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On LinkedIn, one of the keys to standing out is a captivating hook that reveals your uniqueness and arouses interest.
Your profile often becomes the first point of contact with professionals from all over the world – and above all, your prospects! That’s why it’s crucial to make an impact right from the start.
What is a LinkedIn hook? Why do you need to work hard on it? And how do you go about it?
In this article, I’ll give you all the keys to creating a hook that works, and I’ll give you 15 examples to boost your engagement!
What is a LinkedIn hook?
A hook on LinkedIn, as the name suggests, is a copywriting technique that aims to create an impactful sentence that holds the interest of those who read it.
If you read my articles on The Growth Machine blog, you already know that copywriting plays a vital role on LinkedIn.
In fact, there are several very specific places or situations in which you’ll need to work on your copywriting: your profile, your LinkedIn outreach messages, LinkedIn posts…
The hook needs to be worked on in each of these places and can take several forms.
That’s what I’m going to show you just below.
Different types of LinkedIn hooks
On LinkedIn, the hook can be differentiated in 3 ways:
1. The hook of your LinkedIn posts;
2. The hook of your LinkedIn profile;
3. The hook of your LinkedIn messages.
Hooks for your LinkedIn posts
The hook is designed to catch your eye and make you want to click (=engage) to read the rest.
It plays with the rules of LinkedIn, which only displays a limited number of characters for a post when you scroll.
Quick Tip 💡
I remind you that the more people click, the more LinkedIn sees a positive signal, and the more your reach improves. Hook strategies for LinkedIn posts are therefore formidable.
Hooks for your LinkedIn profile
This second type of tagline concerns your LinkedIn profile bio.
It appears below your profile photo and below your cover photo, at the top of your profile, above the waterline.
The LinkedIn bio isn’t necessarily a hook: it’s a space in which you can write whatever you like.
But assume that :
- people don’t have time to read what you put on LinkedIn unless they’re really hooked;
- you need to make it clear very quickly who you are and what you do.
With this in mind, a good strategy is to transform the “bio paragraph” into a “bio tagline”, i.e. summarize your LinkedIn profile in one simple, effective sentence.
Hooks for your LinkedIn messages
When you connect with a prospect on LinkedIn, you’ll need to “break the ice”, i.e. send an initial LinkedIn message.
Knowing that your prospect is undoubtedly saturated with messages on a daily basis, you need to find a way to differentiate yourself, to slip through the cracks.
Once again, this is the job of the LinkedIn hook. Think of it as a LinkedIn icebreaker.
And it’s this latter hook that I’m going to focus on in this post and give you some pointers on how to get it right.
Why do you need LinkedIn hooks?
To put it very simply, as you’ll no doubt have already understood from reading the sections above, a good LinkedIn hook enables you to hold your reader’s attention and improve your engagement.
It’s an essential technique in these days of ultra-competition and content saturation.
Mastering the copywriting of your LinkedIn hook isn’t easy, but don’t panic, I’m going to give you my advice on how to stack the odds in your favor and improve your performance on LinkedIn.
How to hook your LinkedIn leads?
Of all the different types of LinkedIn hooks I mentioned earlier, I wanted to focus on the ones that actually matter- outreach LinkedIn hooks.
I could very well tell you that there are X steps you need to take in order to craft the perfect message that’ll hook your LinkedIn leads.
Believe me, I wish the gurus who preach this were right, my life in the outreach world would be so much easier… 🙃
But alas! The fact of the matter is, there is no amount of steps that can help you with this, it has to come from you.
You’re the one who knows their audience better than anyone. You’re the one who knows their product better than anyone.
All I can do here is give you some pointers -call them best practices if you will, on how to go about outreaching new leads.
LinkedIn Hooks Best Practices 🎣
Here are the insights that I extracted from the templates I’ll show you later on. Honestly, there’s no “secret formula” or some treasure trove that’ll unlock your conversion rate.
- Properly lay the groundwork: Do ‘future you’ a solid and segment your market well. Don’t scrape hundreds of contact details and throw them all in one campaign. Learn to divide, personalize, and conquer! If you want our full in-depth guide on segmentation, 👈 click here!
- Be direct: As cliché as it sounds, don’t beat around the bush. People simply don’t have the time for shenanigans.
- Be confident: If you did your segmentation correctly (after following our guide obviously you did! 😏), hooking leads in shouldn’t pose a problem because you already know how this or that persona values your product, how to talk to them, what features you need to focus on, etc.
- Transparency is key: In the same way as being direct, let the person know what you’re adding them for. Ditch the: “Hey! I saw you work at [insert whatever job position or company name here], would you like to connect?”. I’m cringing already as I write it. 😖
If I had to summarize these best practices, it’d be: just be human. You don’t have the time for nonsense, and neither do your leads. If you did your homework right, it should go as smooth as butter!
I’ll prove it even further with the templates I’m about to share with you. Read on! 👇
15 ridiculously effective LinkedIn Hooks you can use:
I know what you’re going to say; I just said there is no such thing as a “Perfect template”… 😅
Well, I’m trying to help you out here! So I pulled our best-performing message from ALL of our clients and made templates out of them.
Yes. These messages come directly from campaigns that had at least a whopping 40% reply rate.
I also grouped them -as much as I can- into different categories so you know which template to use in what situation.
1. Networking and Event-Related Invitations
Logically, the first category has to be about networking events. It’s one of the most relatable LinkedIn things ever..
That’s why you’ll find that these not only have crazy high reply rates, but they also are the most recurring amongst the top messages that our clients use.
Hi, I noticed you’re also participating in the {event| forum| Slack| etc.}! How about we connect? That way, we can see each other’s posts and support one another in this great adventure 😉
Looking forward to reading your next posts!
65% reply rate
Hello {{firstname}}!
I just noticed that we weren’t connected on LinkedIn! Did you see my email about the {{event}} on {{date}} with {{special thing about event}}?
Thanks for your reply! (Places are limited).
59.3% reply rate
Hey {{firstname}}, congrats on your new {{jobTitle}} role and on taking over the {{function}} function- exciting times! Looking forward to connecting with you.
{{identity.firstname}}
45.1% reply rate
Invitation – {{eventName}}:
Hello {{firstname}}, as promised, here’s the link to register for the second edition of the {{eventName}}.
Can’t wait to see you there! {{link}}
42.3% reply rate
Hello {{firstname}}, I was at the {{event}} in {{location}} where my collaborators {{identity1.firstname}} and {{identity2.firstname}} were present.
I heard about {{achievement}}! Bravo ! 😉
41.7% reply rate
Hello {{firstname}}, I saw you were also on the {{eventName}} webinar.
Are you freelancing or working on a project?
40% reply rate
2. Job Opportunities and Recruitment
Of course, recruiting comes in second. Never forget to add a note to your recruiting outreach! You let the person know what it is you’re looking for, and if the candidate isn’t interested, well they won’t accept you because they know what you’re after!
There’s no downside.
Hello {{firstname}}, I’ve recently raised some funds and am looking to surround myself with {{jobTitle}}s.
Are you open to a potential collaboration?
64.3% reply rate
Dear {{firstname}}, I saw your Linkedin profile and it sounds like there is room to cooperate.
We are looking for {{jobTitle}} willing to provide their services to our clients and partners.
Does it make sense to connect ?
Best,
{{firstname}}
43.8% reply rate
Hello {{firstname}}, I noticed you studied {{specialization}}. I’m a talent recruiter for {{identity.specialization}}.
I’d be delighted to have you join my network.
{{identity.firstname}}
43.5% reply rate
Hello {{firstname}}, I’m looking for a {{jobTitle}} to join my {{department}} team at {{identity.companyName}} ({{identity.location}}).
How about I send you the job description?
Ttyl,
{{identity.firstname}}
40.3% reply rate
3. Content Sharing and Engagement
You know when you see those posts “Comment & Like this so you can access…”?
Well, this is what goes on behind the scenes once you “Like and Comment” the person’s post.
Hello {{firstname}}. Following up on your comment on my post from yesterday ({{topic}}). Once you’ve accepted my connection request, I’ll send you the document :)
53% reply rate
Hey, just sharing the document for {{topic}} :)
48.3% reply rate
Fun fact, this was automated fully using our tool! Thanks to LGM, you can now import the list of people who interact with your LinkedIn posts, follow your Company Page, or attend your event on LinkedIn! 👉 Click right here to learn how!
4. Miscellaneous:
I just didn’t find a common theme for these ones. Do with that information what you will! 😅
Hello {{firstname}},
I’m in charge of content at {{companyName}}: I’m reaching out because I saw that you’ve used {{feature used}}. Let’s talk about it?
53.8% reply rate
Hi {{firstname}}!
I’m writing because I’m looking to discuss with {{jobTitle}}s to get some insights and share experiences to help me understand how to recruit effectively for this position: Experiences, Seniority level, Soft Skills, etc.
Thank you very much!
{{identity.firstname}}
42.9% reply rate
Hello {{firstname}},
We are looking for {offices| partners| collaborators| etc.} to meet the regular needs of our network members.
Do you have time for a quick call? I’ll introduce you to {{identity.companyName}}
41.7% reply rate
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there’s nothing special or hack-like about any of these messages. It’s just simple, direct outreach.
When I first took a look at this list, I almost laughed because of just how simple it is. 🙃
When you see the reply rates and realize that the “normal” or “standard” reply rates are around 20-30%.. You realize how big of an achievement this is!
But if I’m being completely honest, I haven’t talked to any of these clients -I don’t even know who they are, but I’m willing to bet that these ridiculous reply rates shouldn’t completely be attributed to *just* the copywriting.
I’m willing to bet that they had an on-point segmentation and their audience sizes wouldn’t exceed 100 people tops so that they can personalize their outreach as much as possible.
If you want to have a similar reply rate, make sure to read our segmentation guide that I linked earlier. 👆 Or, if you already have your segmentation in the bag, learn how you can personalize these templates to your liking with LGM’s 24 variables:
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