Instagram marketing is one of the most powerful ways to make money online today, but most people don’t know what to do. In today’s post you’ll learn how to make money on Instagram with this $100 per day strategy.

Wondering how to make money with Instagram without 1000’s of followers?

One common misconception people have about making money with Instagram is that they think they need to have a huge following to make any money. Certainly a large audience and follower base can help, but it isn’t required to start making money.

This post isn’t about doing things like paid shout outs, or sponsored posts either. The strategies you’ll learn here can be applied to any business or niche that you want to build.

The only difference is what kind of things you post and where you send the traffic you generate on Instagram. Below are a few of the most popular options for how to make money with Instagram.

Promote affiliate marketing products to make money off Instagram

Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways to make money with Instagram. If you aren’t familiar with affiliate marketing, the basics are you are promoting someone else’s products or services with a special link or sales page.

Each time you refer someone that buys from your link, you will earn a commission. If you are promoting a program that has a monthly service you could even start earning passive residual income each month as well from your Instagram marketing efforts!

The basis for this kind of Instagram marketing is that you want the affiliate products you promote to be congruent with your audience. One reason that people don’t make money with Instagram is they promote products or services their followers have no interest in.

For example if you were an Instagram account that was all about health and fitness, it would make sense to promote affiliate products like weight loss programs, or work out programs.

If you are just looking into affiliate marketing and don’t yet have a product to promote Clickbank could be a great place to start. They are a huge library of affiliate products that you can choose to promote. Most likely they have something that will fit well for your niche and target market.

If you’d like to learn more about how to make money on Instagram with Clickbank, Click Here. You may also want to check out my affiliate marketing beginners guide as well.

Generate leads for a network marketing business as a means to make money with Instagram

Network marketing is another business you can promote on Instagram to make money. An advantage to network marketing is that you can eventually build a sales team up to create even more leverage.

There are 3 main ways to build wealth and they are money at work, people at work, and systems at work. Typically most people don’t have a ton of extra money laying around to invest and have money work for them.

This is why many people start a network marketing business so they can have a team of people at work. Instagram is a great place to market your business and to make money on Instagram.

You can promote your improved lifestyle thanks to your network marketing business, and use Instagram to market your business or products. Depending on what your target market is, you can make an Instagram account based around that interest.

A health and fitness account for marketing nutrition and wellness products. A travel account if you offer travel savings. Even finance and investing tips if you offer a financial services business.

Sell a coaching program through Instagram marketing to make money

Promoting a coaching business is another great way to make money with Instagram. This may not be something you start off with immediately, but as your experience grows in your niche it could be a lucrative option.

Coaching programs are often a high ticket item, meaning you can charge several hundred dollars an hour or more for it. Turn your expertise into an income through coaching.

Instagram marketing can be a great way to promote your coaching business as well! Check out more on my coaching program and working directly with me here. 

Create and sell info products as a means to make money on Instagram

Promoting information products through Instagram marketing is another powerful way to make money with Instagram. The great thing about information products is that you can make them once and continue to sell them forever.

This is a great passive business model because it can be put almost completely on auto pilot with a sales funnel system and email autoresponder in place. I’ll cover those in more detail further down in the post, but they are essential tools that can help you market your information products easier.

There are a variety of options for different kinds of information products you can promote. Some of the most common ones that are simple to create are things like ebooks, audio trianings, video series, and PDF guides. If you’d like to learn more on building your first ebook click here.

The foundation of making money with Instagram is your profile

When it comes to social media marketing and ways to make money on Instagram your profile is the base of everything. Without a quality profile set up people won’t follow you back or buy from you.

Thankfully setting up a quality profile on Instagram doesn’t take much. I’d suggest having your picture be a smiling picture of yourself. You certainly can go with a logo, or photo representing your brand, but understand that a brand account is one of the hardest things to build on social media.

From there the rest of your profile description should focus on who you are and how you help people. This is very simple as well. Just put a few fun facts about yourself, and they how you serve your audience.

For example, on my profile, I say that I am a nerd, gamer, business coach, and that I help people build a profitable business from home. You can do the same sort of thing for really any industry. Let’s say you are an at home mom, and promote a health and fitness business.

You might say something like, Fab and fit at home mom, helping you reach your ultimate bod and have the energy you used to in high school.

You’ll also want to include a link in your bio going to a capture page or sales page. I’ll cover that later in the post as well. Check out an example of a good profile with the picture of mine below.

Get out of pitch mode in your Instagram marketing

Another common reason you aren’t making money with Instagram is that you are in pitch mode or spamming. People love to buy, but they hate to be sold. When you are in pitch mode and just send your sales page links to people or to your duplicated company website without them asking for it, you are a spammer!

Don’t do it. It doesn’t work, and you will push people away from ever buying from you. If spamming a simple link to a duplicated company sales page worked, the company you sell products for wouldn’t need you. They could just run ads to that page and cut you out of the equation.

You need to lead with value first if you ever want to make money with Instagram. Your mindset and content needs to be focused on helping people first and selling later.

Follow the 80/20 rule and spend the majority of your time producing valuable content and only 20% on selling and promotion.

Develop a quality lead magnet

One of the best ways to lead with value first and that is an effective way how to make money on Instagram is with an effective lead magnet. A lead magnet is something you give away for free in exchange for someone’s name, email, and phone number.

The phone number part can be optional, but if you are able to get someone on the phone, you will have a much higher ratio of selling the products you promote.

Ideally, you want your lead magnet to answer your target market’s most common questions, solve a problem, avoid a problem, or help them get results faster. For example, since I promote courses and training for Instagram marketing, my lead magnet teaches people how to get more quality followers.

Since my target market wants to make money from home and generate more leads and sales, that’s what my lead magnet is based around. If you’d like to check out my free training on Instagram marketing Click Here.

You can also check out what a high converting lead magnet looks like below.

Set up a capture page and sales funnel system

Now you may notice above that this picture of the lead magnet I give away is also a capture page. This means that if someone wants to access that free training they need to put in their name and email to access it.

This leads to a very powerful follow-up strategy of email marketing. To set up a capture page like this you will need a couple of tools in place.

One of the tools I’d recommend getting to do this is a sales funnel system. Most people just getting started in online marketing typically don’t have a background in website design, or graphic design, or coding. If you do, you are among the select few.

I certainly never had that kind of background going into Instagram marketing. The good news is with a sales funnel system you don’t actually need that expertise or background.

A sales funnel system like Clickfunnels for example will give you done for you sales funnels where you just need to customize them to your offers. If you’d like to check out a free 14 day trial of Clickfunnels Click Here.

Integrate an email autoresponder

Another foundation tool you’ll want to set up in conjunction with your sales funnel system is an email autoresponder. This is where the real money starts to happen with Instagram marketing.

Understand that most people who see your affiliate offer or business for the first time won’t join immediately. It often takes people several exposures of your offer before they decide to buy.

If you don’t have a means to re-market to them once they visit your website for the first time, you are leaving a lot of money one the table. One of the best ways to make money on Instagram is to use it as a means of generating email leads. From there those leads go into your email autoresponder at which point you can market your offers on an ongoing basis.

Email marketing is a powerful strategy and can be combined with Instagram marketing as an effective way to make money from home. With a capture page, sales funnel system, and email autoresponder in place, you have all the tools for how to make money on Instagram.

An email autoresponder also gives you the option to automate more of your business with an email series. This series can deliver your lead magnet, and continue to provide value in addition to selling your affiliate offers.

If you’d like to set up an email autoresponder and get your first 30 days for free I’d recommend checking out Aweber. I’ve used it for years and it is a great cost-effective option if you are just getting started. Try out Aweber here!

Put a link in your Instagram bio

Now that you have all the tools set up to properly market your business of choice, it’s time to start making money with Instagram! The focal point of how to make money on Instagram hinges on the link in your bio.

Ideally, you want to have the link in your bio go to your capture page that is a give away for your lead magnet. Also, you should include a brief description that tells people why they should click on the link in your bio.

For example, it could say something like, “Free guide to growing your business on Instagram click below👇”

Also, you probably noticed the emoji right? People love those things, plus it draws the viewer to your link and lead magnet. I’d highly suggest putting those in your link bio description as well.

Again the link in your bio and profile is really the foundation to all the success you will generate though Instagram marketing.

How to have multiple links in your Instagram bio to generate leads and income with Instagram

A common question people have is how can you put multiple links in your Instagram bio. Is this possible and should you do it?

Well, one common option to put multiple links in your Instagram bio is through a service called linktr.ee. With this service, you’ll have the ability to still have the one link in your Instagram bio, but when people click on that link it will send them to a page that has multiple links to choose from.

This can be a great way to promote multiple things at once, but there are some downsides to this as well. As stated above, I suggest that you put a lead magnet or capture page in the link in your Instagram bio. This way you can start to build your email list, and having a list of targeted leads is one of the best ways to make money online.

When you send people to a place with multiple options they can get distracted and end up doing nothing. However, it does also give you the opportunity to drive traffic to many places and allow people to go to what they are actually interested in.

While there are certainly pro’s and con’s to having multiple links in your Instagram bio, it really comes down to testing and seeing what works for you. If you’d like to learn more about how to have multiple links in your Instagram bio and how to do it for free, check out my video below!

Strategically use Instagram comments on posts to generate leads and sales

Like other social media platforms you don’t want to be spammy. So there is a right and a wrong way to use comments on posts to drive traffic and make money with Instagram.

I’d suggest as a start to drop comments on your own posts first vs spamming other people’s posts. Your posts, like everything else, need to lead with value first. So as a foundation they should be focused on lifestyle, value, results, and a few promotional posts here and there.

Proper use of hashtags is another key factor for getting your posts discovered and gaining new followers. If you aren’t sure where to start for hashtags simply type into Google, “top hashtags for ___”. Then you just fill in the blank with your niche.

You could search for “top hashtags for internet marketing” as an example. You’ll then get a list of some of the most popular hashtags to add in the comments of your posts. Don’t go overboard with these but adding anywhere from 10-20 per post can really start to improve your exposure.

From there you’ll also want to include a call to action comment directing people back to your link in your bio. For example it might be something like, “Are you sick of struggling in your business and wish you had more traffic to your offers? If so check out the free Instagram marketing training in my bio. Tap here to get instant access @mikemacdirect”

When you use the @ symbol on Instagram followed by your username it creates a link that takes people right to your bio. This is a super effective way to get more people clicking on your link, which again leads to your capture page.

Use a DM or direct message as a way how to make money with Instagram

Properly utilizing the direct message feature is another great way to make money with Instagram. There are even tools out there to help you automate this process.

Typically I’ll use this feature when new people follow me. You can send a direct message to your new followers and direct them back to the link in your bio.

It might sound something like, “Hey thanks for following me! I really appreciate it. Also since you did, I thought you may want to check out the free Instagram marketing training in my bio @mikemacdirect to learn how to generate more leads and grow a business with Instagram…”

This kind of message isn’t spammy, as it leads with value and also doesn’t send a link to a sales page. Only someone who is interested in your offer will go to your bio and check out your link.

I also recommend starting a conversation as well in your direct messages. I know asking a question as simple as something like where are you from? Has brought in thousands of leads and lead to sales in my business as well.

Not everyone will sign up at the link in your bio, but with a small conversation you can find out how you can help your new follower. In many cases, if you are targeting the right people, you can do just that with your lead magnets and product and services.

Using Instagram stories to make money on Instagram

Instagram stories are another great option for how to make money with Instagram. The cool thing with stories is that when you get to 10,000 followers you can also include a link with it.

This means that you can tell people to “swipe up” and it will take them directly to where you want. This is great because you can promote other things beyond just your link in your bio.

This strategy can be used to drive traffic to things like your blog, sales pages, even to get more YouTube subscribers. Stories also only last for 24 hours and people know it.

This means that many people will watch your Instagram stories for fear of missing out. You can create a sense of urgency this way and it can end up getting a lot of leads for your business this way.

Make Instagram stories a key part of your Instagram marketing strategy.

Another way to generate leads on Instagram and to make money from Instagram is with Instagram polls

Instagram polls are a separate feature within Instagram stories. They don’t link out somewhere as you can do with an Instagram story, but you can use them to draw out your ideal customers.

One of my favorite ways to generate leads on Instagram and social media, in general, is to ask pain point questions to find ideal customers. Now if you aren’t familiar with this concept let’s take weight loss as an example.

If I was trying to make money on Instagram selling weight loss products, my goal would be to find people who wanted to lose weight. Well, one way could be to ask every single person who follows me to buy my products, or I could find those who were already interested and open to buy my products.

I’d suggest you choose the second option. Now to find those people you ask a pain point question with an Instagram poll. I could say something like, “I’m just curious if you’ve tried getting in shape this year by cutting calories, and working out but just aren’t seeing results?”

Well with an Instagram story poll you can ask that with a yes or no question attached. In this example, every person who said yes is probably someone who is looking to lose weight. Instagram even gives you the option to message each one of these people as well.

This can give you a flood of new quality leads from Instagram each time you make a story poll! If you’d like to check out a detailed video on this strategy of how to get leads on Instagram, watch it below!

Use highlighted Instagram stories for ongoing lead generation

Another cool Instagram lead generation hack you can use is with highlighted stories.  It’s similar to using stories as a means of lead generation with Instagram, but these stay on your profile forever.

Basically, you take an Instagram story post and save it permanently on your profile as I highlighted Instagram story.   You can even combine stories into a single post that is a highlighted Instagram story.

This is very powerful because you can do a combination of both videos and picture posts to drive traffic to your offers.  You want to utilize this strategy in conjunction with a call to action or basically telling your audience to go do something.

This could be directing them to a lead magnet or capture page, or to simply drive traffic to some other target. For example, I use this strategy to bring in new YouTube subscribers,  as well as drive traffic to a blog post.

This lead generation strategy on Instagram becomes even more powerful once you have 10,000 followers.  At this point, you can actually link your story post to a website.

This means your call-to-action can be something like swipe up to subscribe to my YouTube channel with a link that automatically subscribed people to your Channel.  This is very powerful as it is similar to using the link in the bio to generate leads in sales for your business, but it gives you additional links you can use in your Instagram profile.

Check out a video below detailing more of this Instagram lead generation hack.

Create curiosity with your highlighted Instagram story posts

The key is to title your highlighted stories with something that creates curiosity.  Curiosity is what moves people and it is a skill you want to develop.

Writing persuasively and creating curiosity is a skill-set called copywriting.  This is one skill that I highly recommend you develop especially if you want to make money with Instagram.

The more persuasively you can write in your emails,  Instagram post, and titles, the more opportunities you have to make money on Instagram.

There are few resources I would recommend checking out to improve your copywriting skills for Instagram marketing.  One is a book by Dan Kennedy called The Ultimate Sales Letter. Check out the current price on Amazon here.

I also recommend developing your copywriting skills through taking courses specifically on copywriting.  If you’d like to take a copywriting course you may want to check out this course on copywriting.

Copywriting skills will help you make more money from Instagram as well as any other marketing efforts you decide to pursue.

Use Instagram video and Instagram live to build massive rapport

Finally, Instagram video and Instagram live are two other options to make money with Instagram. People tend to do business with those that the know, like, and trust, and video marketing is one of the best ways to create that relationship.

There are a couple options on Instagram to do video marketing. Their video option as of now allows you to take minute videos and they stay on your profile forever.

This is a mini form of evergreen content where you can create a video post once but it can continue to work for you forever. This is a very powerful passive income strategy if you are using video to promote your business.

Another option is with Instagram live and live videos as a part of your Instagram story. Live video is the most powerful form of video marketing as it is the closest thing to actually being in person with you.

Combining that with the urgency created with Instagram stories and people wanting to tune in live, is a great way to promote your lead magnets and offers. Use Instagram live in conjunction with the strategies listed above to be making money with Instagram in no time!

Instagram Business Profile Vs Instagram Personal Profile

Another common question you may be thinking is when it comes to making money on Instagram, what is better? An Instagram business profile or an Instagram personal profile?

There are not much difference to a person looking at a profile as the look of an Instagram business profile is almost identical to a personal Instagram profile, but the features are dramatically different.

If you are looking to make money with Instagram or use it to promote a business, I would highly suggest switching your account to an Instagram business profile. There are many additional features that make it much easier to grow a business with an Instagram business profile vs a personal profile.

Access to insights when you upgrade to an Instagram business profile

What gets measured gets done, and what gets tracked gets improved. This is a key concept if you are looking to make money from Instagram or any business.

Knowing your numbers and what is working and what isn’t is a crucial aspect to success in business. When you upgrade to an Instagram business account you’ll unlock the insights feature on your profile as well.

This will tell you important factors like how many impressions you got, your reach, what time best to post and more. Knowing these kinds of statistics can help you plan out the kind of content you produce, as well as when to post.

You’ll also see where the majority of your followers live and come from, which can tell you if your targeting is accurate or not. Again these things are important if you are looking to make money through Instagram. If you are targeting the wrong people your chances of generating income goes dramatically down.

You may be accidentally targeting some place your company doesn’t even do business. It’s pretty hard to sell somewhere you aren’t even open.

Using an Instagram business profile also unlocks advertising

As you are just starting out with Instagram marketing, you probably won’t be using advertising right away. However, as your start to earn income through Instagram on a consistent basis, you know what you are doing is working.

At this point it may be time to start scaling your business. Advertising is like throwing gasoline on the fire of your business and can make growth increase faster. With an Instagram business profile it gives you the ability to run paid promotions and advertising on Instagram.

At this point it doesn’t appear to make much of a difference if you have a business profile or personal profile on Instagram for the amount of exposure you get, but that could change in the future.

When you look at platforms like Facebook, initially Facebook pages got a lot of exposure, but now they have become more of a pay to play platform. This could some day become the case as well for Instagram.

Either way having the ability to run advertising through Instagram is another advantage to having an Instagram business profile.

The ability to include more links with an Instagram business profile

Yet another advantage to having an Instagram business profile vs personal profile is that you have more opportunities to include links. Typically you are going to have to drive traffic outside of Instagram if you are going to make money through Instagram.

People can’t buy products or things you sell directly on Instagram, so they will have to leave the platform to make a purchase. This means having the ability to use links on the platform very critical.

With the Instagram lead generation hack mentioned above this utilizes the option business profiles have to include links in stories. After you reach 10,000 followers on an Instagram business profile account you can add links to the story.

As of now, you can do that only with a business profile on Instagram and not a personal profile. Since this is a great lead and traffic generation strategy, you most likely should switch to a business profile if you are looking to make money through Instagram.

Your Instagram business profile links right to your Facebook page

With an Instagram business page you can also link your profile directly to your Facebook fan page. You can share your Instagram posts directly to your Facebook Page with this option.

This can be a great time saver as you can post the content once and it will go on both platforms. If you are actively promoting your Facebook page this is another advantage that a personal profile doesn’t have.

One thing to keep in mind with this is that your Instagram posts might not quite fit perfect on your Facebook page. Certainly the pictures will look great, but all the hashtags might look a little weird over on Facebook.

The good thing is though, that you can simply head over to your new Facebook post, and edit the description so it fits better on Facebook. This also doesn’t change the original Instagram post, so it can save you some time overall with this dual sharing option.

Also one thing to keep in mind is that at this point you do have the ability to switch back to a personal profile on Instagram at any time, so if for some reason you didn’t like the Instagram business profile, you can just swap back.

If you enjoyed this post and are looking for a tool to help automate some of your Instagram growth Click Here.

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Mike MacDonald

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Email: [email protected]

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