentive, if you haven’t already.
- Make a list of ten ways, in which your offer will help your followers.
- Use this list to design a Landing Page, where your visitors from Instagram should land on.
- Shorten the link to your landing page with a tool like Bit.ly or PrettyLink. Links like yourwebsite.com/free work best.
- Post the Images with a Call To Action (CTA) at the beginning of the caption. CTAs can be: “Double tap, if you agree.”, “Follow for more …” or “Click the link in the @yourhandle bio to get your free …” – Don’t be spammy: Only use the „Click the link…“ CTA in every 10th post.
- Measure your outcome. If the quotes work well with your audience, continue using them, if not, try other things, like flatlays or photos with different subjects.
The more followers you have, the more you can convert into email subscribers! 🙂 Check out this video by Vanessa Lau from vanessalau.co .
Step 2: Working the Network to get Email Subscribers from Instagram
It’s called social media marketing for a reason → SOCIAL COMES FIRST!
Connecting With Influencers
- Find the top influencers with the most engaged audience in your niche (engagement > audience size)
- Make a list
- Check their profiles regularly and leave thoughtful comments: ask a question, start a conversation, provide value
- Shout them out in your own posts or stories
S4S
The currency of the Instagram economy: Share for Share → best way to introduce your brand to a new audience
- exchange shoutouts
- if you approach bigger accounts, add additional value or shout out at a higher ratio, e.g. 3:1
- if your audience is very engaged, this will help in getting more for your shoutouts
Work The Network To Increase Your Instagram Following
- Make a List of 20 Influencers in Your Niche, together with their instagram handle.
- For each one, calculate the engagement rate, using the Free Instagram Engagement Calculator by Phlanx
- Write down the Top 10 influencers with the highest engagement rates.
- Visit each of these accounts at least once a week and interact with their content. Like, leave thoughtful comments and share their posts in your story (Don`t forget to tag them, when you do.).
- Mention them in your post descriptions, when the content seems to be interesting for them.
- Search for #s4s
- Check out the accounts, who use this hashtag and see, which are legit, fit your niche and have a similar size to your account. You can also check their engagement rates with the Instagram Engagement Calculator.
- Text the accounts, that fit these criterias and ask them to exchange shoutouts. Include your engagement rate to make an S4S exchange more appealing to them.
Want to Get Even More Email Subscribers? Join the Free 90 Day Challenge!
Join this free 10k Email Subscribers in 90 Days Challenge to help you build your email list from 0 to 10k within the next 90 days. Start today and get you blog or online business off the ground. Drive traffic to your site, sell your courses or services and make money online in 2020.
