Mark Harbert: 0:16

Look, it's very simple. If you don't grab their attention, within the first few seconds of your video, you're gonna lose them. We are literally at the mercy of a thumb swipe. Hi, my name is Mark Harbert. And welcome to the Mark Harbert podcast. And in this episode, I'm going to give you six tips that can help you with your video hooks. Now, in case you don't know, the video hook is the most crucial part of your videos, I've created literally 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of videos over the years. And I will tell you, I have not always done this right myself. But the video hook literally has become one of the most important parts of the video. Because if you don't grab people's attention, they're gone like they're gone within seconds. So you have to grab people's attention, because literally their attention is the most important part. When it comes to the content, you really got to speak directly to what exactly it is that they're looking to achieve, what is it that they want, and it's got to be a value to them. So I'm going to dive into these six tips for you to really help you when creating videos. Now these can work with literally short form videos, long form videos, it really doesn't matter. The key is having a good hook that will always grab attention. Now I don't know about you, but the greatest thing that you can do is evaluate your own habits. Whether I'm watching a short video or a long video, I'm always looking to see how long that video is. And one of the things that I do is I evaluate very, very quickly, whether or not I want to watch an entire video or not. And whether I'm on YouTube or Tik Tok, or something like that, I'm always looking to see how long is this video? And do I really want to invest that time, this is what makes the hook even more important. Because if you can grab their attention very, very fast, you are more than likely going to hold them for a lot longer. And even if they don't watch the entire video, at least you can get some of your value into them and make an impression on that person. Now, I just want to tell you, you are never ever going to get 100% view rate on your videos, if you are you are a complete and utter. I mean, you'd be the number one youtuber online, you'd be the number one video marketer online. I mean, so just so you know, even the best of the best, nobody gets 100% of the time people to view their videos at 100% completion. So don't evaluate yourself on that level. Because you really want to know that even the best of the best, nobody gets 100% view rate. Okay, so it's very, very important to understand that. But let's go ahead in this audio in this episode, we're talking about the hook. And the tip number one that I have for you. And this is very, very important is first, you got to understand why the hook is so important. What makes it so important. And I've kind of hit on that already. But the truth is, is that people's attention spans are quite short. And, you know, let me rephrase that. I don't know if they're necessarily short, but people are looking to be grabbed right away. And I know, you know, and I've cited this study that was done on a Canada, they studied over 2000 people, they found that, you know, the attention span was so much shorter. And really it has to do a lot with mobile. But the truth is, is that people will watch even a long video if it holds their interest. I watched long videos all the time. And long videos are not going away. As a matter of fact, they're starting to take precedence. Again, if you notice on tick tock, you're seeing longer and longer videos, and they are the ones that really birthed kind of the short video revolution if you want to talk about it. I call it the short video insurrection. And really, they you know, that platform is really what brought it in and really kind of made it so popular but long form videos making a comeback because even tick tock is made videos longer. So but the here's the thing, if the content is good, people are gonna watch it. But it starts in that first few seconds, that you're gonna grab it. So first, you got to understand why that hook is so important. And because people are looking to be grabbed their attention is very short at the beginning there and it's like, you know, I'll give you an example. You know, my wife and I will sit down, and we will we'll sit down to watch a movie and you know, the first 2030 minutes, we're just trying to find a movie, right? And I have become incredibly good. I'm a dude, right? So I've become incredibly good at scanning so I can just, you know, I can hit that remote and just fly right through looking for a movie that catches my attention. Boom. When something catches my attention. I stop. Now the fact that I go so fast. My wife gets a headache and she'd be like, Oh honey, I can't even watch what you You're scrolling through way too fast. And it's just kind of funny because I've learned to do that. But most people are like that they'll scroll until they find something. So we need to grab them right away, or they're on to the next one. Okay, so this is why the hook is so important. So you need to understand that. Okay, so tip number two, is to start with a captivating headline. Now, this really, really applies applies to YouTube video specifically, as well. But believe it or not the headline on your video, it starts there, I look at the headline as like a pre sell to the hook. So our headline is very, very important. Because if people are on say, the YouTube app, one of the things that they see is they see that headline, and they see a thumbnail potentially. And that's what's going to cause them to want to click and go and see the video. So we want to start with a captivating headline that creates some curiosity that gets them to want to click through which then your hook can actually grab them and pull them in and suck them into the content. All right. So starting with a captivating headline is really important. Now, there are plenty of ways that you can create a good headline. But if you're looking for a very basic formula, there's this formula that's been around a long time. And I call it the How to blank without blank formula. Okay. And that's the headline, the How to lose that last five pounds without fat diets or starving yourself. So though that headline is basically how to blank which is how to get everything you want, without blank, all the sucky stuff. Okay, that's the How to blank without blank formula. So if you want to come up with a catchy headline, that is something to start with. Now, that's just one formula of many. But that'll at least give you an idea of how to come up with a captivating headline. All right, so let's move on to number two, or excuse me, number three, we have identifying who you're talking to. Now, this is so important. And, you know, we probably talked about this in marketing all the time finding your perfect target market and all that. But one of the cool ways that you can create a very effective captivating hook is to speak directly to those people. Hey, network marketer, hey, affiliate marketer, are you not getting you know, traffic? Do you need more traffic? Whatever you're calling out that person, hey, affiliate marketer, do you need more traffic for your offers? Well, I've got some free traffic sources for you. So stick around, okay, so something like that. And you're, what you're doing is you're literally calling them out in the hook, this is a way to really grab them even more. So call out your audience specifically in that hook, and you'll find that it's 10 times more effective. Alright, so tip number four is to create a sense of urgency. And a sense of urgency is that sense of you gotta see this right now. Okay, I see this. I don't watch a lot of the news, especially over the last couple years, because it's so negative. So I'm not going to here to talk about that. But I will tell you some of the best headline structures, if you want to learn from a marketing standpoint, our news headlines, they have learned to manipulate the human psyche. Okay, and to get people roped in. So if you really want to create a sense of urgency, you could go look at some news headlines and don't get sucked into the articles, okay, don't get sucked into the videos or anything like that. But some of the structures that they use are incredibly effective. Okay, so creating a sense of urgency is something that always has like a time element to it. And that time element is, you know, in 30 days, or in, you know, three days, or five days, or one hour how to, you know, it's like I said before, how to lose that last five pounds without starving or fad diets in seven days or less. You see what that does. So that is a way to always create an effective hook as well, is to create a sense of urgency and people because people tend to move more when they have a sense of urgency. So that's tip number four. Now, tip number five, this is so important with the hook is you got to keep it short and sweet. This is very important because hooks are meant to just grab attention, and then get them to watch from there. So we grabbed their attention because the hook is like a promise, so to speak. You want to think of your hook as a promise. It's a promise that, hey, I'm going to you have this problem. And I'm going to show you how to remedy that. That's what that hook is. It's a promise of future content, which is basically what you're going to share with them. But you need to keep it short and sweet. Because again, people they're looking to be grabbed and They're looking there, they'll they're willing to invest the time in your video to watch it. However, if it's too long and drawn out and doesn't get to the point very, very fast again, they're gone, they're out of there, they will, they'll be gone faster than you can say hook. Alright, so keep it short and sweet. Don't make it too drawn out, I really am a fan of learning how to get a hook in there within one to three seconds. Okay, now some people say 10 seconds or less. If I say you really want to hook me faster than that, because 10 seconds, that's even going a little long. Alright, so our final tip, tip number six is to experiment with different types of hooks. Now, there are all different kinds of hooks out there, I mean, literally hundreds of different formats that you can try. One of the greatest ways I think to research is go hop on Tik Tok, go over to Instagram reels or Facebook reels and just start scrolling. Okay. And as you scroll, what you want to do is you want to keep in mind and see what it is that grabs your attention. And then pause the video and write it down. This is a great way to do that. evaluating your own habits is always a great way to do research. So do that go to tick tock go to Instagram, Facebook reels, wherever it is go to YouTube shorts, whatever you want to do. And scroll through the videos and get some ideas. And then use those ideas and experiment with your audience. See, the more you experiment, the more you try different formats and different ways of doing things, you're always going to get a much better result when you test and try because every audience is different. Every audience will react to certain different kinds of hooks than say, you know, say the real estate audience. Or if you're in the affiliate marketing niche, or the network marketing niche, there may be different styles of hooks that resonate more with each of those niches. So you just have to try, experiment and put them out there. Alright, so these are your six. Let's just recap them again, real quick. Tip number one is first understand why the hook is so important. Because when you understand why something is important, you're more likely to put more effort into it. Okay, tip number two, start with a captivating headline on the video. This really applies to YouTube videos, it think of it as like the pre sell to the hook. And the pre sell gets them to come over the hook is what keeps them. Okay, tip number three, identify who you're talking to, and call them out in your hook. Very, very important. That will grab them even better. Tip number four is to create a sense of urgency, add a time element to it, that will really create that sense of urgency. Tip number five, keep it short and sweet. You've only got a few seconds to capture their attention. So don't draw it out. Don't make it long. Don't get too winded. Keep it short. Keep it sweet. And tip number six, experiment with different types of hook formats. If you do this, if you will master that hook in the video. I promise you, I can promise you so much that you are going to get so much better results. All right. I hope you got some value from this. If you did, be sure to leave us a review here on my podcast on iTunes. And we'll see you in the next episode. Bye bye