My wife has already fed our dogs. Undeterred, the dog sat next to her bowl, looking innocent and hungry. I fell in love with the hook, line and sinker and gave her a second meal.
See what I did there?
I used a hook to grab your attention and encourage you to keep reading. If you’re reading this, it works.
Liz Willits defines a hook as the first thing that catches the viewer’s eye. It should inspire your audience to read or check out the rest of the content. Liz, lead copywriter and owner of Content Phenom, shared this advice in her article content marketing world Speak, Engage Your Audience: How to Capture Attention Amidst a Bunch of Content.
The importance of a good hook
Expert Joseph Sugarman says that strong appeal is the most important element in copywriting. “If you don’t grab your audience’s attention right away, you’re going to lose them,” he points out.
Liz says that without a good hook, the amazing content assets you create may never succeed. She explains that there are many variations of hooks, including:
- Website title or hero image
- The first line (or first few lines) of the copy
- Video thumbnail
- The first few seconds of dialogue in the video
- Instagram pictures
Think about the essay you wrote in school. Your hook works like a thesis statement. “Every line of text, every image, and every video surrounding your highlight or title should prove your thesis statement, your highlight,” says Liz.
Hooks should be attractive, attract attention, and be unique. They should be true too. “The bad and unethical hookups are all lies. They are manipulative; they grossly exaggerate. They don’t deliver on their promises. It was all sizzle, no steak, and it felt gross,” Liz said.
Liz says that while bad hooks may produce short-term gains, they can have long-term consequences, including:
- Ethical Challenge (This is Wrong)
- Legal Risk
- Reputation damaged
- Negative brand associations
- loss of trust
- Loss of engagement
MrBeast uses hooks effectively
Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, knows the importance of a good hook. He has one of the most watched channels on YouTube. Ten months ago, mr beast Has 186 million subscribers. By July 2024, this number has reached 289 million.
Liz says Mr. Beast’s appeal begins with his video title. She shared some examples:
- Lamborghini and the world’s largest paper shredder
- Every country on earth is fighting for $250,000!
- 1 to 100 years old fighting for $500,000
- Stranded at sea for 7 days
- I’m being hunted by the army
- I built the world’s largest Lego tower
I find these titles weird (in a good way). I’d love to know which country won $250,000, how Mr. Beast made his way from sea to land, and what the largest Lego tower looks like.
Liz says MrBeast’s thumbnails also have great appeal:
“They’re fun, colorful, and Stand out on YouTube. He puts a lot of effort into them because he knows[the thumbnail]is an important part of his hook or title,” Liz said.
Conversation starters are also important. When I see a new option on my favorite streaming service, I usually decide within the first two minutes whether to continue watching. Liz said the opening of “Mr. Beast” was intentional and designed to hook the audience.
Here are two examples:
- “There’s an assassin behind me, and if he ends up stabbing me with this rubber knife, he wins a hundred dollars.”
- “We are now stuck on a raft in the middle of the ocean. Our ship is here. We have been stuck for seven days now.
You don’t need to copy MrBeast, but Liz says your brand can take ordinary ideas and build them in an extraordinary, unique and engaging way. Let’s consider an example.
Designing new hooks for SaaS companies
Liz works with Motion, a software company whose products help users with time management and scheduling. It builds to-do lists to schedule meetings at the best times and blocks work time on your calendar. “The result is that you stay focused and know exactly what to do next. Don’t forget about deadlines; spend less time in meetings,” explains Liz.
Before starting content, Liz did customer research, Interview, user testing and market research. She learned why users love Motion, how they use it and what value it provides. This research guided her approach to hooks and helped her develop new, unique copywriting ideas.
The original homepage opens like this:
“This is not another productivity tool that lets you do more work. We help you work less by reducing distractions by 70%”
Support copy notes that Motion saves users two hours a day.
Liz’s research found that competing products used similar messaging. As a result, she reframes these commonplace ideas in a unique and attractive way. Here are her thoughts:
title: There are now 13 months in a year.
subtitle: Exercise can increase productivity by 137%. Plan your day smartly, schedule meetings and build the perfect to-do list with automation and artificial intelligence.
“It’s fun, it’s interesting, and obviously, a 13-month year doesn’t exist. So we’re creating some cognitive dissonance here to get people to keep reading and keep reading. That’s our main attraction, ” Liz said.
A great title creates a buzz, but Support copy It’s steak.
Liz makes sure that the remaining copy proves that the title statement is true. She also updated the user interface-facing graphics with a fun look. She uses bright colors to stand out from her competitors.
3 Hook Ideas You Can Use
Liz provides three tips and examples for creating hooks for your content. Their approach to fear, contrarian thinking, and numbers.
Fears (and addressing them)
quickly:
(the audience) is afraid of (a specific fear). But they shouldn’t be, because (why specific fears are nothing to worry about).
Tip example:
Content marketers are worried that ChatGPT will take their jobs. But they shouldn’t do that because content marketing is more than just writing content.
Use Cases:
Liz shows her LinkedIn post. It starts with:
ChatGPT won’t replace your content marketing team.
Here’s why:
The opening lines evoke readers’ fears of generative AI taking their jobs.
Counterintuitive or counterintuitive ideas
quickly:
Everything I know about life says otherwise, though (an almost unbelievable statement).
Tip example:
Everything I know about life says otherwise, but coffee is dead. No one drinks it.
Think about your industry. What could replace “coffee is dead” with a seemingly unbelievable but true fact about your industry?
digit
quickly:
Use specific numbers.
Tip example:
I have an 84 page Google document.
Use Cases:
Liz used the 84-page example in her LinkedIn post. This number makes the reader wonder why she has such a long file. They read on to find out why.
hint: Expand the decimal point in the indicator, for example, the uptime is 99.98274% and the product return on investment is 215.1223%.
Hook and reel in the catch
You’ve made it to the end of this article—the hook works. What prompted you to click and read this article? It may be:
Or maybe something else.
To use a fishing metaphor, the hook is critical to getting initial engagement (i.e. hooking up). The surrounding content draws one into it.
As Liz said, what great hooks would you create that take ordinary ideas and build on them in an extraordinary, unique and engaging way?
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
