What’s the trickiest part of writing an article?
Some might say the title, others argue the outline, but you know what it really is for a lot of us?
The intro.
And now you’re asking why.
It’s simple, really.
For the writer, the intro helps get them in a flow state, where they’re ready to crush it with words.
For the reader, the intro is the first thing they read and usually a critical deciding factor if they’re still going to keep on reading.
That’s why today, we’re going to dive into the world of intro building and show you how to write engaging intro hooks for blog posts with ChatGPT.
The Problem with Intro Hooks & Why ChatGPT
There are a lot of frameworks when it comes to copywriting.
Trust us.
We’ve probably experimented with almost all of them.
However, there is no one-size-fits-all approach.
Given the critical nature of an intro hook, sometimes writing the meat of the content is the easiest part, but getting people to jump in and commit to the article in the beginning?
Now that’s difficult.
A lot of time is spent in writing an intro because there’s a lot of creative trial and error that occurs.
And that’s what we wanted to fix.
How about if we could generate every single type of intro hook for any article or blog post that every BAMFer wanted to write so that they could simply just pick and choose which one they liked the most and use that as inspiration?
Our aim was to build something so robust that you didn’t need to tweak it as much – although we will advise you to do that!
The Prompt to Write Engaging Intro Hooks for Blog Posts
This prompt took a lot of refinement and we took our time with it.
Let’s take a look.
I am a *what do you do for a living* and I need assistance in crafting a compelling *what are you writing* for my *where will you be posting this* on the topic of *insert the topic here, i.e. the meat of your content*. To captivate my readers, I need a variety of intro hooks that will engage their attention right from the start.
I am looking for various frameworks to structure the introductions, such as, storytelling, problem-solution, shocking statistics, thought-provoking questions, provocative statements, inspiring quotes, vivid scenes, personal anecdotes, building suspense, rhetorical questions, historical references, metaphors, addressing pain points, controversy, research excerpts, humor, testimonials, myth debunking, mystery, and profound statements.
Could you assist me in generating diverse and attention-grabbing intro hooks using all of the ways I described above?
The title is: *insert title here*
These hooks will set the stage for an engaging and informative piece of content, providing valuable insights to my audience of *who is your audience*.
Caveat
During testing, we found that there are times when it won’t generate a full list.
If it generates 10 or less, just use this prompt to follow up.
Give me all of them.
It’s that simple but sometimes ChatGPT doesn’t want to do all the work at once.
So how did we do it?
First of all, we gave it as much context as we can and explained exactly what the topic is about, you can even modify this prompt not to include the title but rather content that you’ve already written.
Why do we need to explain the meat of the content?
The intro is part of the content and everything needs to follow one theme. This is one of the instances where you can’t get away with just the title.
Next up, we listed every single framework we wanted to explore – there’s a caveat to this that I will explain in a separate section in this guide.
You want to be specific with the limitations that you give ChatGPT, most of the time it’s not always going to generate the same thing. By doing this, we can isolate popular frameworks that writers use for their intro hooks.
Lastly, we gave it the title and the audience.
This ensures that we get tonalities correct.
Although there will be times when some intro hooks won’t work with some audiences, giving the audience to ChatGPT before it generates allows it to “try” and output something that could be worth looking at.
Read More: Using ChatGPT to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile Summary
The Output
For this example, we used this particular prompt personalized with some generic variables.
I am a LinkedIn marketing expert and I need assistance in crafting a compelling article for my website’s blog on the topic of how to get people to understand how important LinkedIn is to their marketing efforts. To captivate my readers, I need a variety of intro hooks that will engage their attention right from the start.
I am looking for various frameworks to structure the introductions, such as, storytelling, problem-solution, shocking statistics, thought-provoking questions, provocative statements, inspiring quotes, vivid scenes, personal anecdotes, building suspense, rhetorical questions, historical references, metaphors, addressing pain points, controversy, research excerpts, humor, testimonials, myth debunking, mystery, and profound statements.
Could you assist me in generating diverse and attention-grabbing intro hooks using all of the ways I described above?
The title is: “Using LinkedIn to Take Your Business to The Next Level”
These hooks will set the stage for an engaging and informative piece of content, providing valuable insights to my audience of startup owners and founders.
Please generate all of the intro hooks and make sure they are of ample length.
We even intentionally inserted ridiculous content to check if the prompt will work and it’s a beast.
Long story short?
It’s a beast.
Read More: AI-Powered LinkedIn Optimization: ChatGPT for LinkedIn Headlines!
Takeaways
These intro hooks should just serve as a guide for your writing efforts.
You still need to tweak them, personalize them and make them your own.
You can get creative and mix and mash a couple of them to create something engaging.
One of the best ways to do this is to use a couple of them as a springboard to create your own intro by rewriting the output.
However, the best way to write an intro is organically.
There is no substitute to real human words.
This is just your tool and the outcome is only as good as the wielder.
