87: Trial Reels - The Secret Instagram Growth Hack You’re Not Using Yet
If you’ve ever spent hours creating a reel you thought would crush it, only for it to flop, this episode is for you.
I’m pulling back the curtain on one of my favorite Instagram growth hacks: trial reels. This is the exact method I use (and teach my clients) to A/B test hooks and uncover what kind of messaging actually stops the scroll, grabs attention, and converts.
You’ll learn how to use trial reels to experiment with your videos safely, how to read the results, and why this strategy is a total game changer for growth, especially if you’re tired of guessing what works.
I’ll also share how one of my clients tested three versions of the same reel and tripled her views just by tweaking the first line. You’ll walk away knowing exactly how to implement this in your own business this week
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
[01:15] Why trial reels are one of the most powerful (and underused) features on Instagram
[02:11] What trial reels actually are and how to know if you have access to them
[03:01] How I’m using trial reels to test hooks and grow faster
[05:21] The story of how one client tripled her reach by changing three words
[07:44] How trial reels help you A/B test your messaging—just like email subject lines
[09:13] Real examples of viral hook testing you can try this week
[10:12] When to use trial reels (and when not to) depending on your goals
[12:07] The difference between attraction and promotional content
[13:29] How to use trial reels differently for nurturing vs. growth seasons
[14:54] Why perfectionists need trial reels the most
[16:20] Your weekly action step: how to test your first trial reel and measure results
Key Takeaways:
Trial reels let you test different hooks and instantly see what resonates with your audience.
You can use the same video and only change the text or call-out on screen to test messaging.
If your goal is growth, use trial reels to reach new followers and cold audiences.
If your focus is nurturing and conversions, prioritize connection over reach.
For perfectionists, trial reels are the perfect low-pressure way to post and experiment.
Success goes to the implementers—test, learn, and refine each week.
This Week’s Challenge
Post your first trial reel. If you’ve already been using them, A/B test your hooks this week. Try posting the same video with different on-screen text and see which version performs best.
When you get your results, DM me on Instagram @elizabethmarberry and tell me about your win. I’d love to celebrate with you.
Links Mentioned:
Join the Waitlist: Hot Reels – My 12-month Instagram content lab for small business owners and creatives ready to grow visibility and sales.
Free Resource: Monetize Your IG Guide. Learn seven simple, proven ways to finally make money on Instagram.
A Truth You Need to Hear:
The more you test, the faster you’ll grow.”
— Elizabeth Marberry
S3 Ep87 Transcript: Trial Reels - The Secret Instagram Growth Hack You’re Not Using Yet
00:00
In today's episode, I'm sharing one of my favorite Instagram growth hacks, trial reels. This is the exact method I use and teach my clients to A, B, test your hooks so you can discover the messaging that truly lands with your ideal followers, AKA your dreamboat clients or customers. No more guessing about what works on Instagram. This strategy will show you exactly what grabs attention and converts.
00:30
Are you ready? Let's do it!
00:35
Welcome to Strut It, a podcast about creating bold visibility on social media with zero apologies. I'm Elizabeth Marberry, your host and Instagram marketing coach. I help small business owners get seen on Instagram and monetize their offers so they can make more money doing their sole lead work. If you're tired of spinning your wheels on Instagram and you're seeking simple, proven Instagram marketing strategies that actually work, you're in the right place.
01:04
Let's dive in.
01:15
Welcome back to the show. I'm so thrilled that you have joined me for another episode of Strut It. Each week we demystify Instagram one simple step at a time because the reality is in today's day and age, we need to learn how to play the game of Instagram and social media marketing if we want to be seen and paid by our ideal clients and customers. And my goal with this show is to simplify your Instagram marketing strategy.
01:44
so it can drive real results to your bottom line without spending a dime on paid ads. And you picked a good episode to listen to because today I'm pulling back the curtain on one of the Instagram growth hacks that I have been using and my clients have been leveraging as well, and that is trial reels. Instagram officially launched trial reels in December of 2024 as a new feature to let creators test.
02:11
content first with non followers and it was very slow to roll out. So it's probably only been available to you within the past six months. And I'm curious, take a pause and just think, have you tested or tried out trial reels yet? Send me a direct message on Instagram. Let me know. My handle is Elizabeth Marberry, M-A-R-Be rry. Make sure you followed me over there so I can see your message come through and let me know have you been using this tool to test out content? Whether you're totally new to trial reels or you are a pro at using it, I am certain that this strategy that we're going to go over today is going to be a total game changer and gold for your marketing strategy moving forward.
03:01
Before we dive in, I want to make sure that you are aware that the wait list for Hot Reels, my 12 month Instagram content lab is officially open. So if you are wanting to work with me for a year on creating scroll stopping content that is gonna drive not just more followers and visibility, but actual leads and sales to your business, you definitely want to get on the Hot Reels wait list.
03:28
Right now, I only have four spots open in the program. So when I do open the doors again, spots are extremely limited. If you want to know when that's happening and get those early bird bonuses that I only offer to my wait list, you wanna make sure that your name and email is on my VIP list. Super easy to join. It'll take you less than 30 seconds. All you have to do is head on over to Instagram, make sure you're following me at Elizabeth Marberry and DM me the keyword
03:57
Hot, H-O-T, my robot assistant will send you over the link. You can learn all about the program and join the wait list there. I would love to support you as you move into designing your 2026 Instagram marketing strategy and help you avoid throwing spaghetti at the wall and spinning your wheels for months on end, doing the same thing and expecting different results. We don't do that in Hot Reels.
04:22
We learn and we implement as we go and every week you get better and better. And that's why one of my clients, Krista, just a couple of weeks ago, closed a $4,000 sale from one of the post prompts I shared in the group. She's been really consistent showing up, doing the work, learning as she went. And because of her implementation of that post prompt, she booked a discovery call and closed a $4,000 sale with her Dreamboat client, which paid for her whole investment in Hot Reels.
04:51
So Hot Reels is the place to be if you are done going it alone and you want to grow your Instagram in a really supportive, intimate community of other small business owners and creatives who are working towards the same goal. So don't forget, DM me the word hot on Instagram to jump on that wait list, or you can go to elizabethmarbury.com slash hot for full program details. Okay, let's get into trial reels. If you've ever wondered why some of your hooks
05:21
blow up and others totally flop or if you've ever had a post that you worked on for hours, you thought it was so good and then it completely tanked, this strategy is gonna be a game changer for you. Let me tell you where this really clicked for me in using trial reels. One of my clients owns an Etsy shop and she sells these beautiful personalized picture frames and most of her buyers are women.
05:48
And we were brainstorming one day about how to get her content seen by more people. And we decided to experiment with her hooks, specifically how she was calling out her audience. So we created three versions of the exact same reel. The video itself was of nature and a tree blowing in the wind. So it was just a very simple nature video. Then she had this incredible quote that she put on the screen. Same music, same trending audio that she found.
06:18
The only thing that we changed was the text on the screen at the very top where we called out who the video was for. In the first version of this video, there was no call out, okay? It was just the video with the beautiful trees and the inspiring quote. In the second video, we had the trees, the quote, but we added at the top, hey sis, dot, dot, dot. And in the third video,
06:47
we opened with a line of two women everywhere, dot, dot, dot, and had the quote. That was it. So we posted three versions of the exact same video with different call-outs at the top in terms of her target audience. That was it, very simple. Here's what happened. The one with no call-out got around 500 views. The one that said, hey sis, got a couple thousand views.
07:15
And the one that said to women everywhere got over 5,000 views. And it was wild because the content itself didn't change much at all, right? It was just her messaging in her call out, her hook at the top of the screen, just the way she opened it. And that's when I realized that trial reels are such a powerful way to A-B test your hooks. Because our hooks are literally the subject line.
07:44
of our videos. So if you are familiar with email marketing, you could have the most compelling email in the world, but if the subject line doesn't make someone want to open it, it doesn't matter, right? That's why in email marketing, we do something called A-B testing, where you can test out different subject lines for your email marketing campaigns to see which one has a higher open rate. Trial reels give us a way to do that in Instagram.
08:13
And you can literally do this with any type of content. So recently there's been a trend going around Instagram, I'm sure you've seen it, that says, look happier, thanks, I, and then you fill in the blank. So that hook is kind of a formula that you get to customize for your business or brand to showcase your personality or behind the scenes or whatever your strategy is with this particular hook. So some people made it really funny.
08:43
You look happier. Thanks, I had Chipotle for lunch for the last seven days in a row. Right? That would be really funny and relatable. And I actually recently did a reel where I leveraged this formula to share one of my revenue wins. So I said, you look happier. Thanks. My revenue is up 289 % year over year, which by the way is a true story. You'll have to go look at that post to kind of hear the backstory behind that.
09:13
But I use that as a storytelling moment talking about the growth and really the windy journey of entrepreneurship that got me to this point, because believe me, I'm no overnight success story. So you can take that same concept, right, of you look happier or any of these trends that you see, and you could take that and plug and play and use the exact same video, the same concept, and test three different ways to finish that sentence.
09:43
and see which one actually hits the hardest with your audience. That's the beauty of trial reels is it's not about perfection, it's about exploration. So let's talk about why this works and when to actually use it. A lot of people ask me, Elizabeth, should I always post my content as a trial reel first? And here's the thing, I actually have a different philosophy than a lot of marketers on this. It really depends on where you're at in your business and what your goals are. First, it's important to understand what a trial reel
10:12
actually does, trial reels are shown primarily to non-followers. uh Total strangers who don't know you, your business or your brand yet. And that's powerful because it means you can test what kind of hooks actually stop a cold audience in their tracks. Because if we can't hook them within the first couple of seconds, our content dies a quick death. So remember, your followers, already know you. People who are already following your brand, they know you.
10:42
They have some sort of relationship with your brand. They already liked you. They'll watch your videos because they're invested in you. But the people who've never met you before, they scroll fast and they scroll right by. So if your goal right now is to grow your audience and get more followers on Instagram, so you can get in front of new eyeballs and attract new dreamboat clients, trial wheels are your best friend because they help you figure out which messages land with people who don't yet know
11:11
you exist. I will tell you from my experience of working with and mentoring hundreds of business owners over the last several years, this skill set of creating a piece of content that is going to appeal to a total cold audience is a whole nother game, right? It is a skill. It takes practice. It takes a lot of trial and error. And the learning curve for it is
11:37
surprisingly difficult. And I just want to say that because sometimes I think people are like, why is this so hard for me? But it's a totally different way of marketing your business. And that's why people like me, Instagram marketing mentors and coaches exist is because just even this one piece of moving from promotional content, which so many businesses and brands do of, you know, they default into what information do my customers need? Like, where can they buy my product or
12:07
you know, oh, we're having a sample sale, come into our store or hey, I'm doing this masterclass, come and join it. That's all promotional content. And does it have a place in your strategy? Yes, of course it does. But a lot of people come to me and they're like, I'm not growing. And it's because you're focusing so much on that promotional content and then not enough on the attraction content that's going to relate to a cold audience. So that's why this is such a cool strategy. Now, let's talk about the opposite side of that.
12:37
If your current focus is more about nurturing your audience or driving conversions, like let's say you're kind of in a similar place to me where I feel that I actually have more than enough people in my audience. It's not that I need to constantly be chasing the growth right now for me. My focus is on really nurturing the people who already know me, right? Like you, my beloved listener. Like if you've been listening to the podcast,
13:03
there's a sense of us knowing each other, right? The know, like, and trust factor is already there. Just from you listening to this podcast, or people who are following me on Instagram, I show up really consistently there, and there's a sense of, like, nurturing and deepening my relationship and my connection with my audience. And so my focus is on nurturing that relationship and then driving conversions into my paid offers, right?
13:29
So for you, maybe you want to drive people into booking sales calls with you or joining your email list or buying from your shop. Then you may not need to use trial reels every time if you already feel like you have an audience filled with hot prospects, if that makes sense. Now, because those reels are really about deepening relationships and guiding people to take the next action, not necessarily about going viral or getting reach,
13:57
you can absolutely post your content straight to your grid and there's nothing wrong with that. For me personally, I'm at a place in my business where I'm less focused on reach and more focused on depth, like going really deep with my people who are already in my sphere. And while I'm not actively trying to go viral right now when it happens, because sometimes it does, you know I'm gonna celebrate it. I'm gonna say, oh my gosh, yes, I got a thousand followers or I got a hundred new followers from this post, like of course.
14:26
I'm gonna celebrate it, but my focus is on nurturing and converting and building trust and creating sales conversation. So it really just depends on your goals and where you're at with your business. Now, there's another reason I love trial reels and I wanted to make sure I included this in this episode, especially for my perfectionists out there, okay? Which I'm looking at myself in the mirror right now. I always say I'm a recovering people pleaser and perfectionist, okay? So if you're someone who tends to...
14:54
overthink your content and you're scared to post because you don't want to mess it up, trial reels is your friend. Because when you post a trial reel, guess what? No one you know is going to see it unless it performs really well. So it's like a little playground for your creativity. You can test, you can explore, you can take the pressure off yourself. And sometimes that's exactly what people need to get out of their heads and just start.
15:24
I always tell my people, stop consuming, start creating. In terms of your time spent on social media, you should be creating and posting 80 % of your time. 20 % can be on consumption, but be in creation mode. That is how you're gonna find success. So to sum this up, if you're in growth mode, definitely use trial reels. If you're trying to continue to find the messaging and the words on the screen that are gonna resonate with your ideal people, trial reels are a game changer.
15:54
You can A-B test your hooks on the screen. You can even A-B test video types, but keep it really simple so you can measure the data. And if you're a perfectionist, use them to get over yourself and just post something. So here's your action step this week. I want you to post your first trial reel if you've never done it before. And if you have been using trial reels, I want you to start playing with this concept of A-B testing your content.
16:20
And when you start to see that reach and that engagement go up and you have a winner, DM me on Instagram and tell me all about it. I actually shared this growth hack on another interview I was on and someone DM me like right after and they said, I just used this tip and this reel I posted is getting like 10 X the views I normally get. So thank you. So don't sit on this, go and do it. Success goes to the implementers. And once you've done it,
16:46
I want you to DM me on Instagram. can send me a voice memo. You know I love hearing your voice or just a text message on Instagram. DM me, make sure you're following me so I see it. Otherwise it goes into my request folder and I probably won't see it. So definitely go and have some fun with this this week. And if you loved today's episode, please share it with a business colleague or friend who is also trying to understand the mystery that is Instagram.
17:12
And if you love the show, please take 30 seconds to rate and review on Apple or Spotify. It really makes a big difference in the podcast algorithm and it helps me to get in front of more brilliant people like yourself. Last but not least, if you haven't already, make sure you DM me that keyword, hot H-O-T on Instagram so you can get your name and email on my VIP wait list so you can be the first to know when doors open. I am sending you so much love and encouragement this week.
17:41
Go out there, have some fun with your content, test it out with trial reels, and I cannot wait to strut it with you next week.
17:51
Thank you for listening to Strut It. If you're ready to start leveraging Instagram to grow your business, then you're gonna wanna grab my free Monetize Your IG Guide, where you'll learn seven simple and proven ways to finally make money on Instagram. You can grab your guide at elizabethmarberry.com slash freebies. That's elizabethmarberry.com.
18:17
If you got some incredible value from today's episode, be sure to leave a review and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And I cannot wait to start it with you again next week.
