, 2 min read
Your Instagram DMs are bookings in disguise
Short questions like how much and are you free Friday are customers ready to buy. Why those messages slip through, and how to answer every one while the customer is still interested.
Look through the direct messages on your business's Instagram and you'll find a lot of short questions. "Price?" "Do you have anything this week?" "Is this still available?" "Do you cover my area?"
They're easy to overlook because they're brief and they arrive between everything else. But each of those messages is someone who saw your work, liked it, and took a step towards buying. That's what a booking looks like at the very start.
Why DMs get missed
- They arrive everywhere at once. Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, texts, email. Each app has its own inbox and its own notifications.
- They arrive at the wrong time. A post does well in the evening, and the questions come in while you're off.
- They look casual. A one-word "price?" doesn't feel urgent, so it waits. By the time you reply, the person has moved on.
People who message expect a reply in minutes, not hours. The longer the gap, the colder the lead.
What a good reply does
A good reply to a DM is quick, specific and moves things on:
- It answers the actual question, with the real price or the real availability.
- It asks the one thing needed to book: which service, which day, which time.
- It keeps the conversation in the place the customer chose. Nobody wants to be told to "call the shop instead."
Make it easy to message you in the first place
Customers can only message you if they know they can. Put a line in your bio ("Message us to book"), mention it in captions, and use Instagram's message button on your profile. Every post can end with a small invitation: "DM us for availability."
Watch the questions people ask
The questions in your DMs are free market research. If lots of people ask about one service, post about it more. If many ask the same price, put it in your highlights. Over time, the DMs tell you exactly what customers want to know before they book.
Doing it every time
RingPost brings Instagram and Facebook messages into one inbox with your calls, texts, WhatsApp and email. It replies straight away from your own information, offers times that are free in your calendar, and books the appointment in the chat. When a message needs you, it hands the conversation over and lets you know.
You can read every conversation, step in whenever you like, and see which ones turned into bookings. The DMs stop being a backlog and start being what they always were: customers asking to buy.
Written by the RingPost team.