Podcast Marketing: Crafting Hooklines That Engage And Convert Listeners

Want your podcast and videocast to be seen, heard, found and rewarded in this noisy digital world, you are not alone. Join the nonprofit community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works. Today, get ready to finish Feed your brand with smart cut tactics proven to cast your original voice to the world.

Welcome to Feed you'd Brand. I'm Tom Hazard, and today I want to share with you some really important things to consider regarding your podcast. If you're interested in having a hook line, or at least what we call a hook line at the beginning of your show. So we're going to talk about crafting hook lines that engage and convert listeners. Now, I want to first start with a little definition of what is a hook line. For those of you that may not know, and there are other terms people use for this. Sometimes people call it a cold open, we call it a hook line. And what it is is the very first thing your listeners hear the beginning of your podcast episode is a little audio clip from within the episode. Now, doesn't matter if this is a solo cast or it's an interview episode. I think most often it's done with interview episodes. And it's usually a clip of something the guest says. And the intent is for it to give a little tease, a little preview of what's coming in the episode and to get people excited in the right frame of mind and wanting to listen through the whole thing. If it's a tease or it's building anticipation, that's a particularly good thing because then people are like, oh wow, I get to hear the rest of that story, right? And they then are set up and wanting to listen. However, there's a lot of pros and cons want to talk about some of that first and then get into what makes a good hook line. And especially toward the end, I want to put what makes deciding on the right hook line challenging. Because I'll tell you, there's a reason why, at least in our experience, less than probably 4 or 5% of shows we produce actually use a hook line. Some do and have done it their entire existence and do it very well. Most don't. And I think when you learn a little bit about why, that number will make some sense to you might not be so shocking.

So let's talk about some pros and cons about hook lines. The first thing is the very first thing your listeners are going to Hear is out of context and often it's not a familiar voice, especially if it's the guest because every episode you might have a different guest and it's a voice the listeners never heard before. It's not your voice necessarily. It's not familiar to them. They haven't heard your pre recorded intro with your music and your voiceover that they're used to. At least not yet. Because usually, like I said, the idea is it's the very first thing people hear. Now you could do it differently. You can have your pre recorded intro and then have a hook line. But the idea here is to give your audience something new, something engaging, something that builds curiosity right up front. First thing they hear and then it gets them to be like, whoa, that's an engaging quote that got their attention and out of context and can be a bad thing, but can be a good thing because it let makes people think where did that come from? Or what's the rest of that story? And then they want to go listen to the rest. But the bad thing is they don't hear your voice right from the beginning and they don't hear a familiar intro. And if the hook line is too long, and this is a common mistake people make when they choose a hook line is they choose a very long hook line and people are like, well, wait a second, what is this? If it's a minute long, personally, I think that's way too long and people are hearing this other person. Maybe you interject to hear your voice briefly, but oftentimes not. And they're like, did I turn on the right show? Did I click the right one? Or is there a problem with the app? I mean, it can cause confusion and problems. So that to me is the con, or the downside, if you will, of using a hook line is there's a lack of familiarity in the beginning of every one of your episodes. So here's recommendation number one. When you have a hook line, yes, needs to be a good one. But I recommend short and sweet. 15 seconds, 20 seconds, maybe max would be my personal goal. That may not always happen and certainly there's no absolute rule. If you've got an amazing sound bite that's 30 seconds long, you certainly can use it. But when it gets to be a minute or longer that I do hear, some people on other shows do, I'm like, whoa, you're really risking things here. You're going to lose your audience before you even get the show started. But short and sweet. Then you have your prerecorded intro and People are like, oh, wow, that's great. Okay, yeah, now I'm familiar, I'm getting comfortable and whoa, I don't really know who this. That's the other thing. They don't necessarily know who it is in the hook line. Sort of another downside to the hook line is you haven't introduced that guest. And if it's not you, the host with the hook line, that's completely a new voice. People don't know who it is and why should they listen? Why should they care? So that's why that the importance of the hook line and what it says and does it stir some emotion really quickly? Is it piquing curiosity? Is it helping to warm people up for what's coming? You want to make sure you want to think about these goals in mind when you choose a hook line. It's kind of like that appetizer. A little taste, a first listen, and sets the tone for what the whole episode is about. So choosing one is a really, I would say the degree of difficulty for that task of choosing the right hook line is pretty high. The importance of it is very high. And so herein lies one of the pitfalls of hook lines. And I'm not anti hook line. I'm really just trying to set realistic expectations for what's involved in choosing one. And also I think this is going to start to help you realize why few shows do it. But choosing that hook line is so important. And if you're a do it yourself podcaster, that adds quite a bit of work to what you need to do. And if you're not a do it yourself podcaster, are you going to trust your podcast editor to choose that hook line? Are they capable of that? At Poditize, like I said, we got maybe 4 or 5% of our done for you production customers that use hook lines. Most of them have us choose them. But these are people we've been working with for mostly several years or more and they've developed a comfort level. In the very beginning, some of them were choosing the hook lines for us and giving us. Here, use this quote for the hook line. Taking all that time and consideration, figure it out themselves and then we learn sort of their preferences, their style, what kind of quotes they like, and then eventually choose them. But you've gotta realize whether we're producing your content or you have some another producer doing it and you're not choosing that hook line yourself, your producer can't read your mind. They're never gonna choose the exact sound bite that you would. I mean, it's highly unlikely. And this was one major important moment that's kind of obvious in that episode that makes sense to use. But usually it's a judgment call, right? So you either have to let go and trust your editor to do it, which I think is why a lot of people don't. When they're not do it yourselfers. Or again, even if you're not a do it yourselfer, you can take some notes. We send our customers these pads for making notes while they're in their episode, writing them down so they're not typing. Hopefully in the keyboard, sound isn't heard over the microphone. But if you can write down, oh, that was a really good quote or good sound bite, I might want to use that for the hook line. You can make some notes, and then you need to go back and listen and find it and provide that information, if not the exact timestamp, at least enough information, enough context that your editor can then find and use that clip as the sound bite. The old adage is really true. Want something done right, you better do it yourself, or at least in the beginning, until your editor, your production company can learn, and they can end up choosing a hook line that you're more likely to be happy with.

One example show I can tell you all to check out, longtime show we've been producing for, gosh, four or five, at least, years. It's called the Successful Pitch with John Livesay. And that show has a hook line every single episode at the beginning. Been doing it for years. And John is at that point of comfort level with us where he doesn't ever give us any information. He records his audio uploads and he's done. We do everything from there, including the hook line. And at this point, he never comes back with any concerns, questions, needs it changed. It's extraordinarily rare. If it happens once a year, I'd be shocked. So it can be done and it can be done well. So just want to set up some realistic expectations. Now, let's say you're comfortable spending the time yourself as a do it yourselfer, or you're willing to find that clip you want to use and provide it to your editor, which is going to make sure the outcome ends up exactly what you want it to be, which I think is very important, at least in the beginning. And now let's talk a little bit more about that clip, that hook line. And when I said in the beginning of this, the title of this episode is to convert listeners, right? Crafting hook lines that engage and convert what does convert mean? I want to make sure I define that. Engage, obviously means to get people's attention and to either build curiosity or evoke a certain emotion. If you got somebody telling a story of some tragic crash in their life and then hopefully there's going to be the rise to victory or success or getting to a better place in life, sometimes that crash can be something kind of shocking to get people's attention and evoke a certain emotion. Like, whoa, that's unbelievable. I got to hear the rest of the story. You hear what I keep saying. I've got to hear the rest of the story is what I would be saying in my mind. So here is the conversion. The idea is, by the way, you want people to listen to your entire episode. This is the whole point, right? And sometimes when we have our episode format that's the same every time, it can become a little routine. Even though people are subscribed and they come back and they're listening to you every time because they've come to like you, trust you, want to hear your message. You have the same pre recorded intro and maybe you haven't changed it in a few years. I mean, we've some recommend a lot of the time considering every year do you want to update your intro, freshen it up a little bit? And because people get into this kind of routine and even if you're listening to feed your brand every week, you hear often I'm starting the show the exact same way. The first 15 seconds is probably the same every time. Not necessarily a good thing. It doesn't get people really excited. It is familiar to them. They're driving, they're listening to back to back episodes and okay, yeah, the right episode played, this is the show I wanted to hear. That's a good thing. But the conversion, the idea here, when you're listening to a show, a lot of shows back to back or the same show week after week, and everything is the same in the beginning. While there's a comfort and familiarity with that, there's also not a lot of anticipation being built. There's not a lot of excitement being generated. And a hook line can do that if it's done really well. Build excitement, build anticipation, get the listener to be like, okay, I got to make sure I pay attention. Because podcasting can be kind of a passive activity while we're driving, while we're exercising, while we're walking or jogging, running. And people sometimes can listen a little too passively. So if you set up this hook from the beginning, that gets people to Realize right up front there's something different here, or there's something important here, or there's something controversial, shocking or heartwarming story, whatever it is, if there is a clip, again, short and sweet is Tom's recommendation. Anyway, that really does that, that communicates that feeling or sets up that anticipation. And like, all right, I need to pay attention to this episode. I want to listen through this whole thing. Then you're going to get people listening all the way, your episode. So I also recommend this as a clip that's somewhere deep in the episode. You're giving an appetizer at the beginning, a teaser. Don't make that something that happens in the first 10 minutes of a 40 minute episode. I recommend it's something that's pretty deep, more than halfway through, 2/3 of the way through or so. Now, obviously this is a judgment call too. It can be very much toward the end and one of the last things people get, or it could be more halfway through. But point is, you want people to listen through to the whole thing, so don't give it away right up front. Unless the episode continues to pay off in other ways. And there's a reason why you want to set them up with something they're going to get kind of early and then they're going to keep getting more. I mean, obviously I'm making some suggestions and you can do what's right for you. And you can experiment with this too. I mean, there's a trial and error factor here you're welcome to do. Any podcaster who's been podcasting long enough pivots their show at some point, in some way, and maybe multiple ways. And this can be one that you can try. Now, some people do interview episodes and solo casts where they're speaking on a topic just on their own, kind of like I'm doing here today. And a hook line in that situation may not really be that as important as it is in an interview episode or maybe something you don't want to do unless it's an interview episode. I mean, that's a choice too. Although you certainly could do it if you had a good hook line in a solo cast. So conversion is about playthrough, so I just want to make sure that's clear. And really, judgment calls are tough, right? These are all judgment calls about our shows that we make, decisions we make, who we're going to interview, what the main topic's going to be, what those opening question is going to be. And that actually brings up another concept for a hook line. If you want it to be your voice as the host every time. If you've got a really good question that is short enough to ask in that 15 second, 20 second time frame, that can be another good idea for a hook line. Ask a question early on, but don't give the answer. Don't let the guest answer or don't let them answer completely. Okay? Because that can build a lot of anticipation. You ask a question and maybe you hear a little bit of the start of the answer, or maybe the guest kind of chuckles or is like, oh, wow, that's a good question, or whatever. Don't let them give the answer. There's building anticipation, setting up the listener be like, wait, wait, wait, you really teased me. Now it's like, okay, that's a great question. You got me. I'm going to listen. Right? So lots of different things you can do with a hook line. But again, fair warning, it's kind of advanced podcasting in terms of the amount of time and effort you, the host, are going to have to put in. And especially if you're editing your own. But even if you're not, the amount of time you are going to need to put in to communicate. Here's where it is. You got that recording, you got to go through it, find that clip, give the timestamp to your editor. Use this hook line until you get to a point where if you are really hands off, kind of the way John Livesey is for the successful pitch, that you have enough faith and trust in your editing and production team that they'll choose a good hook line for you. And that's really where Johnson is. He's kind of hands off at this point. And gosh, so many years later, he's like 300 plus or more episodes in and he's not going to spend that kind of time. He's focusing his effort on getting those great guests, what questions he's going to ask. And he's leaving all those editorial and production decisions up to us. And we've gotten to a point where it works for him and he's happy with it. So just be aware of those things and think about what could you do in your podcast that would be a way to choose a hook line? Put it up front. That really has a big impact. That's going to be that wow moment. Remember, you want to wake someone up. I'm driving from LA to Vegas. I'm listening to like eight or ten podcasts back to back. What are you going to do to get my attention? Right? And make your content exciting, get people in that right mood, listen to the whole thing. Serves them better, serves you and your purposes. So there you go.

I hope that was very helpful. If you have any thoughts or comments, you can reach out to us@potatoes.com and of course you can find the blog post for this episode and all others. Also@poditize.com there is a feed your brand page and once you click in any one of the blogs, you can search on any titles, topics, subjects you're interested in, find a episode appropriate for that, and hopefully get some good value out of that. So I hope you do that and we look forward to being back next time with another great episode. Until then, this is Tom Hazard signing off for Feed your Brand.

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