Solved: Reels Strategy Fails in Oslo (Definitive Guide)

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out!

I had a look at your question about your Instagram Reels strategy in Oslo. Tbh, it sounds like a classic case of focusing on the tactic before the strategy is sorted. The problem isn't that your Reels aren't working, it's that you dont yet know who they're for. You're trying to shout into a crowded room hoping someone listens, instead of walking up to the right person and whispering something they desperately need to hear.

We need to stop worrying about trends, hashtags, or the 'perfect' Reel format for a minute. None of that matters if the foundational work isn't done. We need to figure out exactly who your customer is, what keeps them up at night, and how you can become the only logical solution to their problem. Once we have that, creating content that gets traction becomes almost easy. Let's get into it.

We'll need to look at why 'more content' is the wrong answer...

There's a massive misconception, especially on platforms like Instagram, that the solution to not getting traction is to simply produce more content. Post more Reels, try more trending audios, use more hashtags. I'm here to tell you that's a surefire way to burn yourself out and waste a load of time and money. The truth is, the algorithm is not your friend if you don't give it clear instructions.

When you post content without a clear audience in mind, or run ads with a "Brand Awareness" objective, you're essentially telling Instagram: "Find me the cheapest eyeballs possible." And the algorithm is brilliant at doing exactly that. It will show your content to people who are endlessly scrolling, who have a low propensity to click, engage deeply, or ever buy anything. Their attention is cheap because no one else is competing for it. You're actively optimising for an audience of non-customers. It's like setting up a market stall selling premium steaks in the middle of a vegan convention. You might get some looks, but you won't make any sales.

Real traction, the kind that leads to a sustainable business, isn't about view counts. It's about getting the attention of the *right* people. A Reel with 1,000 views from your perfect potential customers is infinitely more valuable than a Reel with 100,000 views from random people across Norway who will never, ever buy from you. Brand awareness is a byproduct of making sales and delighting customers, not a prerequisite for it. So the first step is to forget about 'getting traction' and start focusing on 'finding the right person'.

I'd say you need to define your ICP by their nightmare, not their postcode...

This is where most businesses go completely wrong. They define their audience with vague, useless demographics. "Women in Oslo aged 25-40". "Small business owners in Norway". This tells you absolutely nothing of value. It leads to generic messaging, generic content, and zero results. It's the reason your current content isn't landing—it's speaking to everyone, and therefore to no one.

We need to define your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) not by who they are, but by the problem they have. You need to become an obsessive expert in their specific, urgent, expensive, career-threatening (if B2B) or life-diminishing (if B2C) nightmare. Your ICP isn't a person; it's a problem state.

Let's make this practical. Imagine you're a business consultant in Oslo. Your old ICP might be "Startups in Oslo with 5-20 employees." It's rubbish.

Your new ICP is: "The founder of a 2-year-old SaaS company in Oslo who just secured seed funding. She's terrified because her monthly burn rate is climbing, her developers are shipping features no one is using, and her investors are starting to ask hard questions about user growth. Her nightmare is running out of cash in 9 months and having to lay off the team she promised the world to."

See the difference? Now you know exactly what to say to her. You're not selling "business consulting." You're selling "a clear path to product-market fit before your runway disappears." The content ideas write themselves: "3 Signs Your Feature Roadmap is Killing Your Startup", "How to Cut Your Burn Rate Without Firing Anyone", "The One Metric Your Oslo VCs Actually Care About".

This process of drilling down from a broad audience to a specific 'nightmare' is the single most important bit of marketing work you can do. It's the foundation for everything else.

You probably should rebuild your offer around their pain...

Once you know your ICP's nightmare, the next step is to make sure your offer is the perfect, tailor-made solution. A generic offer is just as bad as a generic audience. The number one reason paid ad campaigns fail, and I've seen thousands, is a weak offer. It's not the ad creative or the targeting; it's that what's being sold doesn't solve an urgent problem for a specific group of people.

Let's go back to our personal trainer in Oslo. Their old offer was "Personal Training Sessions - 1000 NOK/hour". It's okay, but it's a commodity. They're competing with every other trainer at SATS and Barry's Bootcamp.

Their new offer, for their new ICP, is the "Executive Energy System". It's a 12-week program designed specifically for time-poor Oslo executives. It includes:

• Two 45-minute high-intensity sessions per week that can be done at home or in their office gym.
• A simple nutrition plan that doesn't require hours of meal prep, with recommendations for healthy takeaways near Aker Brygge.
• A monthly guided 'active recovery' hike in Nordmarka to build fitness for bigger adventures.

This isn't just "personal training" anymore. It's a complete solution to the tech manager's nightmare. It has a name. It has clear deliverables. It acknowledges their specific constraints (no time, high stress) and goals (enjoy the outdoors). It makes the decision to buy so much easier because it feels like it was designed *just for them*. This is how you move from being a commodity to being the only choice. You need to package your expertise into an irresistible solution for your ICP's specific pain. This might take some thinking, and some re-jigging of how you deliver your services, but it's absolutly worth the effort.

You'll need a message they can't ignore...

Now that you have your ICP and your irresistible offer, you can finally think about the content. The messaging. And it's not about what you do, it's about what you solve. You need to enter the conversation that's already happening in your customer's mind. Two of the most powerful copywriting frameworks for this are Problem-Agitate-Solve (P-A-S) and Before-After-Bridge (B-A-B).

Problem-Agitate-Solve (P-A-S): You state the problem, you poke the bruise to make them feel the pain more acutely, and then you present your solution.

For our Oslo personal trainer, a Reel script using P-A-S could be:

(Video shows a person looking exhausted at their desk, then looking wistfully at a photo of a mountain)

Problem: "Another Friday, and you're too drained to even think about that weekend hike you promised yourself."

Agitate: "The summer days are getting shorter, and you're worried another year will pass where you felt more connected to your laptop than to the stunning nature right outside your door."

Solve: "Our 'Executive Energy System' is designed for busy Oslo pros to build mountain-ready fitness in under 2 hours a week. DM me 'HIKE' to find out how."

Before-After-Bridge (B-A-B): You paint a picture of their current painful reality (Before), show them the aspirational future they desire (After), and position your offer as the vehicle to get them there (Bridge).

A Reel script using B-A-B:

(Video starts with someone struggling to catch their breath walking up a small hill, then cuts to them smiling on a scenic summit)

Before: "Your world is your office. Your heart pounds just walking up to the T-bane, and you tell friends you're 'too busy' for that trip to Trolltunga."

After: "Imagine standing on that summit, full of energy, feeling strong, and knowing you've earned that view. Your work stress melts away."

Bridge: "We help Oslo executives bridge that gap. Our program builds real-world strength and endurance, not just gym muscles. Ready to make the 'After' your reality?"

This type of messaging cuts through the noise. It doesn't talk about "functional fitness" or "metabolic conditioning". It talks about their life, their frustrations, and their dreams. This is how you create content that gets 'traction' with the people who will actually pay you.

And then, you'll need to think about turning attention into money...

So you've done the hard work. You have a laser-focused ICP, a brilliant offer, and messaging that resonates. Your organic Reels might even start doing better. But organic reach is fickle. To build a predictable, scalable business, you need to amplify that message with paid advertising. And this is where most people get scared. They see it as a cost, a gamble.

I want you to see it differently. Paid advertising is an investment to acquire a valuable asset: a customer. The real question isn't "how cheap can I get a click?" but "how much can I afford to pay to acquire a customer?" The answer to that question lies in a metric called Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

LTV is the total profit your business makes from any given customer over the entire time they are a paying client. Once you know this number, everything changes. It moves you from a scarcity mindset ("I need cheap leads!") to a growth mindset ("I can confidently spend X to acquire a customer because I know they are worth Y").

Let's calculate it. We need three numbers:

1. Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What you make per customer, per month.
2. Gross Margin %: Your profit margin on that revenue.
3. Monthly Churn Rate %: The percentage of customers you lose each month.

The formula is: LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate

For our Oslo personal trainer, let's say their "Executive Energy System" costs 6000 NOK per month (ARPA). Their gross margin is 85% (they have few direct costs). And on average, they lose 5% of their clients each month (Churn Rate).

LTV = (6000 NOK * 0.85) / 0.05 = 5100 / 0.05 = 102,000 NOK.

Each customer is worth 102,000 NOK (~£8,000) in profit over their lifetime. A healthy business can typically afford to spend 1/3 of its LTV to acquire a customer. That's a Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) of 34,000 NOK (~£2,600).

Suddenly, paying 200 NOK (~£15) for a click from a highly-targeted ad on Instagram doesn't seem so expensive, does it? It seems like an incredible bargain. This is the maths that unlocks aggressive, intelligent growth. Use the calculator below to figure out your own numbers. This will be a revelation.

This is the main advice I have for you:

We've covered a lot of ground, moving from high-level strategy to the specific numbers that drive a profitable business. It's a fundamental shift away from 'making Reels' and towards 'building a customer acquisition system'. To make it simple, I've broken down the entire process into a clear, actionable plan for you below. This is the roadmap you should follow.

As you can probably see, building a genuinely successful strategy is a lot more involved than just figuring out what to post on Instagram. It requires a deep dive into your business model, your customer psychology, and the hard numbers that dictate profitability. It’s about building a complete system where every part—the audience, the offer, the message, and the amplification—works together seamlessly.

Getting this right is challenging, and it requires a specific kind of expertise that most business owners simply don't have the time to develop. This is precisely where we help our clients. We go through this entire process with them, from uncovering their real ICP to building out profitable, scalable ad campaigns that deliver predictable results. I remember one campaign for a software company where we reduced their cost per acquisition from £100 down to £7, and another for an e-commerce store where we achieved a 1000% return on their ad spend.

If you're serious about growing your business in Oslo and want to implement a professional strategy that actually works, I’d be happy to chat. We offer a free, no-obligation strategy session where we can map out what this would look like specifically for you.

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh