How to sell to local businesses on Instagram: offer, messages and industries

You sell to local businesses on Instagram by writing to them in their DMs. Pick two industries and give each its own campaign: open with something you can see on the business's profile, describe your offer in one sentence and end with a question that is easy to pass on to the owner. Then send three short follow-ups, and once the last ones are out, check which industry had the larger share of businesses reply. In DM Hero you import your own list of businesses, the extension sends a campaign for each industry from your own account at a calm pace, and when a business replies, the AI Setter carries the conversation and can send your booking link.

This plan is for anyone who sells to many small businesses: suppliers, agencies, software companies for restaurants and salons, and service providers, from photographers to coffee machine repair. The whole route from list to call is in the Instagram cold outreach guide. This post covers what changes when the other side is a restaurant, a salon, a studio or an office.

Who reads a small business's DMs

A small business's Instagram messages are answered by the owner or someone on the team: a manager, the front desk, whoever handles social media. Write so that any of them can reply straight away or pass the message on without explaining it:

• One sentence on what you do and for whom. No company intro and no list of services.
• One detail from the business's profile that shows you are writing to them: a new menu, a new treatment, a second location.
• A question anyone who runs the inbox can answer, such as "Can I send a short note for whoever handles ordering?"

When a team member replies, don't ask for the owner's number. Give them one ready sentence and ask if they can pass it on. All it takes is a copy and a paste.

The industry table: reason, question, objection

Every industry has a different reason to write, a different closing question and different objections. Treat the table as a starting point: the reason to write is one detail from each business's profile, kept in its own column of your list, and the objections grow with your own conversations.

Objections you may hear, and replies:

• Food and drink: "We have a regular supplier." Reply: "Keep them. I'm suggesting one item to try. Can I send the details?"
• Beauty: "We buy everything from our wholesaler." Reply: "Keep the wholesaler, this is one product to try. Can I send a sample?" "We already have a booking system." Reply: "Keep it, we add client reminders to it. Want to see how it works?"
• Fitness: "We don't have the budget right now." Reply: "Let's start with one thing you can test in a month. Want to see how it looks?"
• Real estate: "We do it ourselves." Reply: "Sure, that stays with you. Can I show you one thing that shortens the work on your next listing?"
• Shops and boutiques: "We have an agency." Reply: "Sure, I'll put it together so it's easy to pass on to them. Shall I send it?"

Add the objections you hear from businesses in each industry to the AI Setter's playbook in DM Hero, each with your answer and a question that moves the conversation on. More ready replies are in Common sales objections in DMs.

This is how a conversation between a hair care supplier and a salon can look, with whoever runs the inbox passing the first message on to the owner:

Conversation with fennmoor.salon

1. You: Hi, saw you started offering keratin smoothing in October. We supply salons with aftercare products for keratin treatments. Can I send a short note for whoever orders your products?

2. Prospect: Hi, I run the inbox, ordering is the owner's job. What should I pass on?

3. You: Thanks! Just this: "Salon-size shampoo and conditioner for after keratin, first set to try, no wholesale order needed." Would you pass it on?

4. Prospect: Done. The owner asks if it makes sense, since we buy everything from our wholesaler.

5. You: Of course, keep the wholesaler. It's one set to try on a few treatments, no change to your orders. Would you be open to some samples?

6. Prospect: Ok, send them over.

7. You: Great, which address and name should the parcel go to?

The owner got a ready-made sentence, and the answer to "we buy everything from our wholesaler" didn't ask the salon to switch. The next step was samples, not a call, so instead of a booking link the last message asked for a shipping address.

An offer in one sentence

An offer to a small business says what the business gets, how much work it takes on their side and what the first small step is:

• Coffee roaster for cafés: "We deliver coffee roasted this week, and the first bag ships as a trial, with no minimum order."
• Booking software for barbers: "Clients book from the link in bio and get a reminder the day before, and we set it all up in one afternoon with a month to try it."
• Photographer for restaurants: "We shoot your whole menu in one morning before opening and deliver photos for Instagram within a week, starting with a trial shoot of three dishes."

The first small step is a sample, a trial month or a short call. It is an easier yes than a contract, and it gives you the chance to show your work.

In DM Hero, you write a separate template for each industry. Import your list of businesses from a CSV file with the industry in a column called niche: {{niche}} inserts the industry, {{name}} the name from your list, and you tick the column with the reason to write at import as a custom field, such as {{custom.reason}}. A step that uses a custom field goes only to businesses that have it filled in, so nobody gets a sentence with a gap. Eight examples of first messages are collected in How to write a cold DM on Instagram.

Sending hours and follow-up rhythm

Match your sending hours to the working day of the businesses you write to. In the DM Hero extension you set quiet hours, 22:00 to 07:00 local time by default: during those hours the queue waits, and when they end it carries on. It is one window for all your campaigns, so move its start or end, and messages from every campaign go out in the remaining hours. The extension also keeps a calm pace: random pauses between messages and a daily number of messages you set, starting at 15 to 30 a day on a new account.

The campaign itself gives you the follow-up rhythm. A new DM Hero campaign has four steps, 0, 3, 5 and 7 days apart, each gap counted from the previous step. Let each step bring one new thing:

1. Day 1: the first message, with the reason from their profile and a question that is easy to pass on.
2. Day 4: an example from a similar business, or a short description of what is in the trial set.
3. Day 9: an answer to the objection you hear most in that industry.
4. Day 16: an easy closing question, such as whether to come back to it next season.

When a business replies, its remaining steps stop. More on spacing and what to say is in Instagram DM follow-ups: how many to send and when.

Two industries, two campaigns, one comparison

Instead of guessing which industry will buy, test two at once. Each one gets its own campaign with its own template, and both start in the same week with a similar number of businesses.

1. 1

   A list with the industry in the niche column

   Two industries in one CSV file

2. 2

   A template for each industry

   Reason, question and objection for that industry

3. 3

   Two campaigns in the same week

   A similar number of businesses in each

4. 4

   A comparison in Analytics

   The share of businesses that replied

After three weeks, once the first businesses in both campaigns have had all four messages, open the comparison in DM Hero's Analytics. There you compare industries from the niche column, campaigns and templates by businesses, not by messages sent. For each industry you see the share of businesses that replied and the chance that it really does better, and the comparison also tells you how many businesses each industry needs for a reliable answer. Any industry with fewer than 100 businesses is marked as a small sample, so you know when to add more before drawing a conclusion. How to count that share is in Cold DM reply rate: how to calculate it and compare two scripts.

If businesses in one industry reply clearly more often, stay with it. If the gap is small, rewrite one message in the weaker campaign. If almost no one in the other industry replies, swap it for the next one from the table.

When a business replies

Answer the same day, while the conversation is fresh. In DM Hero, the AI Setter can do this for you: in Suggestions it leaves a draft in the inbox for you to approve or edit, and on Autopilot it replies within minutes, answers the objections in your playbook, such as "we use a wholesaler", and answers price questions from your knowledge base.

You set the goal in the setter's settings. If it is a call, the setter sends your booking link and the business picks the time. If you sell samples or orders, the goal can be your offer page instead of a calendar. When someone at the business shares a phone number or email address, the setter stops writing and hands you the thread with that contact. How to prepare your answer to a price question before it comes up is in How to answer "how much do you charge?" in a DM.

Start with two industries from the table and one account. Starter, Growth and Pro come with an Instagram account and the AI Setter, and Outbound runs the campaigns without the setter if you prefer to answer replies in person. Compare the plans on the pricing page, and on a demo we will talk through the two industries you start with and the first message for each.