10 Trending 2019 Website Color Schemes

There’s a lot to take into consideration when you’re designing a website: there’s the layout, the architecture, the CTAs, picking your domain name, setting up a host, configuring the backend, picking a theme, perfecting the wording of your value proposition, and deciding which visuals to use. The list goes on and on.

All too often website color scheme is an afterthought.

So many site owners put little to no thought into picking their website color palette, let alone a trending color scheme. They think, How important could website colors really be?

Well, the color choices on your website, and how dated they feel, has a bigger impact on visitors than you might realize.

In fact, research shows that people judge products within 90 seconds of exposure — and 90% of that judgment is based on color alone. Choosing the right colors can enhance readability by 40%, increase comprehension by 73%, and improve learning by 78%.

Colors are one of the most important elements that add credibility to your website. According to HubSpot, 46% of people rank the design of a website the number one factor in determining the credibility of a company.

The University of Toronto conducted an interesting study on colors and how they are perceived by individuals. The results were very intriguing. They determined that most people prefer combinations of simple colors. In most cases, just two or three colors were perceived as appealing. That’s why sticking to a color palette is so important to the success of your site, and ultimately your business.

But there are more than 10 million colors in the world. That’s overwhelming, to say the least. How can you determine which colors are the best for your website?

Whether you have a new site that you’re designing from scratch or an old website that needs a facelift and some improvements, you’ve come to the right place. This guide will show you which site color palettes are trending in 2019, so you can find the best ones for your website. We’ll look at examples of real websites and list some of the exact color codes used for on those sites.

1. Soft tones

Soft tones are definitely trending in 2019. Creations Namale is a jewelry brand based in Canada. Here’s a screenshot from the 2019 look book on the homepage of their website:

The colors are soft, classy, and very appealing. It’s a perfect choice for a brand in the fashion industry selling jewelry. The simple tones work well with each other and the jewelry stand outs.

In addition to the simple color scheme used on this site, the layout takes the same approach. The white space lets the page breathe. This will be a common theme as we continue throughout this guide.

As you can see, there is minimal text. Rather than trying to cram as many products as possible onto one page, this site takes the approach of just one at a time.

If you’re interested in using these colors on your website, here are the exact color codes you’ll need:

As you can see, you need just two or three colors to be appealing to an audience. If this site had used six or seven color tones in the design, the simplicity and trendy effect would be lost.

2. Simple grey, off white, and a pop of red

Let’s continue with the simplicity trend. You don’t need to have lots of busy colors to have an appealing website color scheme. Simple website color palettes are less distracting and allow your audience to focus on what’s important to them. Check out this page from Tareq Portfolio. Tareq Ismail is an experienced designer, so it’s only natural that he chose a powerfully simple design and color scheme for his own website.

This page is a bit different from the previous example. There is more text on the page, but it’s still simple and easy to read. Rather than using a pure white tone, Tareq chose a slightly off-white color to blend with his grey and red color palette. This off-white works well since he’s wearing a white shirt in the image on this page. The subtle hints of red the text really complete the look and take a page that would be otherwise boring and make it pop.

These are the color codes used on Tareq’s site.

This is a great option to consider if you’re looking for a color palette that’s professional, simple, and works well with pages that have bit more text.

3. Gradient blues and greens with white text

Stripe is a payment processing software for Internet businesses. It’s a very popular tool used by ecommerce companies. As a technology brand, Stripe needs to stay up to date with all of the latest tech trends. But they also have a website color scheme that’s trendy as well.

Before we look at what their website looks like today, take a look at what their site looked like six years ago, back in 2013:

Is there anything wrong with this design? On the surface, it just looks a little bit boring and dull. There’s nothing about it that’s really visually appealing.

But Stripe made adjustments. It’s current color palette uses a technique that’s been growing in popularity: gradients. Take a look for yourself:

Shades of blue. Shades of green. White. Very simple.

By using a gradient scale, Stripe takes a very simple blue color and blends it with different tones. The difference between the 2013 site and the 2019 site is like night and day. Even if you’d seen the two homepages without knowing the years, you’d have been able to identify the newest one.

If your website is currently outdated, and looks more like the Stripe site from 2013, try adding color gradients to give your palette a more modern look.

4. Throwback oranges and red tones

Retro color schemes are making a big comeback in 2019. Lots of top brands are using popular colors from the 80s and 90s on their website. But they are putting a modern twist on them.

It’s a bit of an oxymoron. How can something by retro and modern at the same time?

Let’s look at the Spotify homepage.

These orange and red tones have a throwback vibe to them. These are warm colors that give people some nostalgia for their childhood and adolescent years.

Spotify’s polka dot colors are inspired by the 80s and 90s, but the design itself is very trendy and uses gradient scales, which are very current, to blend the colors.

It’s important to make sure you understand who you’re trying to target with your website color schemes. This goes far beyond just picking pink designs for women and blue designs for men. To find a retro color scheme that fits your audience, you can use generational marketing to segment your target audience.

5. Soft pink, bright pink, and jet black

Cowboy differentiates its brand by selling electric bikes on a modern, and very pink, website. Typically, the words “Cowboy” and “pink” don’t normally go hand in hand. But the sleek and trendy design of this website is perfect.

The soft pink tones in the background makes the jet black bike stand out and become the center of attention. By adding the brighter pink accents in subtle locations around the page, Cowboy Bike nails the trendy and modern color palette.

Most people would assume that pink would be used to target females. But there is nothing feminine about this website. The product appeals to both genders. It just goes to show you that you can throw certain stereotypes right out of the window when it comes to choosing a color palette for your website.

If you like this design and think that the modern feel would work well for your website, you can use these color codes as a reference when you’re choosing your color scheme:

6. Grey, soft yellow, and deep green

The QED Group is a website based in the Czech Republic. They offer services to both companies and individuals to help improve organizational development by applying concepts in psychology and behavioral economics.

It’s safe to say that the business model of the QED Group is very unique. Along those same lines, they implemented some of the latest color palettes on their website as well.

At first glance, the color palette of their home page is a bit busier than some of the other examples that we’ve looked at so far. But they still pull it off well with this trendy design.

Normally you would think that yellow, green, and purple tones would be difficult to read and hard on the eyes. By using lighter and dull grey tones in the background, they are able to add brighter contrasting colors to the middle silhouette.

If you like the modern look of these soft yellow tones paired with grey and deep green, check out these color codes:

7. A very light touch of earth tone

Konstantopoulos S.A. “Olymp” sells greek olives. Earth tones, especially olive tones, make sense for its website.

The layout and design of this homepage are very simple. It uses a color scheme that’s visually appealing and fits well with the product that’s being sold. The main color choice here is green — olive green, of course. But as you can see, it’s used very sparingly. This is key for getting that modern look with a more classic color palette.

Rather than going overboard with wall to wall saturation of dark greens, the soft grey background adds a more modern and trendy feel to the website. Behind that grey, there are green leaves that are muted, since they are layered behind the design. This technique allows the green text and logo to have a stronger presence on the page.

For a business that sells olives, the earth tones color palette was a great choice. Refer to these green, grey, and light brown color codes to get a similar look on your website.

You can do something similar if your product has an identifiable color: start with the light grey background and darker grey copy color, and add your accent color in sparingly.

8. Lots of red, balanced with muted tones

If you look back at all of the trending website color schemes we’ve covered so far, you’ll notice a popular color that’s rarely used. Red.

That’s because red is one of the most powerful, but challenging colors to use on a website. One way to effectively use read is to use it lightly to give a pop of color to something as small as a few key words in the text.

Another way is to pair more muted colors with red.

The creative branding agency five/four swung for the fences by using a bright red color on a huge portion of their website.

The reason why this bright red was so successful is because five/four used muted tones on the rest of their page. If they had decided to go with bright yellow, light blue, and bright orange in addition to this red color, it would have been way too much.

But these soft colors pair perfectly with red. This red works really well for the brand, too. It’s bright, bold, and draws lots of attention to the theme of creativity.

So for those of you who want to go modern and bold with your color scheme, consider using these color codes with red on your website.

Just make sure you don’t go too big with the red. You want to be certain that you have enough of the softer tones to let your page breathe, while still capturing a trendy appearance.

9. Futuristic pastels and primaries

When it comes to choosing a color scheme for your website, it’s a good call to follow in the footsteps of those who have experience in this field. No need to reinvent the wheel.

That’s why this list wouldn’t be complete without an example from Anton & Irene. These are professional designers based in New York. They specialize in all aspects of design, including digital products. Of course they have a modern and trendy color palette on their website.

One of the best parts about this website color scheme is the futuristic feel about it. The outfit choices of Anton and Irene are pretty far out.

While this site uses more colors than some of the other examples we’ve seen so far, they are used sparingly, so the page isn’t messy or unappealing.

If you’re looking for an artistic spin for your website color scheme, try using different combinations of these exact colors.

10. Black on black on black

We’ve seen some black on nearly every website that we’ve looked at so far. But the black was always used pretty sparingly. It’s usually used for text, as opposed to the main colors or background.

However, that doesn’t mean you can’t use heavy blacks in more abundance for your website color scheme, especially if you use different black tones like these:

Let’s see what happens when you combine these tones. Check out the JY BH homepage. By combining different shades of black, you’ll get the gradient effect, which you saw earlier with some of our other examples. The heavy black gradient gives the site a mysterious look.

This company is a French clothing manufacturer. They sell luxury garments and accessories for both men and women. Just like in fashion, black is a timeless color. It’s been popular for years, and will continue to be popular in 2019.

But if you’re going to go black on your website, use different shades, like the example above. Just one black will look flat and basic.

Conclusion

It’s 2019. That means it’s time for you to ditch the color scheme you were using years ago. It’s important to switch it up because color schemes can impact sales on your website.

Choosing the right website color palette doesn’t have to be hard. To update your website with a look that’s modern, trendy, and unique, you can use any of the palettes in this guide. You can even use some of the exact color codes that we showcased.

What colors schemes are you using on your website now? What will you update them to for 2019?

from Quick Sprout http://bit.ly/2H5G6CC
via IFTTT

9 Places to Get Website Images (Paid and Free)

A website without images will look plain, boring, and borderline unprofessional.

Think about it for a moment: When was the last time you visited a website that didn’t have any photos? If you actually encountered this rarity, you probably left the site fairly quickly for fear of spam, phishing, or malware. Simply put, barren sites without any visual content can appear shady and untrustworthy.

Not having images hurts your site, and having images helps. They’re appealing. Photos in your blog posts will break up the text and make it easier for people to read and scan through your content. Detailed product photos show prospective customers exactly what they are purchasing. The perfect position of an image can help you design a homepage that converts.

Studies show that three days later people only remember 10% of the information they hear. When that information is paired with a relevant photo, 65% of it gets retained.

Bottom line: You should be using photos and other visual content on every single page of your website.

Sure, you might recognize the fact that you need images on your website. You might even have some images that you want to use. But are you legally allowed to use them? Do you have to pay?

This is a common problem among website owners. They don’t know where to get images. So, they’re hesitant add visual content to their site for fear of copyright infringement or hefty legal fines. Not to worry.

In this guide, we’ve identified the top nine places to find images for your website. Some of these resources offer images that are completely free; others you’ll have to pay for.

Whether your website is new and still in the early stages of design and development, or old and needs some fresh visual content, you’ll find what you’re looking for on this list.

1. Unsplash

Unsplash started as 10 free photos every week. They were leftovers from a photoshoot that would have otherwise died in a folder somewhere. Today, there are 792,198 images and every single one of them is free for commercial or noncommercial use. They’re generously uploaded by creators and all follow the same do-what-you-want license.

The most notable thing about Unsplash: the images are gorgeous. They’re well done and have a point-of-view, and every week they’re organized into easy-to-browse collections.

If you use any photos from Unsplash, you don’t have to give credit but you can if you want. It’s as simple as adding a line like: Photo by Photographer on Unsplash

2. Pexels

There are 504,828 images uploaded in the Pexels library and every single one of them is free for commercial use without attribution. They all have the same super simple license.

The entire library is also available on the mobile app, which makes it even easier to find and upload images to your brand’s social media. (You can also search for images by keyword or emoji.)

They also feature photos from nappy, a stock library created by the influencer mgmt agency SHADE for black and brown creators, after they saw that sites like Unsplash and Pexels were fixing the corny stock image problem, but were still lacking in diversity.

3. Flickr

Flickr is a top option to consider for free website images. The platform encourages users to upload, share, edit, and organize their photos from any device.

Not everything hosted on here is free for commercial purposes. So double check the image rights for content before you add it to your company’s website. You can do this by searching for images with licenses that say “Commercial use allowed.” For most of these images, you can use them on your site as long as you include attribution in the form of a reference link back to where the image came from on Flickr. Every image will have a link to the license that’ll tell you the requirements in simple sentences.

One of the best parts of Flickr is the trending tab.

You’ll be able to see categories trending in real-time, trending weekly, as well as trending all-time. So you can go with images that are popular, or stay clear from them in an effort to be more unique. Either way, these options are great if you’re looking for common themes for your entire website.

4. iStock

iStock has millions of images available that are royalty free, so it’s one of the first places you should start your image search.

One of the parts about iStock is the way it’s organized. It’s easy to search for images in specific categories. If you see something you like, you can save it to your board and refer to it later.

There’s no way to download or search for free images on iStock, though they do send one free photo, illustration, and video each week if you sign up for their newsletter. They sell photos based on a credit system. The more credits you buy, the cheaper each one is:

• $12 for 1 credit ($12 each)
• $60 for 6 credits ($10 each)
• $325 for 36 credits ($9 each)
• $2,400 for 300 credits ($8 each)

iStock also offers subscription pricing as well, which gives you access to a specified number of images per month.

In addition to photos and stock images, iStock also offers illustrations, vectors, videos, and audio files as well. All of these can be used to improve your website.

5. Openphoto.net

The Open Photo sharing platform has been around for 20 years. Everyone contributing to this resource offers photos for free under the Creative Commons licensing. Like Flickr, it’s really easy to navigate and find what you’re looking for on Open Photo. They also keep track of trending photos and categories. You can see popular images from today, yesterday, and all-time.

Open Photo always highlights a photo of the day on its homepage and gives credit to the photographer who uploaded it. If you see a photo of the day that you really like, it’s a good idea to check out other images that were uploaded by that photographer.

Even if the content of the images isn’t always the same, photographers tend to have a certain style. So if you like the way someone approaches their photography, you may want to use images from them throughout your entire website.

6. Pixabay

Pixabay is another resource that offers images shared by members of its community. There are more than 1.6 million photos and videos offered royalty-free for commercial purposes. You don’t have to ask for credit or give credit to the artist.

Pixabay has a powerful search with filters like:

• orientation
• size
• color

So if you’re looking for a blue, horizontal photo, that’s 4000 px X 3000 px, simply add those parameters to the search menu, and it’ll only display results that fit your needs. There’s also a safe search function as well that filters out any content that might be perceived as not safe for work.

Another reason why Pixabay is a top choice to consider is because they have a mobile app that’s available on both iOS and Android devices. Perfect for doing work on the go when it’s not convenient to take your computer out.

7. Rgbstock

There are over 100,000 free stock photos available from Rgbstock.com. You can find photos by searching for categories or keywords. They also let you browse photos from the collections of specific photographers that you like.

In order to access any of the content on this platform, you’ll need to register and create an account. But like everything else on here, it’s completely free. For those of you who want to share your own photos with the Rgbstock community, you can easily create your own photo gallery in just a few minutes.

8. Realistic Shots

Realistic Shots is a bit different from some of the other website image platforms we’ve looked at so far on our list. They don’t prioritize quantity. Only seven new photos are added to the site each week. But the quality of those seven photos is extremely high.

That’s pretty astonishing considering the fact that there are more than 1.8 billion images uploaded online every day. So to pick just seven each week means the quality needs to be superior in order to be featured. Realistic Shots puts emphasis on creativity for their most popular categories.

• nature
• travel
• architecture
• technology
• people

It’s worth coming to this site once a week to see the newest uploads. Everything hosted here is free for both personal and commercial use.

9. Fotolia

Fotolia is run by Adobe Stock. To access premium image content through this platform, you’ll need to pay. Similar to other options we’ve seen, you can buy credits or sign up for a subscription.

The great part about their subscriptions is that they have plenty of choices based on how often you’ll need stock images. Here is the monthly pricing for the annual memberships.

• 10 images for $29.99 per month
• 40 images for $79.99 per month
• 350 images for $169.99 per month
• 750 images for $199.99 per month

If you’re signing up for the first time, you can get one month free with any of these plans. They offer month-to-month pricing rates as well if you’re not ready for an annual commitment. To purchase one or two images, your best bet is to buy credits individually.

One of the standout features of this software is the ability to use photos you have on hand to search for images you’re looking for. Just drag and drop an image from an online resource or from your computer into the search bar to find similar content.

Look at the search results for the image of this puppy.

The software displays images that are similar and even from the same photoshoot. It’s a great tool that you can take advantage of.

Conclusion

Your site needs images. Visual elements will add credibility to your website, and make it more appealing for visitors.

There are thousands of places to find images online. But that’s overwhelming to stay the least. So start with the resources outlined on this list. It’s a mix of completely free sources, paid options, and some platforms that offer both free and paid images.

Otherwise, you can always use your own images. Refer to my guide on how to take and edit photos without hiring a professional if you want to add content that’s 100% unique and your own.

What types of images do you want to add to your website?

from Quick Sprout http://bit.ly/2shp4XW
via IFTTT

How to Generate Ecommerce Sales with Product Buying Guides

The Internet makes it possible for you to sell products to virtually anyone in the world.

Let that sink in for a moment.

You have a huge opportunity, yet, your competition is fiercer than ever. Every other business has the same opportunities as you.

As a marketer, you need to create an advantage over your competitors. To do this effectively, you need to fully understand how consumers shop. What process do they take to go from identifying a need for something to making a purchase? In most cases, it starts with a general search.

74% of people turn to a search engine during the consideration and purchasing phases of the buying process, and lucky for unknown brands, 71% of shoppers use search engines to discover new products.

That’s why product buying guides are so great. When a customer searches a product online, a buying guide can serve as a way to convince them to make a purchase. More specifically, the guide can convince them to buy from your brand. But there is a science behind this strategy.

This guide will show you how to leverage product buying guides to drive sales. Whether you have product buying guides that need improvement, or you’ve never used this tactic and want to try it out, you’ll benefit from the tips covered below.

Define your target audience

Before you create and publish a product buying guide, you need to determine who will be reading it. Not every guide should be intended to please everyone. It depends on who is going to be buying what you’re selling. It sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how many businesses get this wrong.

The target market for a specific product category isn’t necessarily the same as your target audience for your entire brand. With your buying guides, it’s OK to be more specific.

For example, if you’re selling a hiking backpack, you’ll want to write your guide for people who are in the market for that item, even though you also sell other items, like a piece of carry-on luggage aimed at business travelers. People who are in the market for this product will get lost and be uninterested if the copy doesn’t speak to them specifically.

One of the best ways to define your target audience is by creating a customer persona. Here’s an example:

Once you create this persona, it’ll be much easier to develop a product buying guide based on the wants and needs of the consumer. You’ll have an image in your mind of who they are and what needs they have.

Your buying guide won’t necessarily appeal to as many people, but that’s OK. You’ll end up having much higher conversion rates for the audience that you’re targeting in the first place.

Choose a format

After you determine your audience, you need to figure out the style and format of your writing guide. You’ve got several different options to choose from here. You can develop a guide that’s mostly text, or have a guide with lots of pictures. It’s even possible to incorporate some video content into your buying guides. Maybe you want to use a combination of these styles. There are lots of ways to approach this.

You also need to decide the format of your buying guide content:

• compare multiple products
• general information about what to look for
• beginner’s purchasing guide
• introduce a new niche or type of product

Here’s an example of a desk buying guide from Wayfair:

Rather than writing a guide on specific products, they created a list of the features that consumers should look for when buying a desk. The guide is mostly text but has pictures to illustrate the points they are trying to make. It’s a very simple and easy-to-follow format that uses visual elements well. Each feature is numbered, followed by a bulleted list with additional details. The images, numbers, and bullets break up the content, so it’s easy for website visitors to scan and consume it. No intimidating walls of text here!

Include a CTA

The whole purpose of your product buying guide is to inform consumers about their options, help them decide that they want to buy something, and then ultimately convert. Let’s not lose sight of that final stage when you’re writing these.

Obviously, you want them your customer to buy from you. But if you don’t give the reader a CTA or a way to buy, that might not happen. Here’s the thing. Yes, they are reading the guide on your website. But if they have to go back to your homepage and then search for the products that they’re looking for, it’s too many extra steps. It’d be easier for them to open a new window with a search engine, or go to Amazon, Walmart, or another retail giant to buy. We don’t want that to happen.

The consumer is on your website now. This is your chance to close the sale.

Check out this simple but effective CTA button from REI.

This example is from their car racks buying guide. It’s an extensive guide with plenty of options to choose from. They have sections for trunk racks, hitch racks, spare tire racks, roof racks, and cargo boxes. Each option follows the same format as the Wayfair guide.

Each section has a brief overview of the product. That’s followed by a description of how much this type of rack can transport. All of this is followed by a bulleted list of pros and cons. This is something worth stealing for any guide you write. You don’t want to seem biased, since customers will see right through that. If you’re giving too much of a sales pitch, people won’t want to buy. It’s difficult, but you want to try and appear as neutral as possible.

The cons list isn’t necessarily saying bad things about their specific products. Instead, it talks about some limitations of products in this particular category. For example, one of the cons of the spare tire bike rack is that there is a two-bike limit. If someone doesn’t need to transport more than two bikes, that’s not a problem. They don’t need to buy a rack that can hold three or four bikes. Listing the cons like this helps increase your authority and removes some of your bias in the eyes of the consumers. As a result, you can establish trust with the reader.

Last, but certainly not least, is a CTA that provides a link to buy. If someone is reading this guide and realizes that one of these options is what they’re looking for based on the information they found, all they need to do is click on the CTA. Even the CTA isn’t too pushy. But it needs to be there so the site visitor can ultimately convert and make a purchase with as little friction as possible.

The CTA directs the visitor to the product options. From here, they can make a purchase.

Compare products in different price ranges

In a perfect world, customers would always buy your most expensive products with the highest margins. But the world we live in is far from perfect. Not every person has an unlimited budget for this one purchase. Even if they did have an unlimited budget, many consumers want the best bang for their buck. In fact, the ability to compare prices ranks high on the list of why consumers prefer to shop online in the first place.

So, help your customers out make it easy for them to compare prices right on your site. A product guide is a simple way to do this. For example, let’s say you’re selling couches. You can might have products segmented by price in categories like:

• couches under $250
• couches $250–$750
• couches over $1,000

Include prices or price range categories in your buying guides and you’ll make this easier on the reader. This allows you to create anchor prices, which is a way for you to generate more profit by focusing on your pricing strategy. Psychologically, the customer will create a value in their head about what products are worth based on the anchor prices. Your less expensive and mid-range products will look more appealing when you put them next to premium-priced products. Consider marketing one of the options in your guide as a Best Budget pick or Best Value to hit that point home.

Apply SEO principles

Product-buying guides have a shot to rank with long-tail search terms.

This makes sense: most consumers use search engines to find new products, a buying guide will help them learn and discover. To take advantage of this discoverability, conduct keyword research on each category to determine what people are actually searching for.

Again, you’re not trying to appeal to the masses with your buying guides. General search terms are going to have more competition and be more expensive if you’re running PPC campaigns.

If you make your SEO strategy too broad and general, there may be more people searching for that term, but your click-through rates will be much lower. For example, let’s say you’re selling something basic that everyone uses, like socks. A product buying guide about how to choose a pair of socks is way too general. Make it more specific for your target audience and certain niches with long-tail keywords:

• best ankle socks for workouts
• women’s waterproof running socks
• best high socks for hiking
• dress socks for sweaty feet

Do you see the difference? All of these potential search terms address more particular needs. People searching for these keywords have a specific want. So if they land on your buying guide from their search, they’ll have a much higher probability of clicking through and converting.

Include reviews

When a consumer navigates to a product buying guide, they are conducting research. The number one reason why customers research products online is to read product reviews.

You can also showcase a customer review or testimonial to increase brand credibility. From that review, link the reader directly to the rest of your reviews for each product. You could even consider adding a superlative to your buying guide like Customer Favorite or Popular Choice.

In addition to reviews, you can add any statistics or references to back up claims you’re making about products or categories. Doing this will make your brand seem much more trustworthy and legitimate.

Conclusion

Product buying guides give you a unique opportunity to assist consumers during the research stage of the customer conversion funnel.

The first thing you need to do is determine the target audience of each buying guide. Figure out a format and style that works best for you, as well as the reader. Target long-tail keywords, and include CTAs to buy the products.

Showcase products in different price ranges to appeal to a wider range of prospective buyers and leverage your existing customer reviews.

How is your business using product buying guides to drive ecommerce sales?

from Quick Sprout http://bit.ly/2Fd78Wf
via IFTTT

How to Start Using Instagram to Grow Your Small Business

Every business needs an active social media presence. This statement holds true whether you have a small, medium, or large company. In fact, it’s more important for smaller businesses than large ones.

Big brands like Apple and Nike are already household names. If they stop using social media right now, they’ll probably still generate sales.

But you can’t make a sale to people who don’t know who you are yet. Just like you can’t rely only on foot traffic to your brick-and-mortar store, if you operate online, you can’t rely solely on people navigating to your website.

That’s why you need Instagram as a marketing tool.

Honestly, if you’re not currently using Instagram, you’re behind: 71% of businesses are already using Instagram as a marketing channel. But it’s not too late to get started. That’s the inspiration for this guide.

According to Instagram’s user data, 80% of accounts follow a business. It’s obvious that people are willing to follow and engage with brands on Instagram. The key for you as a small business marketer is to figure out how to take advantage of this opportunity to drive growth for your company. This article explains some beginner strategies to stimulate business growth on Instagram and teach you ways to convert your followers into customers. If you’ve created an Instagram profile, but it isn’t active or effective, you can benefit from this information too.

Promote your profile with your existing customers

When you start your account, it’ll come with zero followers. It can be a little discouraging to start from zero, but you don’t have to start from scratch. Rather than trying to get random followers who don’t know who you are and don’t know anything about your brand, turn to your existing customers.

Start with your email subscribers. Check out how MeUndies signs off its marketing emails.

The CTA here is to follow MeUndies on Instagram.

Your email list isn’t the only place to recruit current customers to Instagram. You can promote your profile on your other marketing channels as well:

• YouTube videos
• website
• blog posts
• other social media profiles
• purchase receipts
• in-store signs

Take a look at how Shady Rays uses its website to get more followers on Instagram.

The social media feed showcases their most recent Instagram uploads. If you click on any of the photos here, it will bring you to that image on Instagram. There’s also a direct link and a CTA to follow Shady Rays on Instagram.

Showcase your products

Now that you’ve got followers, let’s take a look a the reason they’re following your profile. Coupons? Sales? Let’s look at the top reasons why people follow brands on social media.

The number one reason people follow brands is because they’re interested in that brand’s products and services. That reason ranks higher than promotions and incentives. So while it’s not a bad idea to give people an incentive to follow your profile with an exclusive discount or another offer like that, research shows that more people follow a brand out of interest alone.

That means it’s definitely OK to show them your products.In fact, 65% of the top performing posts on Instagram featured a product. (This is a great chance for you to generate sales for a new product release.)

But, you don’t want to oversell on Instagram: 58% of users think it’s annoying when brands post too many promotions. So, showcase your products, but do so sparingly.

Take advantage of shoppable posts

It’s one thing to show products to your consumers. But Instagram gives businesses the opportunity to sell products directly through their platform. Shoppable posts take our last strategy one step further.

60% of people use Instagram to find new products and 75% of those take action after viewing a post. Those actions can lead to conversions, especially if you use shoppable posts.

Here’s an example from Western Rise of a shoppable post.

It’s just a regular photo. But the promoted product is tagged. The tag includes the name of the product and the price. When a user clicks on the link, they are directed to a product page where they can buy that product.

This is far more efficient than what businesses had to do before this feature: In the past, brands would have to post about a product and then say things like, “find this on our website,” or “link in bio.” Way too many steps. Plus, if you had to use the one link in your bio, you couldn’t promote more than one item at the same time. Shoppable posts have way less friction and increase your chances of driving conversions.

You can also run shoppable stories. It’s the same approach: simply tag products in your story instead of your profile.

If you haven’t used this tactic before and need some help setting them shoppable posts, refer to our complete guide on how to increase ecommerce sales with shoppable posts on Instagram.

Tag a purposeful location

Next up, location tags. If you haven’t been using location tags, you aren’t maximizing your potential engagement. Just look at the effect that a simple location tag can have on your metrics.

Posts with location tags have more engagement.

There are a few reasons for this. First, tagging the location can make your post more visible on the popular page for people in that area. Second, people who are viewing that specific location on Instagram have a better chance of seeing your post.

The great part about location tagging is that you don’t actually need to be in that area you’re tagging to tag it. Let’s say you run a Boston-based company that sells bathing suits. You’re probably not going to be selling bathing suits to many locals in that area during the winter months. And you’re probably not going to increase your engagement all that much by tagging a bathing suit picture in Harvard Square. Instead, you can upload photos of your products on Instagram and tag warmer locations, like Miami or San Diego. This will lead to higher engagement rates, which will increase your social following, brand awareness, and chances that people will buy your products.

Add photos with faces

Let’s continue talking about engagement. Photos of products alone don’t perform as well as photos with faces. In fact, photos with faces generate 38% more likes than posts without a face. Furthermore, posts with faces get 32% more comments. The more people engage with your posts, the greater your chance of driving conversions that will ultimately help your small business grow.

Here’s another example of a shoppable post from PX Clothing that includes a face in the photo.

This is more effective than posting the duffle bag by itself without a face in the photo.

Partner with social influencers

When it comes to influencer marketing, Instagram leads the way for brand collaborations with social influencers.

Your competitors might already be using this strategy. Now is your chance to jump on board to keep up with them. If you’ve never done this before and you don’t know where to get started, you can use our guide on the top platforms for effectively managing social influencers.

You’ll want to find influencers that have a strong following within a specific niche that speaks to your target audience. For example, let’s say you’re targeting women in New York City between the ages of 24 and 35. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you should be looking for influencers who fit that profile. Instead, you’ll want to find an influencer who has lots of followers that fit your target market. These resources will help you get connected with influencers in the right industry that will reach your target audience.

Run ads to generate leads and sales

Depending on your marketing budget, Instagram ads can be a suitable strategy for you to consider. If you’ve run Facebook ads in the past, you’re already familiar with how this works — Facebook owns Instagram and the two platforms use the same ad manager. You can choose your target audience, location, and budget.

The great part about advertising on Instagram is that you can have ads run in multiple formats.

• photo ads
• video ads
• carousel ads
• collection ads
• story ads

If you run story ads on Instagram, you’ll want to leverage the “swipe up” feature. Here’s an example from Olivers Apparel of what that looks like:

The “shop now” CTA at the bottom of this sponsored story takes users directly to a landing page where they can purchase the pants being advertised. This can definitely help increase conversion rates because it eliminates additional steps in the purchase process.

Encourage UGC

Another way to grow your business on Instagram is with user-generated content.

82% of consumers say that user-generated content is valuable to them during the purchase process. 48% of people say they discover new brands and products as a result of UGC. When customers get exposed to UGC, brand engagement increases by 28%.

One of the best ways to accomplish this is with contests.

This is one of our favorite strategies for several reasons. First, it helps you get more followers. For one of your followers to enter a contest, they’ll need to upload a photo to their own profile and tag your brand. In doing this, it increases the exposure to all of their followers, who may not currently know your brand or follow your profile. This added exposure will entice more people to follow you on Instagram. That’s because UGC is memorable and trusted.

People who see a user-generated photo on Instagram have a 4.5% greater chance of converting. If they interact with the post, such as liking it or commenting on it, they are 9.6% more likely to convert.

Engage your followers

It’s important for you to connect with your Instagram following. Now that you’ve found so many new ways to get followers, likes, and comments. You don’t want to lose those relationships.

Reply to their comments. Answer direct messages. If you don’t do this, you’re not providing the appropriate customer service needed to drive business growth. On the other hand, using Instagram to improve your customer service will definitely help your business grow.

Here’s what will happen if you ignore customers on social media.

People expect brands to respond within four hours after they reach out on social media. The average response time is ten hours. 35% of consumers say that social media is their top choice for customer care, yet 89% of social media messages are ignored by brands.

Don’t let this happen to you. If you’re having trouble managing all of your Instagram messages with other social media comments, our favorite time-saving social media marketing tools can help.

Conclusion

As a small business owner, you need to establish an active presence on Instagram to grow your company. If you’re starting from scratch or don’t have many followers right now, turn to your existing customers to build a following on your profile.

Use Instagram to showcase your products. Drive sales directly with shoppable posts.

Find ways to increase your engagement, such as tagging your location, uploading photos with faces, and leveraging relationships with social influencers.

You can also run ads to generate brand awareness, increase your followers, and drive sales.

Create campaigns that encourage user-generated content, which will increase your reach in a trusted and memorable way.

Don’t ignore customers when they reach out to your brand with comments and direct messages.

How are you using Instagram to drive growth for your small business?

from Quick Sprout http://bit.ly/2ApYPmu
via IFTTT