Vogue Used Instagram Stories to Boost Subscriptions

“What’s the Story on Stories”, is Instagram Business’ latest panel discussion regarding its Stories feature. Facebook’s Managing Director of Entertainment, Media and Technology, Jennifer Howard, interviewed Vogue magazine’s Eden Gorcey and Abby Sjoberg. Eden is Senior Vice President, Enterprise Strategy of Condé Nast, of which Vogue is a product. Abby is Director of Audience Development, Analytics, and Social at Vogue. The discussion centered on their successful boost in subscriptions using Instagram Stories. The video is 30 mins long, and we’ve summarize it for you:

Exclusivity

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The September issue of Vogue is the Superbowl of fashion magazines. This issue identifies trends and tells the customer what they should be wearing. Therefore, the cover of the magazine is the most important aspect. They first announced that Beyoncé would be on the cover in their Instagram Stories. Vogue felt that the best way to tell her story to customers was by using unedited photos and videos. If you look at Vogue’s Instagram feed, you’d notice the feed is curated content. Instagram Stories offered a raw and unedited side to Vogue not usually seen. With Beyoncé being the secretive unicorn that she is, it was a rare opportunity for customers to get exclusive insight on her. Most importantly, it generated mass interest in the September issue.

Right Moves

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In addition, Vogue used Instagram Stories to drive traffic to their website; it is a magazine above all. Utilizing Call to Actions like ‘Swipe Up’, they developed stories that engaged audiences to act in a significant way towards the magazine. For the September issue, they used vertical videos, gifs, and images. This is using Instagram at its best. The goal was attaining new subscriptions on Amazon Prime. They found video engaged more and based on this performance, they created their campaigns. Instagram stories were chosen as the main driving force behind the campaign. Moreover, Vogue explained that they had to show results to their stakeholders in order to get the ‘go ahead’. Specifically, click-through rates, approach, and data.

The result? Sold out subscriptions. Almost a quarter of the subscriptions for the September issue were driven from Instagram Stories. Abby credited it to the creative stories, targeting the right audience and offering a streamline experience. Customers had an easy subscription and check out process. A perfect mix.

If you have not been using Instagram stories, here’s 3 reasons why you should be . Do you think you can adapt any of Vogue’s strategies for your business? Let us know!

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