If marketing could be defined in one word, it would be ‘message’. Marketing is about sending a message out to the world where hopefully some people listening will be interested in what you have to say. The ultimate goal of this message and of marketing is to attract people’s attention, so they listen to what you have to say.
What Are the Three Steps?
- Step 1: Hook
- Step 2: Story
- Step 3: Offer
It’s important to note that you follow each step in the order they come in.
Step 1: The Hook
Hooks grab your target audiences’ attention; and separate you from the others out there with the same audience.
By hooking somebody in, you have an opportunity to give more of your message through your story and offer.
Hooks are typically short, bold and often compelling, unique, that thing, grabber, or “hook” that stops people in their tracks to read what you wrote or watch what you recorded.
But in order to really hook your audience in, the hook must relate to your audience in a personal and emotional way. It needs to really connect with them, otherwise it won’t hook them in.
Here’s a few examples:
Target audience: People who want to leave their day job and start their own business.
Hook: One out of ten people who want to start their own business (and leave the 9–5 hustle and bustle) ever really make it.
Target audience: People who want to sell their product but are struggling.
Hook: Do you have an amazing product, but are struggling to get people to buy it?
They’re short and designed to really hit home with the target audience. Now that we have their attention, we can tell our story.
Write down 2-3 hooks you could use to grab your ideal clients attention.
Step 2: The Story
It’s called a story because that’s exactly what it is. It’s designed to tell a story that will really relate to your audience even more personally than the hook, ultimately leading to the offer.
Stories can come in one of two forms
- It can either come from the perspective of the business owner and founder, who had the same problem the audience has now, but overcame it because they had an epiphany.
- Or the story can be about other people who had a problem that audience has now, but you were able to help out, because of a previous epiphany you had.
Examples From the Original Target Audiences
Example 1
Target audience:
People who want to leave their day job and start their own business.
Story:
Five years ago I was desperate to get out of my 9–5 job and start my own business. I was sick of taking orders from overpaid management, and I knew I deserved better. But I just couldn’t find a way out.
That was, until one day, I was reading a book [insert], and something it said really struck me deeply: “XXXXX”. I then realised I had to get started immediately, so the next day I handed my notice in and started working on my plans.
It wasn’t easy, absolutely not. The first three to six months I was working longer hours than at my job, for much less. But once that initial hurdle was overcome, my business started to blossom and give me the freedom I so desperately needed.
Example 2
Target audience:
People who want to sell their product but are struggling
Story:
I started a business three years ago with a few friends of mine. It was based around this amazing and innovative product: [insert]. This was the first of it’s kind, and the research we did suggested it would be a great hit!
We invested most of our startup capital in a launch campaign we had high expectations for. It flopped, massively. We sold about 15% of what we had originally estimated.
Desperate, I stayed up one night checking our sales figures to see if we could turn things around, where I came across an article “XXXX”. This article taught me a simple selling system, and I was able to transform that into a whole new marketing and sales technique.
In two weeks, we’d sold five times as much of our product from our original launch, and things really looked up. In no time at all, we were struggling to keep up with the demand, and had to expand fast to cope!
It’s important to note that a story can be of varied length. Definitely longer than the hook, but other than that it can be of any length, as long as it fulfills its purpose of relating to your audience.
List 2-3 stories that build your credibility, build your authority and make you relatable because you’ve been where they’re at & can get them to next level
Step 3: The Offer
Up until now, you have hooked your audience in with a very bold statement that relates to them. Then you told them a story which, again, relates to them and shows you’ve been there before. Or helped others who have.
This all sets you up to make an offer, in other words, a proposal whereby they purchase or take an action. Offers can include:
- A sale
- Signup to your emails/newsletter
- Signup to a free event/webinar
Literally anything whereby they need to take an action.
The length of an offer depends on how much you’re asking of your audience. If you’re trying to get them to sign up for something free, your offer can be short. If you’re asking them to hand over thousands of dollars, your offer needs to be long enough to justify that spend.
Examples of the Offer
Here’s some examples, again using the three target audiences we’ve been working on:
Example 1
Target audience:
People who wants to leave their day job and start their own business
Offer:
Join me on my 30 day online course that you can do for two hours each day alongside your day job! It teaches you how you can slowly build a business whilst keeping your job going — until you reach the point that you can sustain yourself and resign.
The course uses my own proven system that I used to escape the dreaded 9 to 5 life.
Example 2
Target audience:
People who want to sell their product but are struggling
Offer:
Come to my free one day event where I’ll show you how you can start selling ten times as much of your product in less than two weeks. I’ll spend time personally with you at the event and you’ll leave the room at the end of the day with a bespoke action plan so you can start selling more of your product, instantly.
What is the exact CTA you are going to use to have your ideal clients take action?
These three steps can be applied to any and all industries and niches, in any forms of marketing. And it absolutely works. You can go now and look at any advertising any business does, and you’ll be able to easily spot these three steps at work. Write a great hook, tell a great story, and make a great offer.
