What Is Your Marketing Hook To Land Your Ideal Customer?

A marketing hook is designed grabs the customers attention, but they must be authentic, not overhyped or unbelievable to land the customer.

You must start to build a customer base for your business and there are many strategies for achieving this. I have spoken a lot about creating your message to attract customers and how that stems from your story.

The content you create will be one of the most powerful marketing tools that you can use. Over time you will build up a vault of value for your audience over several different publishing platforms. Your blog or website will remain your home on the internet, but you will be leveraging social media in tandem.

Also, you will be using many of the paid marketing channels such as search engines, media buying platforms and again social media. All these strategies have one thing in common and that is content which sometimes is referred to as copy. Contained within your copy will be your marketing hook which is designed to grab people’s attention.

As a business owner you have under 8 seconds to grab someone’s attention with your hook or headline, and you have lots of competition. Every day, people are subjected to thousands of marketing messages on the media platforms they hang out. Television, radio, public transport, newspapers and social media. The list goes on and on!

They get followed around the internet with advertisements they clicked on earlier in the day or even days ago. The race for the sale is hotter now than ever before so you must stand out from the crowd.

What’s The Bait On Your Marketing Hook?

I am going to us the analogy of fishing to marketing. Both niches are very similar when it comes to being strategic. Some people may think all you need to do is throw a line in the water and the fish will become hooked. Likewise, some people may think you just need to throw an ad together and people will click.

People who fish know that they need to use a certain bait to hook the fish that they are after. Also, they know which part of the pond, river or ocean to cast their line. The online marketing world is the same when it comes to bait and location of your ideal customers.

Location and bait are the common denominators here and are equally as important. Targeting where your customers are is relatively easy once you know what your ideal customer avatar looks like. Whichever marketing platform you use, it will have features you can leverage to ensure your ad is seen by the right people. This is the part of the pond you start to fish.

Your bait will be the language that you use to grab the attention of your ideal customer and hook them in. You must create the action of that person taking a bite on your bait which is your message.

As I previously mentioned there are thousands of marketing hooks that you and I are exposed to every day. Think about when you scroll down your news feeds the sponsored ads that appear before you. How many of those ads look the same as each other? After time you become immune to them, which is referred to as banner blindness, and scroll past them without acknowledging them. So, you must be different.

The Three Elements To An Attention-Grabbing Hook 

Before we look at differentiating yourself to your competition let’s look at the core elements to a marketing hook. To start with you must identify the end result which your products and services deliver. This is what people are most interested in because their mindset is “what’s in it for them?”.

Secondly you must mention a timeframe that they can achieve the result within. Everyone in this fast-moving world we live in wants instant gratification or at least to know when their problem will be solved. So, you must be very specific but at the same time be realistic to not give false hope to people.

Finally, be clear on what the highest result that either you or one of your customers has achieved. Social proof is vital to establish both authenticity and authority. Basically, you must be able to back up what you say. Too many people talk a good game but don’t know how to play it.

This is the problem with many business owners who follow the herd so to speak. They see others making up these marketing hooks which may contain one, two or all the elements I have mentioned. Then they replicate them in their own marketing and the result is that they fall into the banner blindness crowd. Therefore, their efforts are wasted and the message fall on deaf ears.

So how can you craft your own marketing hook using the three core elements?

Build Your Hook Around You 

Again, I go back to your story and how to use it in all the copy and content that you create around your business. You can still make it attention grabbing, believable and then make a true connection with the people who see your ad.

So, when creating your hook concentrate on “I” rather than “you” but in a way that the reader knows they will get benefit. Also, your hook will resonate with them because it will hit an emotional point and thus create a trigger reaction.

As an example, I will focus on a very common problem which is people trying to lose weight. A person is greatly overweight and has developed severe health problems as a consequence. That person goes to the doctor and is told in no uncertain terms to lose weight or face having a heart attack.

He, or she, then goes on a healthy lifestyle regime and loses 5 stone in six months and gets the all clear. That person now has a story and a purpose to lose the weight which can be used within the marketing hook.

So, the hook could be “Discover How I Lost 5 Stone In 6 Months To Avoid Having A Heart Attack”. Do you think that if a person saw that advertisement would be hooked in if they were facing that life or death scenario?

If they saw a headline, simply saying “Lose Weight In 6 Months”, would it have the same effect? No because they know they need to lose weight; you are not telling them anything they don’t already know.

You must tell they why they need to lose, how much weight to lose and how long it is going to take. The process doesn’t stop there though and here is why.

Back Up What You Say In Your Hook 

What you must understand is that the advertisement is there to sell the click. The hook is there to create an itch and make someone become curios. Immediately the person reading your ad knows that you were in the position they find themselves in now. They know how much weight you lost and how long it took. Also, they know you are now healthy and did not have a heart attack.

They then click on your ad and are directed to a landing page. A landing page, or bridge page, is where you start to tell them your story. This is where the real marketing starts because they expect to find out the answer to your statement.

So, you start to tell your story of how you got into the dire situation you did, and what you did to overcome it. Your offer, whether it is free or a paid solution, is only then put forward after you have told your story. This is what connect with people who have clicked on your ad.

The solution could be your own program or someone else’s but the important thing to remember is to lead with value. Tell them your purpose and show them what you did you achieve what you stated in your hook. Then offer the solution so they can replicate your results.

I always emphasise putting purpose first, then think about the people you are trying to help, before you start profiteering.

Creating a marketing hook is covered within my Build You AU mastermind series. This mastermind helps you create the authenticity through your story, then establishes your authority from your results. Finally, I help you craft that information in attracting your ideal customer with your marketing message. To find out more about this process and how it can help you register here for a complimentary video series I have created.

Helping you build your authenticity, authority and audience.

Trish Davies

Build Your AU