March 31, 2026
The online world is changing at almost light speed, and as a business owner you have to keep up. That doesn’t mean hustling 24/7. It means staying engaged with your audience. In this episode, Greta and Judy share a quick, easy trick all of our clients use to stay top of mind and put their energy into what’s going to work: trial reels.
This is Bringing Simplicity Unfiltered with Greta (founder) and Judy (CEO), where they talk through what’s working and what’s not as they scale companies to seven figures and beyond. And they’re honest: they learned this one almost too late.
Judy says part of this channel is being honest about what’s working and what we’re failing at. We learned this almost too late, and once we saw how easy it was, we were honestly mad at ourselves for being so late.
Judy likes to move fast, but she’s very hesitant to implement new things. She was hesitant about AI, and we’re probably one of the later agencies to adopt a lot of tools. Greta appreciates that, because so much of it is shiny object syndrome. Think classic styles versus the new hot fashion. You want to be discerning, and you also don’t want to be left behind.
Marketers get told they should be doing Claude, AI videos, and everything else, but there are only so many hours in a day. Clients get shiny object syndrome too. We encourage them to watch other people’s webinars and look at other industries like e-commerce and finance. Then they come back wanting to run a new offer. Our question is: this is working, could the new thing hurt what’s already working? Trial reels let you test that without hurting your ads or your pixel, while still scratching that itch for quick feedback.
Greta has said it before and will say it again: ads don’t fix problems. They amplify what you’re already doing.
When a post reaches past your followers to non-followers (check your insights), it usually does well as an ad too, which makes sense because ads go to non-followers. We never want to put ad dollars behind something without at least some proof. Proof can mean a lot of things, and some of it is Greta’s gut instinct. Her human design says she’s driven by her gut, even though she loves data.
Everyone talks about trial reels, and everyone says they don’t have time to create five extra reels every time they post. We had that conversation too. We thought we should make three versions of every client reel, and suddenly that’s six hours of filming and 12 hours of editing without knowing if any would hit.
So Greta asked: how do we make this simple? She thought about our starter test, where we only test the hook to see what stops the scroll. She said, let’s use trial reels as an organic version of a starter test.
1. When you’re thinking about something new (a lead magnet, a workshop, a low-ticket offer), write hooks that would sell it. Remember, you’re never selling the thing. You’re selling the emotional response to the thing.
2. Come up with as many hooks as you can, anywhere from 5 to 30.
3. Put each hook as text over B-roll. Don’t overthink it. The words should stop the scroll, not the B-roll.
4. Post about five trial reels a day, every day. You don’t even need to write a caption.
5. Track views. If one gets more views, Meta likes it and is pushing it to more people. That’s a winning hook.
Unfiltered moment: Greta thought you had to vary the B-roll, or Instagram would treat it as the same reel. Judy pointed out that in one client account, the team uses the same B-roll in groups of three, about a seven-second clip with the same caption and the same trending audio, and only changes the hook. That minimizes every variable except the hook. Greta assumes there’s enough variety between groupings. Test it in your own account, because Meta may like it for a while and then change its mind. As Greta says, sometimes you tell the team your ideas, they run with it, and you can’t control every piece.
If you only get 100 views on trial reels, that’s okay. Set a baseline:
The goal is a bank of winning hooks you can build real posts around to hype up the new thing.
Once you have a winning hook, turn it into a post and create a quick ManyChat that delivers the resource (from an existing program, or a simple lead magnet). No landing page, no email sequences, none of that until it’s proven that people want it.
Everyone says they have a million things to do and no time for this. What if you just didn’t do the rest until you had the data? Judy agrees: think about what you can eliminate.
When we run ads, we have to introduce new things fairly often. People see the same lead magnet ads enough and want something new, so we look to add a new lead magnet about every 45 days. When you get the itch to do something new, start the organic research now. Run trial reels and see which mini magnets hit.
For one account, we tested about five mini magnets. Everyone had a guess about the winner. Then one was so clearly the winner we’d have been dumb not to run ads behind it. Typical comments on a post might be 50. That one got 600. It all started with trial reels.
Coaches expect that once ads run, they won’t have to learn their audience anymore. Everyone online says to launch a low-ticket offer and make six figures a month on autopilot. What they don’t tell you is that the successful people who last are always studying their audience. Those “I’m shutting down my coaching program” reels? Just kidding. They’re doing exactly this, not letting their account fatigue. For coaches who’ve been doing this for years, what worked two months ago isn’t working now.
Greta adds that trust is very low in the industry. You can’t just put something up and have people immediately buy, at least not at the scale it used to happen. People need community, need to see you solve their specific problem, and need to feel you understand them. Otherwise they’d just talk to ChatGPT. You have to engage your audience to know their pain points and what only you can solve.
Judy points out that as a coach, you’re often far removed from the problem now. Testing hooks with trial reels taps you back into how your audience feels, and shows what they can get from you that they can’t get from ChatGPT or from the other programs advertising to them.
You don’t want to only ask ChatGPT for “20 hooks for my audience,” and better ways to find hooks are a topic for another episode. But if you learned anything here, just start. Even if you go to ChatGPT right now, come up with 20 hooks, and post five today and five tomorrow, start collecting data and see which ones hit.
We use trial reels as an organic starter test: post different hooks as text over B-roll to see which ones stop the scroll before building content or ads around them.
We typically post about five per day, every day, using 5 to 30 hooks.
Set a baseline from the median or average views of your first batches. Anything that beats it is a winner. Pull the data every seven days.
No. Turn a winning hook into a post and deliver the resource with a quick ManyChat. Build the landing page and emails only once it’s proven.
If you want a simple system for testing hooks and turning them into ads, see our services or reach out to us.
Want more? Watch every episode of Bringing Simplicity Unfiltered on our YouTube channel.
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Bringing Simplicity is a full-service marketing and Meta Ads agency helping established online businesses scale proven offers through paid advertising, stronger systems, and smarter strategy.
