MOVE AWAY FROM PAIN POINTS

What is your target market’s greatest problems? Or more specifically: what keeps your prospect up at night? As Tony Robbins once said, “people will do more to avoid pain then they will do to gain pleasure.” Keep this in mind when you’re researching and writing your hook. In economics and decision theory, loss aversion refers to people’s tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains: it’s better to not lose $5 than to find $5. Some studies have suggested that losses are twice as powerful, psychologically, as gains. Loss aversion was first demonstrated by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman.

Going back to the solo guitar player avatar, one of the simplest problems could be: “I don’t know where to go next on the fret board after the A note.” This is a problem because maybe Fred, the solo guitar player, wants to play the Bob the Builder theme song to his kids, but he doesn’t know what to do after the A note and because of this, both he and his kids are frustrated.

This brings us to the second question, “What are they most afraid of?” In this case, Fred might feel afraid that he won’t live up to be the father he wants to be for his kids if he doesn’t learn this part of the song. He’s afraid that when his kids are older they won’t remember how he used to rock the guitar to Bob the Builder and his legacy as a great dad will be tarnished.

I’m being somewhat obviously melodramatic, but you should always ask this question with regard to your avatar’s biggest pain: why do they want to change? Fred wants to master this song because he knows how rabid his kids are about Bob the Builder. He wants to create an indelible memory of his kids laughing and dancing around to the song when he plays it. At the end of all this, he wants to be able to play the song because that would make him and his kids happy. At a very deep level, yes, he would then feel like he’s being the father he always wanted to be—and perhaps the father his kids can maybe brag about to their buds in preschool.

Here’s what to ask for your reference:

What are your target market’s greatest problems?

What are they most afraid of?

Why do they want to change?

When you find the reason behind the problem, behind what they are most afraid of, and behind why they want to change, you can then embed your solution inside the hook and cure it with your offer. 

FIND A SOLUTION

Remember my customer’s lead magnet how-to-flip-houses-in-five-simple-steps?” You may be eager to know the solution we came to as I have left you hanging a couple times on that. Again, the problem was that we were giving away a 70-page downloadable eBook on “how to flip houses in five simple steps” in exchange for a name and an email address. The problem was our ultimate solution was to sell them an 8-module program that would in essence do the same thing as the lead magnet itself, namely teach them how to flip houses. We got lots of leads, but very few customers—not ideal.

Using the series of questions outlined above, we eventually figured out the biggest problem that faced our market was, namely: I don’t know how to raise money. We also know that we had a solution for this problem. So with this in mind, we came up with the hook for our new lead magnet: “17 words you need to say to an investor to fund your next deal.” The offer was a three-page checklist that fulfilled the promise of the hook.

Was the content “as good” as the previous lead magnet? Was it “as complete” as the previous lead magnet? No, on both counts. But it worked way better towards fulfilling our ultimate objective, namely getting more people to purchase our product.

Go back and review your notes on your market’s desires and pain points. When crafting a solid hook, this is the most logical starting point. Then, force-rank those pain points and desires. Next, start coming up with solutions that your hook will promise and your offer will fulfill. Be careful to separate out wants from needs. They are not the same.

Remember that when you think about a solution that fulfills your avatar’s desires or pain points, your end goal is for the offer to fulfill the promise of the hook, but in order for it to work for your business, it must be incomplete, so the bigger solution your paid product delivers.