How to Create Your Hook

One of the
greatest things about having a “hook,” otherwise known as a free offer, is that
you create it once, and it is used over and over again, day after day, year
after year to attract new prospects and clients. You never have to update it,
change it or modify it unless you want to. Perhaps every few years you can
change it, but why fix what’s not broken? If it’s still relevant and valuable to
your prospects, leave it alone and focus on other aspects of your growing
business.

So what is a “hook” anyway? It can be a variety of things,
including a white paper, an e-course, an audio course, a video course or free
teleclass or whatever you can cook up! It’s up to you. If you don’t like to
write, an audio course may be a great option for you. If you do like to write,
you can write a report, a quiz, or a top-10 list. The choice is yours.

There are several reasons for creating a hook. First, you build your
distribution list quickly by taking advantage of organic traffic to your site.
Secondly, you gain credibility, which leads to future sales. You also build a
list of people who learn to know, like and trust you and therefore, may hire you
in the future and make referrals to you. For me, the best part of this strategy
is that you don’t ever feel like you have to hard sell or cold call people. It’s
a very proactive way of building your business.

The point of your hook
is that you want your prospects to think of you as the person who provides
valuable information that they need. They see you as the expert and feel good
about purchasing your products and services and recommending you to others. Your
hook should be broad enough to appeal to many, but address a specific problem
that your target market faces and would gladly pay to have resolved. This is how
your prospects enter into your marketing funnel.

Let’s explore three
options for disseminating your free offer.

In my opinion, the easiest
way to create your free offer is through a written report that you create from
scratch. You need to make it compelling enough for prospects to want to download
it immediately – remember that 95% of your web traffic will not buy from you the
first time they visit your site nor bookmark your site to revisit, so it’s
important to capture their email address on their first visit! Your written
report should provide information on a topic that your target market may even be
willing to pay for! My point is that your hook must truly provide value to your
prospects, even though they are not paying for it. Your free offer is your way
of showcasing a sample of your product or service directly to your target
market. Be sure it makes a positive impression and doesn’t come across as an
advertisement. Nobody likes to be “sold.” To receive the written report,
prospects simply enter their name and email address and they are automa tically
registered for your ezine. Your “thank you” page, which is automatically
generated, includes your report as a downloadable PDF.

Another great
option is an e-course. You will need to have an autoresponder set up for this
through a system such as 1ShoppingCart,
so that once you create your course, you can set up the system to send out the
e-course to new subscribers automatically. The e-course can come in a series of
emails, spaced out by a day, 2 days or a week. I wouldn’t stretch it out any
more than a week, or you risk having your new subscribers forget who you are and
losing interest.

An audio course or one-time download is another
fantastic option. I recommend Audio
Acrobat?