Hook-Story-Offer Machine: The Easiest Copywriting Framework For Beginners

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Dec 10, 2023

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Ahoy, Digital Writers!

Most people think turning readers into doers is a tough nut to crack

The secret is the element of surprise. For Digital Writers, this is key. Because when you present something “unusual” to a reader, guess what happens? Their brain gets surprised, it wakes up and says, “Whoa! I haven’t seen that before. Let me see if it’s dangerous.”

Attention won.

Then when you wrap it up in a relatable story, it becomes a slippery slide that guides the reader into whatever action you want them to take. Sound like a sneaky trick? It’s not.

Copywriters call it the “Hook-Story-Offer Framework.”

What is the Hook-Story-Offer Framework?

The Hook-Story-Offer framework is a copywriting technique found in Russell Brunson’s best-selling book, Dotcom Secrets.

There are 3 parts.

A Hook to draw the reader in.
A Story to highlight a relatable change.
An Offer, or invitation, to apply the change.

In other words, you capture attention and then compel the reader to do more.

And today, we are going to walk you through an easy 5-step formula for writing an “unexpected” hook to grab your reader’s attention and then leverage that attention into action with a personal story.

The reason this framework is perfect for beginners is because all you have to do is share what happens to you during the day: walking the dog, eating breakfast, sitting in traffic, and so on. Then, draw a connection to anything you want to sell. That’s it!

First we’re going to build the hook, and then we will use ChatGPT fill in the rest.

Here we go!

Step 1: Name The Benefit

Every reader wants to know, “What’s in it for me?”

You need to be clear on the promise you are making to the reader. Because if the reader doesn’t know what they get in return for reading and how it will make their life better—they aren’t going to read!

So, what are you offering?

Mental clarity
Restorative sleep
Financial freedom
Profitable investment
Deep relational connection

Write it down.

Step 2: Put The Benefit In An Unexpected Setting

Find the opposite of “normal.”

This is a technique I learned from “Big Al” Schreiter in his book "Hooks!" If you are looking to improve your single-sentence openers, this is a resource to add to your library. Here is the question Big Al poses:

Where “wouldn’t” the reader expect to experience the benefit?

My diet support group meets at Pizza Hut. (losing weight)
I thought Vitamin C was supposed to make you feel better? (immunity)
I have no friends. That’s why I go to work. (making friends)

Remember your job is to prod the reader’s brain by breaking their expectations.

Let me ask you, what comes to mind when you think about slimming down? Probably something like, exercise, counting calories, or eating a better diet. These have been written about a 10,000+ times.

Which means the reader expects it—and moves on.

The easiest way to do this is to pull out a thesaurus and make a list of opposite for your benefit. Let’s take weight loss for example. What’s the opposite of loss? Gain, increase, profit, etc. Choose one of these words and see what ideas it triggers for you.

For example:

What do people do who gain weight? (Eat at pizza hut)
What situations do people commonly believe will put on the pounds? (Sit on the couch)

Make your list.

Step 3: Frame The Hook As A Personal Story

Which one do you want to read?

Hook #1: How to lose 10 lbs in 4 weeks
Hook #2: Amazing break-through formula for diet and weight loss.
Hook #3: My chubby cat found a better solution to my weight problem.

None of them are bad, but let’s take a closer look.

Hook #1 has a clear promise, lose 10lbs in 4 weeks. It’s click worthy, but I’ve seen it before. Hook #2 feels salesy. I’m skeptical, but I might click because I can’t resist learning about a new break-through. Again, I’ve seen it before and I am pretty sure what I’m going to get.

That brings us to Hook #3—the chubby cat weight loss solution

What do you notice? There is a story. It’s personal. It’s relatable and I want to hear what happened. And maybe I can learn something from this person with a chubby cat! Which is why this hook works—even if it is a little clever.

You can frame your hook as a personal story with first person language.

I…
My…
How I…

Then bolt on your benefit and setting.

We could improve Hook #1 like this: “How I lost 10lbs in 4 weeks sitting in a pizza hut.” It breaks expectations. It promises a story about the benefit of losing weight. And it’s clear what you will get from reading it.

That’s it!

Step 4: Edit For Clarity (And Credibility)

So, what did we learn from our 3 examples in the last step?

All 3 hooks “work.” They open a loop. And the reader will want to close it.
Each hook frames an expectation in the reader’s mind based on past experience.
Hook #3 raises an unexpected twist with a story and thus wins the click-me contest.

HOWEVER, there is a risk.

And the risk is you overdo “clever.” The chubby cat is close because it’s hard to believe someone’s cat will give you a new solution to losing weight. But because the benefit (remember step 1) is on target, I still want to know more. The trick is to make sure the reader does’t have to make too many mental leaps to understand the relationship between the benefit and the setting.

So, before you ship your work, ask yourself:

Will the reader know what to expect?
Is it believable?

If the answer is yes, congrats you’ve written a solid unexpected story hook!

Step 5: Train ChatGPT To Write A Hook, A Story, And An Offer

After you’ve gone through the exercise of thinking about the benefit you are promising the reader, open a new ChatGPT window and train ChatGPT on what you just learned.

Because once you know how to do this, you can train someone else to do it for you. That “someone else” used to be a human. But now you can train your Digital Intern—ChatGPT.

Here’s the prompt:

I am going to train you to write an Unexpected Story Hook.

An Unexpected Story Hook is a 1 sentence hook opener that flips a reader's expectation, catches their attention, and gets them wondering, "what's next" which opens a loop that the reader has to close.

# Examples of An Unexpected Story Hook

- My diet support group meets at Pizza Hut.
- I thought Vitamin C was supposed to make you feel better?
- I have no friends. That’s why I go to work.

# Role

Act as a copywriting expert with 20 years of experience.

# Personality

You write in a conversational, jargon free tone that a 10 year old would understand. You favor spartan short sentences, but you know when to go long to make a point more powerful. And above all, you write in a very human-sounding register.

# Steps

Step 1: You will ask me what I want to write about.  

Step 2: I will give you my topic.

Step 3: You will list 7 benefits of the topic (Use 4-6 words). Then ask me which one I want to focus on.

Step 4: I will select a benefit to move forward with.

Step 5: You will write 7 Unexpected Story Hooks.

Step 6: You will ask me if I would like to write the story. If I say yes, proceed to the next step, else we can stop.

Step 7: I will select an Unexpected Story Hooks to move forward with. 

Step 8: You will write a 1st person punchy 75-100 word story using the following pattern:
- Unexpected Story Hook
- Setup
- Problem
- Resolution
- Lesson 
- Action steps the reader can apply "here's how you can..."

## Story Format
Follow the 1 / 3 / 1 writing rhythm (including spacing)

(1 sentence) Sentence 1.

(3 sentences) Sentence 2. Sentence 3. Sentence 4.

(1 sentence) Sentence 5.

(1 sentence) Sentence 6.

(3 sentences) Sentence 7. Sentence 8. Sentence 9. 

(1 sentence) Sentence 10.

(1 sentence) Sentence 11.

(3 sentences) Sentence 12. Sentence 13. Sentence 14. 

(1 sentence) Sentence 15.

The pattern repeats until you are done writing.

You will perform 1 step at a time. You perform steps independently of each other. After each step, you will stop and ask the user, "Shall I continue to the next step?" If the output is satisfactory, and the user says yes, you then proceed to the next step.

# Disallowed actions

Do NOT stray off topic.
Do NOT use labels or pre-text. 

Remember your primary goal is to hook the reader with the unexpected.

ChatGPT will guide you through the process step-by-step.

As an example, let’s look at a topic like “losing weight.”

(I love how friendly our Digital Intern is.)

Now choose a benefit. You can pick from the list ChatGPT generated or you can provide your own. I chose “Better Sleep Quality.”

I see a couple I like.

Use these hooks as inspiration. Write your own version. Or roll with your favorite.

Here’s the story for the hook, “I never snored until I lost 30 pounds.”

Boom!

This story works great on its own. You can expand it into a longer guide, turn it into LinkedIn post, or an X post. And if you have a product or service to sell, you can ask ChatGPT to pitcher your offer at the end.

Like this:

Here’s the prompt:

Great, can you add a CTA to my offer for {Product/Service} that fits naturally at the end of the story?

And voila, ChatGPT does the job!

Note: Like any intern that you are training, you may need to remind ChatGPT to add the action steps at the end. Just say something like, “Hey ChatGPT, it looks like you left off the action steps for my reader?” And it will correct itself. I also noticed ChatGPT will occasionally label your sentences with (Sentence 1), (Sentence 2), etc. If it does, you can ask it to remove them or just remove them manually.

That’s it for the Hook-Story-Offer Framework!

Chat soon,

Nicolas Cole

Dickie Bush

Co-Creators of Ship 30 for 30.

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