Hey there!

This week I want to talk about the three most important parts of a killer hook:

• The short and snappy opener

• Be clear instead of clever

• Benefits for the reader

The reason is that most people BLATANTLY steal the hooks that are already working and later whine about them not working. But once you understand the psychology behind it, hook writing becomes a walk in the park.

Let’s dive in!

Open with a short sentence

The very first step to grabbing your reader’s attention is to open with a short sentence.

Online, people have an attention span of a goldfish.

If it doesn’t catch your attention, they’re onto the next tweet, thread or video.

Start with a short, snappy and compelling sentence (bonus points for being polarizing)

Take a look at the above hook.

It checks all the right boxes.

✅ Short opener (hooks you in instantly)

✅ Compelling {When you add the word GUARANTEE, people are bound to read the whole thing}

✅ Polarizing {Most people SUCK. That ought to rub some people in the wrong way}

Exercise:

How would you rewrite the above hook for your niche?

How can you make it better?

Reply with your version of the hook.

Be clear, not Clever.

The next step to capturing your reader’s attention is to be clear and specific.

Trying to be clever makes you sound like a douchebag who thinks highly of himself. It doesn’t make any sense for the reader if they don’t have the right context.

Take a look at the above example.

Nobody would read the above thread if he simply wrote: “How to build a writing habit”

Instead, he tries to be as specific as he can.

He joins the conversations & questions the reader already has in their minds.

What if I’ve tried everything and failed?

How long is this going to be?

Exercise:

If you wanted to go a bit more specific, how would you write the above hook?

Reply with your version of the hook.

Benefits for the reader

And finally, the last step to write a killer hook is to answer ‘What’s in it for the reader?’.

If the reader doesn’t see anything that would help them in some way, they won’t bother reading it.

Most people write because they feel like writing about it.

That’s not a bad thing per se. But if you’re writing about it, you need to solve a problem for the reader.

One thing that helps with this is writing down the benefits you’re going to be focusing on for the reader.

Before you start writing a thread (or anything for that matter), answer these 2 questions first:

1. What’s in it for the reader?

2. What are the 3 big benefits for the reader?

Get hyper-specific with the answers.

Take the above hook for example:

1. What’s in it for the reader? Saves them a ton of money ( $60,000 to be precise)

2. 3 benefits for the reader: Spend less than $250No wasting time looking for the best books to read, just read these 8Save time (by not wasting time on pursuing an MBA)

Exercise:

Take the hooks you wrote for the above 2 examples. What benefits does your reader have?

Reply with your version of the hook.

That’s it!

As always, thanks for reading.

Hit reply and let me know what you found most helpful this week—I’d love to hear from you!

See you next week.