what is a marketing hook?

What Is a Hook in Marketing (And Why You Need One)

by with No Comment Uncategorized

One thing I love and at the same time hate about marketing and copywriting is how it’s a mix of an art and a science.

Not full art. Not full science. It just HAD to be a bit of both…

And why is that a problem? Because there are some things where you can’t possibly give a concrete definition that everyone agrees with.

But also you have to do your best to give a concrete definition so you can replicate it and get consistently good response in your marketing.

So, I’m sure the next jackass will give you a half-assed definition that disagrees with mine.

But in this post I’m going to give you the most concrete and actually useful definition of what a marketing hook is so you can keep reusing what you learn today for many years in your career, whether you’re a copywriter or someone who wants to apply copywriting in their business.

What is A Hook in Persuasive Communication

In its simplest term, a hook is what GRABS your audience’s attention by the throat and DEMANDS that they listen to whatever you have to say.

It’s the first few sentences that take someone from their default state to a state of focus towards your message.

Think of it like a fish hook, where you have to hook the fish so you can pull it out of the water and into your boat.

Or think of it like a hook punch in boxing, where it hits you straight to the face and demands that you pay attention to what is going on.

Ooor for a non–literal-hook example, you can think about it like someone is watching a cringey video you recorded when you were a teenager, they somehow found it and have pressed play, and you have to get their attention so they stop watching.

That being said, what someone actually means when they say ‘hook’ is different depending on what the medium and context is, so we’re gonna see different examples of what a hook is and what it looks like in different media.

What A Marketing Hook Is NOT

A lot of people confuse Hooks with Big Ideas. They are both vital for your campaign’s success and they can sometimes be identical. 

But they are not the same.

A Big Idea is the main concept that gives life and desire to what you are selling. The core of what makes it enticing.

In simpler words, the big idea is the main reason the product is worth your money/time/attention.

And sometimes, just phrasing your Big Idea out loud is enough to give you a great hook.

But that’s not always the case — and in fact, some of the most successful ads ever had a hook that was VASTLY different from the big idea.

Why You Need A Marketing Hook

This is important: No one will ever care about more than YOU about what you do or what you want to say.

Because you care so much, you don’t need a hook to pay attention to it.

But for the rest?

You need to compensate and do something to generate similar levels of desire, attention and focus. 

Tying it back to marketing, no one will buy your thing if they don’t know what they’re buying. And you have to grab their attention so you can tell them about this amazing thing you have or the amazing opportunity that’s in front of them.

Some things you need to keep in mind: Bored people don’t buy stuff. 

Nobody reads advertising. People read what interests them; and sometimes it’s an ad.  

Now let me raise your defenses for a bit. This is the same thing I’m doing right now.

I grabbed your interest with something that you care about – learning what a marketing hook is.

Then, I will offer you something else for free that you might find interesting, like these 100+ Proven Hooks That Worked.

And then, I’ll sell you something else that will help you sell stuff better.

I don’t know if YOU will buy. But I know a lot do and a lot more will.

And it all started with a hook.

This is the general definition of a hook. But in each medium, this materializes in a different way, so in the following sections, I’m going to show you what a hook actually is in each of these media.

What is A Hook in Videos

When you hear someone talk about hooks in videos — doesn’t matter if it’s in a YouTube video or an Instagram Reel or a Meta ad — they mean the first 3 seconds of your video.

Why it matters here: Obviously, people won’t get the whole information if they don’t watch the whole video. For ads and shorts and reels, it’s especially important to have a strong hook because it’s SOOO easy to tell them to piss off (you literally just have to flick your thumb a bit).

For longer videos like VSLs or YouTube videos, if people don’t stay and keep watching (which is a result of your hook), they obviously won’t be able to buy. You need them to stay long enough to show the value of what you have and the proof you have to show for it.

Example: There’s a single reason why most people stay broke and most businesses stay small

This is the first 3 seconds of the newest (at the time of this writing) Alex Hormozi video.

What makes it work: Now, whether you like Hormozi or not, I don’t give a fuck. Go throw darts at a poster with his face on, for all I care about. 

But this is a good hook.

If you’re someone who’s struggling to make more money in their business and are frustrated with it, this hook will most likely speak to you.

Common mistake: People tend to focus so much on what they have and what they want to sell that forget to mention who this is for.

What is A Hook in Emails

When it comes to email, there are 2 parts that make the hook.

One of them is the subject line, as you correctly guessed.

But that’s not all.

Because once your reader clicks your email, before they start reading, they get Men-in-Black’d and suddenly they don’t remember anything.

So, you have to hook them again.

Why it matters here: Actually, the better your relationship with your list, the less it matters. Because people learn to open your emails because it’s you who’s sending them. 

But if your list is newer or you get people through a welcome flow first, or you work for a bizop-type list that constantly burns through new leads, that list will never have a good relationship with the owner so you have to put more effort into subject lines and opening lines.

You can learn more about how to write unignorable subject lines in this post.

Example: SL: Why “More Leads” Might Be Killing Your Business

Opening line: Most entrepreneurs are addicted to “more.” More ads. More leads. More social media gimmicks.

What makes it work: This speaks directly to entrepreneurs with this exact mindset described in the subject and opening lines (plus the people who already agree with this message and want to stroke their ego)

I mean, imagine if you’re worrying about getting new leads, you have been increasing the flow for a while but your business still struggles.

The subject line will speak right to you.

Common mistake: People forget that we get 10s, 100s, some even 1000s of emails in a day. This means that the written content of the subject line is actually not enough to hook your reader.

If you want to learn how to write unignorable subject lines, check my blog post where I reveal my A.B.C.D.E. subject line framework.

What is A Hook in Sales Pages

In sales pages, the MAIN part of the hook is the headline. But you also have the eyebrow and the subheadline that also count as part of the hook.

(and in fact some consider it part of the headline itself)

Why it matters here: The whole role of a sales page is to sell you something (duh). And a sales page tends to be 2-4k words. In rare exceptions, it can also be 1,000 words or 5,000+ but you shouldn’t worry about those now.

Point is, it’s a lot of words and you need your reader to read all of them. So you need to give them a STRONG incentive to stay on your page instead of opening TikTok or Instagram or YouTube. 

Example: Headline: How direct response advertising can increase your sales and profits.

Subhead: Even if your company has never used direct response. Read what Ogilvy & Mather has learned from half a billion coupons

What makes it work: It makes a clear promise in an unclear way (so you have to read to find out more).

And then it re-inforces the writer’s authority on the topic by mentioning half a billion coupons — where coupons are the things people used to send over mail to declare interest as a response to an ad, so you could pretty much think of it as half a billion sales.

Common mistake: People tend to be way too direct or way too hypey when it’s not always the right option. You need to think about your specific audience and your specific niche to choose the right hook.

What is A Hook in Books/eBooks

Books have hooks too.

And I’m not just talking about business books and shit.

Fiction books have hooks too.

They’re called blurbs!

Some would think it’s the first page, right? 

But that’s actually FAR from the case.

Why it matters here: First of all, to read the book, you have to BUY the book. And after you’ve bought, doesn’t matter how much (or little) you’ve read, you’ve still paid for the book. 

And the blurb’s job is to hook you.

(Of course now you can download the first few pages or first chapter of a book for free from places like Amazon, but it’s still the first CHAPTER that hooks you and even then, some books just keep building because the big idea presented in the blurb is interesting enough and needs time for the payoff)

Example: One Life to One Dawn.

In a land ruled by a murderous boy-king, each dawn brings heartache to a new family. Khalid, the eighteen-year-old Caliph of Khorasan, is a monster. Each night he takes a new bride only to have a silk cord wrapped around her throat come morning. When sixteen-year-old Shahrzad’s dearest friend falls victim to Khalid, Shahrzad vows vengeance and volunteers to be his next bride. Shahrzad is determined not only to stay alive, but to end the caliph’s reign of terror once and for all.

Night after night, Shahrzad beguiles Khalid, weaving stories that enchant, ensuring her survival, though she knows each dawn could be her last. But something she never expected begins to happen: Khalid is nothing like what she’d imagined him to be. This monster is a boy with a tormented heart. Incredibly, Shahrzad finds herself falling in love. How is this possible? It’s an unforgivable betrayal. Still, Shahrzad has come to understand all is not as it seems in this palace of marble and stone. She resolves to uncover whatever secrets lurk and, despite her love, be ready to take Khalid’s life as retribution for the many lives he’s stolen. Can their love survive this world of stories and secrets?

What makes it work: The blurb immediately creates tension. It’s talking about a king who’s killing people. And then it amplifies it even further with the twist.

This together with the intrigue of “what could make someone fall in love with such a seemingly evil person?” makes you curious and interested.

(This is blurb is from The Wrath and the Dawn which I haven’t personally read, so I don’t know what the payoff is)

Common mistake: Many authors start their blurb from the… start. And in a story with a transformation, the start is the most boring part (obviously). You need to think more about the juicy details, the tension, or what makes this story different than all the other ones.

How To Write A Marketing Hook

Writing a marketing hook deserves its own article at the very least, that’s why I wrote one you can find here, but the gist of it is this:

No matter what your medium is, you want to 

  • Grab attention
  • Generate desire 
  • Appeal to your reader’s curiosity 
  • Include an element of surprise

Don’t force every element in. Better to have a slightly ‘worse’ hook than make it weird and clunky.

Thanks for reading, you now know what a hook and what hookers write.

Before you go, you can find here for free the 7 deadly story starters that lead to a sinful amount of stories.

how to write story-based emails that make sales

How To Write Story-Based Email That Make Sales

by with No Comment Uncategorized

I remember the first time I got exposed to story-based emails.

I had just recently entered the copywriting world and transitioned away from being an indie author. 

Having just written 3 novels for myself and my clients (with mine having now over 85,000 chapter reads) I was so glad to see that these story emails were getting not just a lot but TONS of sales.

I was so happy to see story emails working because this was my playing field and I was out, standing in it like a scarecrow.

And to be honest, writing problem-agitate copy as a beginner looks kinda… 😬

Since then, I have written tons of story-based emails for myself and especially for clients, that were responsible for breaking sales records, creating cult-like fanbases and all the good stuff an online business cares about.

And in this post, I want to share with you everything you need to know to get started with writing story-based emails that sell.

Why Story-Based Emails Sell

At first, writing story-based emails felt like running away from writing proper copy – the kind that would get the most amount of sales.

Only later I realized how lucky I was.

Turns out, stories are one of the most powerful persuasion tools in your arsenal.

People Are Wired For Storytelling

We’ve been communicating through storytelling for thousands and thousands of years, ever since the beginning of humankind.

We used to tell stories about the dangers and prey that we found outside, about the things we did, about everything.

You can even see it in old cave drawing, where people drew stories on the walls.

We needed to pay attention to those stories to learn more about the world and survive long enough to invent cocomelon.

So, we learned to pay attention to stories.

Stories bypass our defenses

Stories allow us to persuade (and get persuaded) more easily since we’re getting the sales message more indirectly and we see the potential more vividly through the story.

If I tell you that I’ll teach you how to ride the bike with no hands in 3 days, you’ll immediately sniff out that I’m trying to sell you something and will raise your defenses to anything I say, even it’s genuinely something that you’d actually want, would actually help you and would be a good deal for you.

But if I tell you about my cousin Ricky who didn’t know how to ride a bike and then 3 days later I went out and saw him speeding by, riding with no hands, you might wonder how Ricky did that, and I’ll point you to that same product with that same price, except now you’re much more open to buying.

Stories Entertain

You cannot sell to a bored audience.

You need to grab people’s attention and keep it long enough to get your sales argument through.

And in today’s email world, you need to do it again tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after.

This way you keep exposing your audience to your marketing message and they tune in every single day. 

Eventually, if they’re a good fit, they’ll buy. If they’re not, they’ll leave.

The One Thing Every Story Email Must Do

Stories are awesome and entertaining.

But if that’s the only thing your story does, then you’re writing a short story or a novelette, not sales material.

And that’s a BIG mistake I see a lot of beginner copywriters and business owners that try to write copy do.

They write a story for the sake of it.

They just tell stories that are fun. And then they wonder why they didn’t make any money.

Imagine going to the bank and saying:

“Yes, hello, I made 500 people laugh today, can I withdraw $500?”

Guess what their answer will be.

You don’t get paid to entertain.

You get paid to sell.

Not even comedians get paid to make people laugh.

They get paid to bring people that will buy beers, that will eat burgers, that will watch ads.

If comedians don’t get paid to make people laugh, what makes you think you can get paid for telling fun stories?

Your story needs to build KLT (Know-Like-Trust), not to be confused with BLT (Bacon-Lettuce-Tomate, methinks).

Your story needs to show the amazing thing that people will get if they buy from you OR increase their trust in you OR make people like you more.

If it doesn’t do any of those things, then it’s entertainment, not persuasion, and you have no reason sharing it with this audience.

The Two Approaches to Writing Story Emails

When it comes to writing a story-based email, there are two main approaches you can follow.

And, let me tell you, things are heating up in the ‘story email’ side of internet marketing.

Because most of the people I see talking about their approach, they have STRONG feelings about why their approach is the one you should go for and why the other approach is role playing a vacuum cleaner.

Approach 1: Start From The Story You Want To Tell

Some people prefer to search for good stories to tell first. 

Their goal is to grab the audience’s attention, get them to read and tell a good story.

Then, once the story is told, they put their copywriter hat on and search for ways to tie in the story to a marketing lesson or a product they want to sell.

With the best case scenario usually being to find a specific part of the course to tie your story into and sell your course through that specific angle.

That being said, starting with the story first means that you might tell a story that is not easy to tie to a lesson or a product of yours. Or you might want to promote a specific product or specific angle because you’re in a promo, but the story fits better a different product/angle.

It’s also harder to find the exact insight or idea or parallelism that ties your story to your offer.

Which means that your transition will also probably be odd if you don’t find the right connection.

But if you’re able to nail it, you have so much more freedom and creativity available to you, which makes things more interesting both for you and for your reader.

So, here’s the gist for the story-first approach:

Pros: More freedom, more creativity, you can talk about practically anything (as long as you can tie it in), more interesting for your readers (since you have more topics you can talk about)

Cons: It’s hard to execute, it’s even harder to execute right, you need to be extra careful in your transitions, you’ll sound cringe if you don’t nail the tie-in idea, you risk alienating your audience if you go too off-topic

It’s overall a great way to write story-based emails but it requires skill and experience, so I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re now writing your first few story emails.

Approach 2: Start From The Product You Want To Sell

This is a much more straightforward approach to writing a story email.

Instead of choosing a story first, you find what you want to promote (whether that is a product, a webinar, or even an idea) and then search for stories and events that could support your argument.

Now because you already know where you want to end up and how you want to end there, your transitions will naturally be smoother and your tie-ins will be much better because you’re actively hunting for stories that make this exact part easy.

Some fans of this approach go as far as to say that stories that don’t support your selling idea are not worth telling in your emails.

Which is something that I don’t necessarily agree with, but it definitely makes selling a LOT easier.

On the other hand, this means that your subject matter is more restricted. 

Not necessarily because there are not diverse enough stories that support your idea, but because you have to be more focused on the specific idea and angle you chose.

And when you’re starting out, you’ll inevitably ignore some stories that could actually be good matches for your product but in a not-so-obvious way.

This sorts itself out with practice.

So, here’s the gist for the product-first approach:

Pros: Simple to execute, easy to have a smooth transition, clear tie-in between story and product, you know exactly what to look for in a story

Cons: Can feel less creative/pigeonhole-y at first

If you want to dive deeper into how to write story-based emails… 

(+ see a brilliant explanation and demonstration of how to write this exact kind of emails with the product-first approach) 

…then you should definitely check Story-Seller Emails from Maliha @ The Side Blogger.

I recently went through the course and it honestly makes writing story emails a breeze.

So, if you’re newer to writing story emails, you’re going to absolutely love it. 

If you’re more experienced, note that even I learned some things while going through the course.

And I do this for a living!

So, yeah, go check it out!

How To Find Email Story Ideas

No matter which approach you chose for your story-based emails (be it finding the story first or the product first), you still need to find a story to tell eventually.

And the easiest way to do that would be to reverse engineer the answer.

Reverse Engineer Story Ideas From The Product

If you chose the product to sell first, what you’re going to do is search for stories that reinforce your sales message or prove your method works or sell a certain part of the course.

For example, if I had a course on knitting and one of the modules was talking about how to choose the right yarn, I might tell a story about two friends that were knitting and one of them was much faster. And turns out the only difference was the yarn they were using and they switched yarns to make sure, which proved the point.

Then, this allows me to pitch my knitting course with an emphasis on module 2 where I show you the exact yarn to choose for each thing you want to knit so you can create more beautiful stuff faster.

Reverse Engineer Story Ideas From The Goal

If you chose to go story-first, then remember what all story emails must do.

You need to build your Know-Like-Trust stats up so even if the story has no way to be related to the product whatsoever, at least make sure you hit at least one of them.

Otherwise, it’s pretty much a wasted touchpoint. What was even the point of sending the email if, after reading it, your reader does NOT want to buy from you, does NOT trust you more, does NOT like you more and does NOT know you better?

Where to Look For Email Story Ideas

You can literally look everywhere for email story ideas.

But I know this is not very helpful so let me give you some more specific pointers.

Look at your own daily life: Sourcing ideas from your own life is the most sustainable way to find story ideas since you’ll literally keep getting new life until you die (yes that’s a new and weird way to phrase it, yes you’re welcome). But always look for story ideas when you go through daily life.

Look at your clients/customers: If you work with clients, look at the work you do for them or the communication you have with them. You can use this either for drama or educational material

Touch some grass: The more life you live and the more diverse experiences you have, the more story ideas you’ll acquire automatically, so make sure to talk to more people (especially outside your market), visit more places, do different stuff.

A story is a moment: Usually, the whole story is a single moment. And if not, then usually, it’s what leads to a single moment. So don’t think to broadly when looking for stories. A single second could be enough. 

How To Find Your Pitch Angle

No matter whether you start with the product or the story, the way to find your pitch angle is the same.

And that’s because your pitch angle depends entirely on your story.

I can’t go and tell you a story about how choosing the right kind of yarn helps you knit faster and get better results and then pitch you on technique XYZ for creating multi-colored sweaters.

So, you need to find the part of the story that best connects with the product.

Again, there isn’t one true way to go about it, but there are a few things you should consider to come up with the right pitch.

Does my story connect to the core offer? For example, if the core offer is “learn how to knit 12 different pieces of clothing,” does the story showcase or prove that promise?

Does my story connect to a specific teaching? This can be a specific module or chapter or lesson or even a single insight you reveal on a random minute of a random video.

How serious is my story? If your story is super light-hearted and maybe even not too relevant to your product, there will be a disconnect if you suddenly start selling the product hard.

Where does my story lead emotionally? If your story naturally leads to a strong desire for your product, you can be much more direct and hard-sell-y with your pitch. 

On the other hand, if you tell an emotional story about how you come from the streets, with little money, it might be awkward to suddenly turn around and hard-sell your product when you prospect ends the story with 0 desire-based feelings for your product.

What is the gap my story exposes? Your story most probably exposes a gap between where your reader is and where they want to be, with your product bridging that gap. Use this to paint how good the other side is and make your prospect take the next step.

How To Transition From Story To Pitch

Now, we have our product, our story, our pitch angle, and we just need to connect them with our transition.

And the key to good transitions is that they should not feel forced.

You can just hit the brakes on your story, take a 90 degree turn and go straight to pitching.

That would look like this:

“……and since I’ve started doing heavy squats, I’ve been sprinting much faster than before. Speaking of speed, Module 3 of my knitting course is all about speed tactics that will help you finish your knits much faster than before”

Noooot very good.

Instead of taking a turn like that, what you want to do is find your connecting idea and keep expanding on it. Because the more you expand on it, the more you’ll be able to naturally segue into your pitch. 

And that 90 degree angle will start looking like an 80 degree. And then a 70. And you keep going until you make it as close as possible to a straight line instead of a turn.

A quick example using the same story and pitch:

“………….and since I’ve started doing heavy squats, I’ve been sprinting much faster than before. Of course, I’ve also been taking my training more seriously lately, which definitely played its part. 

I’ve been going to the gym more often and run at least 2-3 times per week. 

It helps that I’ve been focusing hard on technique XYZ for knitting faster, which is what Module 3 of my knitting course is all about, so I get more free time in the afternoons, which gives me more time to train”

Depending on the story, you might need to expand a lot more or a lot less on your pitch angle. But more often than not, your story emails will end up quite a bit longer than you initially expected if you want to have smooth transitions.

Putting It All Together

Okay, so based on everything you learned so far, let’s recap what you need to do to write a story-based email that actually makes some goddamn sales!

First: Decide on what will be your story approach for the next 30 emails. Are you going to start with the product? Or are you going to start with the story?

Second: If you start with the product, choose the product you want to promote.

Third: Find a story that builds Know-Like-Trust and desire for the product. 

Note: Building desire for the product in the story isn’t absolutely necessary every single time, but if you want immediate sales, then you gotta have it (eg if you’re running a campaign). If it’s a regular daily email where you build brick by brick your desire, then it doesn’t need to be super strong in every email.

Fourth: Find the angle that best connects your story to your product

Fifth: Keep expanding on your angle until the road from story to pitch feels like a straight line.

Conclusion

You now have what you need to write story-based emails that make sales.

If you want to learn even more about how to make sales through story emails, check out The Side Blogger’s Story-Seller Emails.

It’s a brilliant resource that makes story-based emails super simple & easy and it’s proven to work again and again.

And if you don’t know how to start your story emails, check out my free guide called “7 Deadly Story Starters (That Lead To a Sinful Amount of Stories)”

how to write subject lines

How To Write An Unignorable Subject Line Using The A.B.C.D.E. Framework

by with No Comment Uncategorized

Woohoo! 🥳 The first blog post of The Story Peddler is finally live! 

It’s a joy to have you here.

And since this is the first post of the blog, we HAVE to start with a fuckin’ BANGER!

Wait, does it hurt SEO to say “fuckin’” so early on in the post?

Fuck!

Fuck me, dude! What the fuck?

😁

Aaanyway, welcome to the blog!

To honor this special event, I’m going to share with you something I had originally reserved for a PAID course.

In fact, I had created said course 2 years ago and I still have it sitting on my hard drive, but I’ve decided to follow a different direction.

And NOT ONLY THAT, but this framework I’m going to show you today is EVEN MORE developed than the one I shared inside the course.

Aren’t you lucky to get it for free 😏

This is also the same subject line framework I’ve used (and am still using) to get 50%+ open rates for myself and my clients in all sorts of industries and niches, from courses and SaaS to coffee and sleep care.

In fact, just a week ago I finished a 5-day launch for one of those clients that collected $150,000 in cash.

But enough waiting!

Let’s dive right in, welcome to the blog!

A is For Audience

When your subject line directly calls out the kind of people you want to attract, it does 2 amazing things for you:

1) It pushes away people that are a BAD fit 

And 2) It pulls in people that are a GOOD fit

 This will help you sell more in the moment and develop a better relationship with your audience as you filter out the bad leads, while the good ones feel closer to you with every email

❌ Example WITHOUT Audience: Elevate your cooking skills with this free ebook

This looks good at first sight. It even says cooking skills. So the audience is cooks, right?

Not exactly.

‘Cooks’ is too broad of an audience. 

A recreational homecook wants to learn different things than an up-and-coming chef, who also wants to learn different things than a mom cooking for her family. 

And what if they are keto or paleo or they try to imitate the Liver King’s ancestral lifestyle (God forbid).

Let me give you another example:

“Take your workouts to the next level”

Again, technically, it’s for people who work out.

But what kind of workouts?

Are we talking resistance training? Running? Swimming? Pilates?

Again, too broad so I can’t relate to the subject line.

✅ Example WITH Audience: The searing technique Michelin chefs use for perfect meat texture

Now I’m getting much more specific with my audience, because I call them out in 3 ways:

They cook meat. They use the pan. They care about what Michelin chefs  do.

This way, it’s much more likely that this is going to be something relevant, useful, interesting, and worth their time.

B is For Benefit

Adding a benefit in your subject line tells your reader that this is worth their time. They are going to gain SOMETHING out of this.

❌ Example WITHOUT Benefit: “Do you have a moment?” “Attention Homecooks” “Big news!”

Why would I open any of those emails? There IS curiosity, but there’s no promise that this will be worth my time.

What am I to gain from those?

This makes those subject lines boring or even scammy in some cases, since you’re already in a state of mind that “I’m not gaining anything from this. Only giving,” which is largely what scams make you do, if you think about it.

(There are better ways to write subject lines solely based on curiosity, as we’ll see in a bit, but you might notice the based curiosity-driven headlines have at least a hint of a benefit in them)

✅ Example WITH Benefit: “How to cut your dish-washing time in half”

This time, I have a reason to open the email.

It promises me that if I learn the stuff inside I will spend much less time washing the dishes after I’m done cooking (seems that we’re sticking to the homecook examples 🤷)

Which means I’m going to spend LESS time doing stuff I do NOT like and more time doing stuff I DO like.

(Or just lay on the bed and pretend to be a starfish).

Either way, I’m benefitting in one way or another.

C is For Curiosity

We are curious creatures by design. When we don’t have the complete picture about something, it stays in our minds and we want to search for closure.

It’s one of the most powerful things you can add to a subject line.

“The best way to get a prospect’s attention is to appeal to their sense of curiosity” 

— Gary Halbert

And that’s why you’ll see so many people opening even half-assed 0-effort emails with subject lines like “Jake?” 

(where Jake is your name. Though one could argue that if your name is Mark and you receive an email with the subject line “Jake?” you’ll still open it because what the fuck).

You have no idea what’s up. No idea what kind of benefit you’re going to get. But you’re curious to see how this person knows your name and what they want from you.

Now, imagine if you used curiosity properly like: 

“Even the founder of the church of Satan agrees with me” 

— Ben Settle

It doesn’t have an explicit benefit (though it pretty much promises an interesting email). It doesn’t talk to a specific audience. But it makes you want to read, doesn’t it?

❌ Example WITHOUT Curiosity: How to use alliteration to make your course content more appealing

🤮

I mean, it’s definitely making a clear promise. And has nailed the audience (people who sell courses and want to make them more appealing).

But it’s so BORING.

Even if I care about the topic, it’s much less likely that I will click on this shit.

Not exactly sure why. On paper, it should work. 

But this is the internet, we don’t have papers here.

*Ba dum tss* 🥁

I’ve seen this happen with clients’ emails and with myself.

I was receiving a newsletter I theoretically should care about, based on the premise, but the subject lines were so damn BORING that I ended up opening maybe one email to this day. 

I’m still getting emails from them and I don’t know why I haven’t read them nor unsubscribed.

In fact, writing this has probably been the most attention I’ve given to this brand.

Don’t be like them.

✅ Example WITH Curiosity: 4 tips to make people fall IN LOVE with your course content.

Much better.

The content inside the email can be exactly the same as the one that had the subject line with no curiosity. 

The audience is the same. The promise is the same.

But I’m much more curious to see what are those 4 tips.

And especially if I already know how to use alliteration, which would make me completely ignore the first subject line and thus deny you of the opportunity to sell to me.

D is For Drama

If there is ONE thing we, humans, can’t take our eyes away from, it’s DRAMA bab~ee

(idk why I had to clarify that we = humans, definitely not an alien here)

Drama is one of the most monetizable and unignorable pieces of content in the history of mankind.

In fact, it’s SO good that entire TV shows generating MILLIONS of dollars are only using drama as their source of content.

And I’m not talking just about shows like Love Island etc, I remember shows milking pure drama since the 90s (and I’d probably remember earlier ones too, had I been born earlier).

❌ Example WITHOUT Drama: The right way to measure a campaign’s success

I mean…

If I had to describe this subject line with one word, it would be… 

🥱

It does have a benefit. And I guess it has some curiosity baked in, since it implies a lot of people measure their campaigns wrong.

But it’s also pretty ignorable. If I had to guess what the person who said it looks like, it would probably be a grandpa who’s heartbeat doesn’t go past 32BPM.

✅ Example WITH Drama: 🖕 Fuck your numbers 🖕

This is a topic that has been brewing in the background of my mind for a while now and I’m preparing to write an email about soon.

(If you haven’t joined my email list yet, you can do it here btw)

And I’m pretty sure this is going to be the subject line I’ll be using. 

Notice it contains no audience and no benefit.

But it it OOZING with drama and has some curiosity in.

If you’re a fan of tea and know me even a little bit, it’s almost certain you’ll open this email.

E is For Elevate

The final part of the framework is also one of the most important ones.

Because now that you have your subject line ready, it has calls out your audience, gives them a benefit, appeals to their sense of curiosity, and oozes with drama…

You gotta make it POP!

You elevate it.

Which means that you take your subject line and add some color to make it different.

You can capitalize letters (eg You have NO IDEA what you’re missing)

You can add emojis (eg 🖕 Fuck your numbers 🖕 – as you can see, this was already elevated)

You can add symbols (eg Your gift is waiting >>>>>>>>>>> )

Your reader is receiving tens if not HUNDREDS of emails every day.

You have to make your subject line stand out from the noise.

The rest of the framework showed you how to do it word-wise. This part does the same visually

Conclusion

This is my full framework for creating unignorable subject lines that was going to sit inside my $497 course.

Appreciate it, use it, and most importantly, profit from it.

But! Before you go, remember:

You don’t need every part of the framework in every subject lines. The more you have, the better but as you saw, pretty much every subject line missed at least one of the pieces to make it work and not feel clunky.

Now go, get some opens, make some money.

See you on the next one.