Hook generator
A free hook generator for marketing content: describe your product and get six content angles, a hook bank built from eight proven structures, a product bridge that doesn't read as an ad, and a creative testing matrix that changes one variable at a time. B2B or consumer app — nothing you type leaves your browser.
step 1
Start with the moment, not the emotion
“Users feel stressed” produces nothing. “It’s 11pm and the exam is tomorrow” produces a hundred pieces. Specific moments are what make stories possible.
Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is sent anywhere.
step 2
Pick a core narrative
A hook gets attention; a narrative decides what the piece is about. Three to six of these will out-produce brainstorming fresh ideas every Monday — each one is good for dozens of pieces.
Format is not a style choice: each narrative is matched to the cheapest format that can actually carry it. Text post — Opinions and lived moments. Nothing to produce, so you can run volume.
step 3
Generate hooks from proven structures
You don’t need a hundred original ideas — you need proven structures pointed at a real problem. The label on each hook is the transferable part: copy the mechanism, never the topic.
step 4
Bridge to the product without killing the piece
This is where most of them die: a real story, then an abrupt “download our app”, and the viewer realises they’ve been watching an ad. The insight beat is what earns the product beat.
- HookNobody tells you that "the forecast call where the number moves again" is the first sign you're drifting into a pipeline that dries up every quarter.
- Problem"The forecast call where the number moves again" — and it keeps happening.
- InsightSending more cold outreach treats the symptom. The actual driver is a pipeline that dries up every quarter, which is why it returns.
- MechanismWhat moves it is surfacing the demand that already exists — small, repeatable, and boring on purpose.
- ProductThat is the whole reason marketinque exists. It is surfacing the demand that already exists, made automatic.
- OutcomeA forecast you can actually defend — arrived at through the slow drift, not asserted.
step 5
Turn it into a testing matrix
Every row changes exactly one variable against the control. Change two and a win teaches you nothing about which one caused it.
| Variant | Emotion | Narrative | Hook | Mechanism | Format | CTA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Control | recognition → unease | The slow drift | Nobody tells you that "the forecast call where the number moves again" is the first sign you're drifting into a pipeline that dries up every quarter. | fear + loss aversion | Text post | Link in the first comment |
| ↻ Hook structure | recognition → unease | The slow drift | 5 signs you're drifting into a pipeline that dries up every quarter — and what to do about each one. | closed loop + countable payoff | Text post | Link in the first comment |
| ↻ Hook structure | recognition → unease | The slow drift | Unpopular opinion: sending more cold outreach is the reason a pipeline that dries up every quarter keeps coming back. | conflict + pattern interrupt | Text post | Link in the first comment |
| ↻ Narrative | loss aversion | The hidden cost | Nobody tells you that "the forecast call where the number moves again" is the first sign a pipeline that dries up every quarter is costing you more than you think. | fear + loss aversion | Text post | Link in the first comment |
| ↻ Format | recognition → unease | The slow drift | Nobody tells you that "the forecast call where the number moves again" is the first sign you're drifting into a pipeline that dries up every quarter. | fear + loss aversion | Founder video | Link in the first comment |
| ↻ CTA | recognition → unease | The slow drift | Nobody tells you that "the forecast call where the number moves again" is the first sign you're drifting into a pipeline that dries up every quarter. | fear + loss aversion | Text post | Comment the keyword for the template |
The CSV carries all eleven columns, including audience, pain, trigger, and the product bridge — paste it into the sheet where you log results.
step 6
Build the reference bank yourself
The one input no tool can generate. Structures are portable; knowing which ones are currently working in your buyer’s feed is research, and it decays.
Direct competitors
Their best-performing posts of the last quarter. Log the hook, the format, and the proof they lead with.
Your buyer's own feed
The practitioners your buyer follows — usually not vendors. Their format vocabulary is the one your buyer is fluent in.
Adjacent niches
Categories that sell to the same title on a different problem. Structures port across problems more reliably than within them.
Creators who sell their own thing
People monetising their own audience directly. They cannot afford attention that does not convert, so the bridge is always visible.
Made with marketinque — the demand generation toolkit.
How this hook generator works
Most content strategies start from the wrong question. “What’s a viral idea for our product?” has no repeatable answer, which is why the output is a fresh brainstorm every Monday and a channel that never compounds. The better question is what your customer already cares about, what content already earns their attention, and how your product can enter that conversation as the answer rather than the interruption.
This tool walks that sequence. You give it a target user, a core problem, and — the field that does most of the work — the specific moment the problem is felt. From those it derives six core narratives: not topics, but six different relationships to the same pain (drifting into it, paying for it, mis-treating it, decoding it, the moment it becomes undeniable, and life after it). Each narrative is matched to the cheapest format that can actually carry it, because escalating a talking head into a skit adds production cost without adding communication.
Each narrative then gets a hook bank built from eight proven structures — warning, list, contrarian, authority, story, this-is-your-sign, delayed reveal, and transformation — with the mechanism labeled on every one. That label is the point: when a competitor’s post performs, the transferable part is never the topic, it is the structure underneath. The product bridgethen runs hook → problem → insight → mechanism → product → outcome, which exists to prevent the single most common failure: a genuinely good story that ends in an abrupt “download our app” and retroactively becomes an ad.
Finally it compiles a testing matrix — a control plus five variants, each moving exactly one variable. That discipline is the difference between volume that produces data and volume that produces noise. Copy it as Markdown for the brief, or CSV for the sheet you log results in. For the distribution side of the same problem, see the Reddit self-promo pre-flight check and the plays library; for the budget and funnel maths underneath a channel bet, the demand gen planner.
Frequently asked questions
Why start with a trigger moment instead of an emotion?
“Users feel stressed” cannot be filmed or written — it has no scene in it. “It’s 11pm, the exam is tomorrow, and they haven’t started” can be, because it has a time, a place, and a stake. Emotions are categories; moments are stories. The whole matrix is built downstream of that one input, which is why it is the first field.
What does “steal the mechanism, not the video” mean?
A hook like “My dad is a nutritionist — here are 5 things he’d never eat” works because of authority plus a contrarian claim plus a list, not because of nutrition. The topic is the disposable part; the structure ports to any market. Every hook this tool generates is labeled with the mechanism it runs on, so you copy the transferable half.
Why does each row of the matrix change only one variable?
Because a result you cannot attribute is not data. If a variant changes the hook and the format and the piece outperforms, you have learned that something worked — which is what you already knew. Changing one column at a time is slower per test and far faster to a repeatable format.
How many narratives should I actually run?
Three to six. Fewer and you are betting the channel on one angle; more and none of them accumulates enough tests to prove itself. Each narrative should be good for dozens of pieces — if you exhaust one in a week, it was a hook, not a narrative.
What is the difference between the B2B and consumer modes?
The mechanisms are identical — fear, curiosity, conflict, authority, transformation, the open loop. What changes is the surface: the format menu (talking head, slideshow, skit versus text post, carousel, teardown, community answer) and the phrasing of each hook structure. Switch modes to see the same strategy rendered in the other vocabulary.
What makes a good hook?
A good hook earns the next three seconds, and it does that through a structure rather than a topic: a warning that implies loss, a list that promises a countable payoff, a contrarian claim that creates conflict, an open loop that withholds the resolution, or a story that starts mid-scene. The topic is interchangeable. The structure is what transfers, which is why every hook this generator produces is labeled with the mechanism it runs on.
Is this hook generator free?
Yes — free, no signup, no account, and no usage limit. It is deterministic rather than LLM-backed, so it costs nothing to run and produces the same output for the same inputs. There is no paid tier of this tool to upsell you to.
Does anything I type get sent to your servers?
No. The generator is deterministic and runs entirely in your browser — there is no network call, no LLM, and no account. Nothing is stored, which also means nothing is saved when you close the tab: copy the brief before you leave.
The part this tool can’t do for you
A matrix is only worth as much as the volume you run through it. marketinque researches the communities and conversations your buyer is already in, drafts the pieces against narratives like these, and publishes nothing without your one-tap approval — so the loop of test, measure, kill, and iterate actually runs every week.
One email when marketinque opens to operators. No drip sequence follows.