10 Lessons We Learned After Using Social Media for Almost a Decade to Generate Suit Sales

After nearly ten years of using social media to build and grow suit businesses for ourselves and over 50 of our sartorial clients worldwide, we've learned some counterintuitive truths that often go against conventional marketing wisdom when it comes to social media. These lessons have generated millions in revenue for our clients and transformed how I personally think about content creation in the menswear industry, so I hope those can act as a shortcut for your sartorial business journey...

1. Simple Production Almost Always Outperforms Professional Content

Here's something that shocked me when we discovered it: a simple iPhone video with basic captions consistently outperforms expensive professional shoots with B-roll footage, elaborate lighting setups, professional cameras, extensive post-production, and color grading.

My team and I have tested this extensively (thousands of A/B tests and over 10mil in advertising budgets), and the data support a fascinating psychological principle: when content is overly polished, it immediately signals "promotional material."

Your audience's guard goes up because they sense you want something from them. But when content feels more raw and genuine, it seems authentic, and you get significantly more eyeballs on your content, therefore leading to more appointments and walk-in visitors.

The lesson here is: don't get paralyzed by perfectionism. Stop obsessing over being flawless on camera. Something published will always generate more results than the "perfect" content you never release.

Your audience connects with authenticity, not production value. While our industry is very keen on seeming aspirational, glamorous, and luxurious, that should be left for the moment when a certain revenue and recognition threshold is achieved.

Also, the cost per production drops significantly, leaving you with a higher profit margin, which is always nice.

2. Longer Videos Build Stronger Bonds (Contrary to Popular Belief)

Despite every marketing guru and platform guidelines preaching 15-30 second content for ads, we've discovered that longer videos are often more effective. The principle is simple: the more time you spend with your audience, the stronger the bond you build, and therefore the higher your likelihood of earning their business.

We've had incredible success with videos up to 15 minutes long. While I'm not suggesting you start there in today's landscape since placement requirements have changed, don't be afraid of 3-minute videos when you have something valuable to say.

A 3-minute video often outperforms a 1-minute video because it allows you to fully develop your point instead of cramming everything into an impossibly short timeframe.

If you're afraid of losing your message by trying to squeeze it into bite-sized content, embrace the full 3-minute format. Your audience will stay engaged if you're providing genuine value.

3. More Content Equals More Customers

This might be the most obvious yet overlooked principle: posting frequency directly correlates with revenue across every client and every suit pricing segment we've worked with. Consistent posting, especially intense bursts with high content volume, consistently correlates with massive revenue increases.

Posting something is better than posting nothing, but posting a lot is exponentially better. The compound effect of regular content creation creates momentum that single posts simply cannot achieve. Think of it as a snowball effect.

4. Genuinely Helpful Content Always Wins

One of the most frequent messages I get from tailors in LinkedIn DM's is about the type of content that should be posted.

The most effective content style is just genuinely helpful content. When you create content that educates your audience about problems you can solve, providing solutions in a simple, accessible manner, it will always outperform product-focused promotional content.

The goodwill, trust, and authority you gain from helpful content far exceed any benefit from content that primarily showcases your products. Your audience doesn't want to be sold to, they want to be helped. When you lead with value, sales naturally follow after.

5. Content Delivers Long-Term ROI (The Compound Effect)

Content you create today can still generate suit sales years later. This long-term return on investment is one of the most powerful aspects of content marketing that most businesses completely overlook.

For example, we filmed a series for one of our off-the-rack stores several years ago, documenting prom students' entire suit-picking journey.

That video still generates customers today because we included an offer at the end: show a screenshot from the video and receive a free accessory.

We still get families visiting the store with those screenshots because the content continues living on through Google search results, recommendations, and saved posts people return to later.

This shifts how you should think about content creation. It's not just an activity to generate immediate customers- it's an investment strategy. The more valuable content you create, the more it compounds over time, similar to how interest stacks up and snowballs in financial investing.

6. Content Builds Brand, and Brand Builds Fortune

Content doesn't create fortune directly. It builds your brand, and your brand creates the fortune. In the suit industry, where purchases are important and meaningful, you need a personal brand, not just a business brand, since it generates more trust.

Look at the most successful business leaders: Richard Branson with Virgin Airlines, Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg. Most successful businesses grew on the back of brand owners who became the face of their companies.

Don't be camera-shy. If you're running an honest business delivering quality products, you have nothing to fear. The benefits extend far beyond direct sales: partnerships, opportunities, manufacturer relationships, and countless other advantages that yield high ROI even when they can't be directly attributed to specific content pieces.

7. It's About Your Audience, Not You or Your Product

Every piece of content focused on "me, me, me", look how awesome we are, look how great our products are" never achieved the traction of content that spoke directly to customers about their problems and solutions.

Stop bragging about yourself. Stop talking about what you think customers want to hear and focus on what your audience actually wants, how they can get it, and how their life will improve after they get it.

This approach will not only generate more income but also remove the anxiety that comes with caring too much about your personal appearance, performance, and ego-driven showing off.

Talk to your audience, not at them.

8. Branding Is Everything... Except When It's Not

A strong personal brand and engaged audience can accomplish amazing things for your sartorial business, but it cannot fix fundamental problems: bad products, poor service, terrible logistics, lack of character, or shady business practices.

While branding can work wonders, it's not a magic pill for business prolbems or a primary solution for customer acquisition issues. The foundation: your product, service, reputation, and integrity, must be solid first. If your average review score is low, your deliveries are always late, and suits need one too many fittings, branding will only act as a magnifying glass for those issues.

9. Building Relationships Through Social Media Takes Time

Establishing a genuine relationship with your audience through social media takes time. You cannot expect someone to become a client after just a few videos. It's like asking someone on a first date and immediately proposing marriage, expecting them to have children together and move to another country. You wouldn't expect that to happen in real life, so why expect it with your social media content?

Just as it takes multiple dates, meetings, and time together to establish a meaningful relationship with your spouse, it takes consistent interaction to build trust with your audience. Treat your social media the same way you treat your personal relationships—with time, focus, and dedication.

You need to be consistent in showing up and being seen and heard by them. Do not view social media content as a get-rich-quick solution. Sometimes it can deliver fast results, but don't rely on it. Instead, approach it as a long-term, safe, and predictable customer acquisition channel that you can own in this day and age.

10. Put Fuel on the Fire with Paid Advertising

Eventually, everyone realizes that sometimes publishing organic content alone doesn't get you where you want to be fast enough, even when your message and presentation are perfect.

What we've discovered is that you can always amplify your message and get it heard by more people using paid advertising. Instead of chasing algorithms or trying to hack the system (which is a losing game) it's better to rely on a consistent and predictable amount of attention that you can generate through paid promotion.

Paid advertising gives you the freedom to tailor your message toward specific audiences: lawyers, executives, grooms, couples planning weddings, prom attendees—anyone you have in mind can be reached with precision targeting.

Today, the perfect combination is creating substantial video content featuring your face, then promoting it through paid advertising on social media platforms. This is the best, quickest, and easiest way to generate more appointments predictably while building a strong, well-known brand.

Shameless promotional plug

These are just a few of the key lessons we've learned over nearly a decade of using social media to drive suit sales, may it be affordable off the rack or highest end bespoke.

If you want to get the best results from using social media to generate walk-in visitors, appointments, and suit sales, and you're ready to take your business to the next level, I'd love to help you implement these strategies. Schedule a free discovery session with us to see how we can help transform your social media presence into a predictable revenue generator here:

https://calendly.com/sartorialdigital/discovery-call

To your success,

Andris