The science-backed secret to writing captivating ad, email, and social hooks

Happy Wednesday! I'm Jim Hamilton. Over the past 7 years, my copy has contributed to 10m+ in sales for clients in health, biz opp, and B2B.

Each week, I send out 1 short-form copywriting tip to help you write ads, emails, and social content that sells.

Hooks are the lifeblood of short-form copywriting.

Ads, emails, and social content are designed to get attention first, then convert second.

So what’s the secret to writing captivating hooks?

It came out of a study published in an obscure psychology journal in 1927…

Since then, it’s been swiped by top copywriters, screenwriters, and storytellers to generate billions of dollars in sales….

Across movies, TV shows, marketing campaigns, and more.

Today, I’m revealing how you can deploy it to drive more impressions, clicks, leads, and sales online.

Let’s dive in.

Read time: 3 minutes and 59 seconds

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How a Lithuanian Psychologist Discovered This Simple Memory Trick

Bluma Zeigarnik was a Lithuanian-Soviet psychologist born in the early 1900s.

In 1927, she published a study on a phenomenon called “cognitive tension.”

Here’s what happened:

One of her professors noticed a restaurant waiter was better able to remember unpaid orders versus paid ones. (go figure!)

So Bluma designed a series of experiments to study the mechanism behind it.

Turns out, this “cognitive tension” significantly improves memory recall.

In other words, if you’re studying algebra but are interrupted halfway through because the dog needs to go for a walk…

You’ll remember the equations you studied better than someone who wasn’t interrupted…

Because the human brain craves closure.

This is known as the Zeigarnik Effect…

But in the context of writing, using tension to get and keep attention is more commonly referred to as “creating an open loop.”

Now let’s look at a few examples of open loops you might recognize.

Example 1: Iron Man

Marvel movies are littered with open loops.

This is one of the reasons why they’ve grossed over 29 billion dollars at the box office.

But one of the first and biggest loops they ever opened was in the post-credits scene of the original Iron Man.

After Tony Stark declares, “I am Iron Man” on live television…

Nick Fury breaks into his house and reveals he’s there to discuss something called the “Avengers Initiative.”

This is the set up for The Avengers, which came out 4 years later…

And ultimately, the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Example 2: Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones delivers a masterclass in how to exploit open loops to get and keep attention.

Like Marvel’s movies, the show is constantly opening loops.

Some are closed within a single scene, while others run multiple episodes…

Or in the case of who ends up on the Iron Throne, the entire 8 seasons of the show.

Both Marvel and GoT open new loops at the very end of one step (movie or episode) that aren’t closed until the next one.

We’ll dig into how you can do the same thing in just a second.

First, let’s review an example a little closer to home.

Example 3: Wall Street Journal

One of the most famous sales letters of all time is the Wall Street Journal’s Tale of Two Young Men promotion.

Here’s the lead:

===

On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both were personable and both — as young college graduates are — were filled with ambitious dreams for the future.

Recently, these men returned to their college for their 25th reunion.

They were still very much alike. Both were happily married. Both had three children. And both, it turned out, had gone to work for the same Midwestern manufacturing company after graduation, and were still there.

But there was a difference. One of the men was manager of a small department of that company. The other was its president.

===

I’ve bolded the last paragraph so you can see how the loop is opened.

As the reader, you’re dying to know how one of these young men ended up company president while the other got stuck in middle management.

(spoiler alert: it’s a WSJ subscription)

To give you an idea of how effective this was…

This sales letter ran as a direct mail piece for 28 years and sold 2 billion dollars worth of WSJ subscriptions.

(Here’s the full letter if you want to read it.)

Now let’s talk about how to deploy this in your own short-form copywriting.

3 Ways to Use Open Loops So You Can Write Captivating Ad, Email, and Social Hooks

Open loops work because they create tension that isn’t relieved right away.

The reader has to take ACTION to close the loop…

Whether that’s clicking on an ad, opening an email, or expanding a post in the feed.

So this is your #1 goal when writing headlines, subject lines, or hooks for social media:

Create tension that can only be relieved by taking the next step.

Here are 3 ways to do it:

1) Lists

• 21 copywriting lessons for the 21st century

• 12 opening lines to get more dates on Tinder (steal these)

• 7 fitness cheat codes I know at 43 (that I wish I knew at 23)

2) Benefit without pain

• How to shed 10 lbs without counting calories

• How to 3X your impressions on LinkedIn without posting daily

• How to write winning Facebook ads in 15 minutes (without staring at a blank page)

3) What not to do

• Avoid dating apps (do this instead)

• Do NOT fast for 24 hours (here’s why)

• What NEVER to do when writing Twitter threads

Putting It All Together

The better you get at creating open loops, the more people will engage with your writing.

Learn how to talk about something without revealing what it is right away…

Then pay it off in the next step.

That’s it.

Thanks for reading!

See you next week.

Jim Hamilton