Want to sell more on Instagram? It all starts with your caption game.
You can’t simply post a photo and expect a flood of sales.
You need to know how to use Instagram captions for eCommerce. The right words can educate, entertain, and inspire your audience to head to the checkout.
Why?
Because you’ve established yourself as the expert, the brand with the answers to their problems.
Here, you’ll find four must-know tips on how to write Instagram captions for ecommerce that’ll help with brand awareness, relationship building, and conversions
How to Write Instagram Captions for Ecommerce
1. Write an Attention-Grabbing Caption
The first 45 characters of your ecommerce Instagram caption need to stop users mid-scroll.
You want them to tap on that ‘read more’ text to get the full story, engage with your content, and buy your products.
That whole journey starts with writing an opener that piques curiosity. It’s no different than writing a catchy blog title or email subject line.
You need to lead with a hook that your audience won’t be able to resist.
Beauty Chef does an excellent job of this with their opener: “Skin feeling dry, itchy, and inflamed? Turn your attention to…”
If you’re suffering from those symptoms, that sentence is going to grab you immediately. You’ll tap the ‘read more’ text to find out how you can fix the problem, where you’ll learn about Beauty Chef’s Omega Elixir.
2. Educate Your Audience
You want your audience to think of you as the go-to expert, right?
Then it’s time to start writing Instagram captions for eCommerce that educate your audience.
To pull this off, you need to understand what your audience struggles with and why someone would buy your product in the first place.
You want to use your content to teach people how to solve their problems with quick tips and hacks related to your niche or product.
Not only will it increase saves and prevent your content from being ignored, but you’re building the know, like, and trust factor. People need those three elements to feel comfortable making a purchase.
Go-To Skincare uses the educate technique by showing and telling their audience how their products work together to banish misbehaving skin.
3. Use Storytelling for Your eCommerce Instagram Captions
You can’t show up on Instagram and post a photo that says ‘buy this’ and expect to see sales.
Instagram is a relationship-building platform, and like any good relationship, you need to lay down the foundations.
Wine and dine your audience with some good ‘ole fashion storytelling.
Step 1: Set the scene. Explain to your audience what happened, when, and where.
For e.g. “What’s your most costly hiking mistake? On my first solo backpacking trip in Yosemite, I thought I had everything ticked off”
Step 2: Describe the conflict or the problem
For e.g.” I had my headlamp (with two extra batteries), a down sleeping bag, a self-inflating mattress, and my brand new tent. It was a bit heavy, but I got it on sale. I couldn’t resist a good deal. But when the weather changed for the worse, I realised my big mistake. I hadn’t checked that the tent was waterproof and I spent the entire evening soaked to the bone.”
Step 3: Give your audience a resolution i.e. how your audience can solve a similar problem with your product.
For e.g. “That cold night in the mountains taught me a big lesson about backpacking (and reading labels), but it also laid the seeds for starting [company name]. I set out on creating a lightweight, durable, and most importantly, waterproof tent for all 4-seasons. Fast forward five years later, and [product name] is ranked one of the best backpacking tents on the market.”
And we’ve just dropped our newest collection featuring four brand new colours. Grab yours now. Link in bio”
Here, skin therapist Kathleen uses storytelling to explain to her audience how she created her new product: an organic tea blend for healing acne.
It’s the perfect example of how to write commerce Instagram captions that sell!
4. Tell Your Audience to Engage With You
The secret to writing commerce Instagram captions isn’t only about asking for the sale. You also need to use your caption to expand your reach.
The more people who view your content, the more potential customers and the more money you can make.
So, how do you get those extra eyeballs on your content? Ask your audience.
At the end of a caption, tell your followers to tag their friends in the comments. It will increase your reach, engagement and give the Instagram algorithm all the right signals it needs to push your content out.
Don’t want to ask people to tag a friend in every single post? You can encourage interaction in other ways:
• Ask a question (that isn’t a yes or no answer)
• Tell your audience to tap, comment, shop, share or save.
Start Writing Profitable Instagram Captions for eCommerce
If you want to get more sales using Instagram, you need to create content that educates, entertains, inspires, and keeps users engaged.
Soon enough, you’ll start growing your following, building an audience who cares about your business and will happily open their wallets to purchase your products.
Sign up for a free Plann account today and start creating and scheduling your Instagram content for the next day, week, or month.
