Marketing Hooks

Give Me One Reason To Stay Here

When you begin to write your Product Description for Amazon or other retailers, always think about the old Tracy Chapman song mentioned above.

She sings: "Give me a reason to stay here, or I'll turn my back around."

If you don't give the web visitor a reason to stay on your book (or other product) page, she will turn her back around and go to another webpage.

At the beginning of your product description or book blurb, give the visitor reasons to stay and buy your book. How? Entice with marketing hooks that cannot be ignored.

Marketing Hooks

Marketing hooks are buzz words or phrases that do these 3 things:

1. create excitement about your book

2. tell the reader what kind of book it is

3. make the reader want to read the book.

Are Great Reviews Marketing Hooks?

Sadly, they're usually not. They are only relevant if the reviews mean anything to a particular book browser. A lot of people who read ebooks have already learned that reviews posted on the book page may not equate to quality. Writers have learned that reviews may not mean good sales. Don't depend on book reviews to create excitement.

What readers look for is a description that makes them excited about the book and tells them what kind of book it is and makes them want to read the book. What can do that are marketing hooks. These are commonly called tropes--common literary devices or motifs that are popular with readers.

Here are a few:

* runaway bride
* secret baby
* ugly duckling
* amnesia
* debt of honor
* Cinderella
* evil twin
* love at first sight
* bad cop
* ripped from the headlines
* woman in jeopardy
* marriage of convenience.

Takeaway Truth

How many books can you recall with the above tropes? Did the product description contain the trope as a keyword?