Client: The Letters is a subscription-based email series that sends creative writing to subscribers twice a month.

Audience: Young to middle-aged men and women actively trying to reduce their social media usage and shift to reading more. Smart phones have left them too burned out to pick up a novel. They are interested in shorter material but don’t want to sacrifice artistic depth.

Tone: Sincere, passionate, inviting, mysterious.

Challenge: Communicate the joys of a mentally-demanding task (reading) to a smart-phone-distracted modern audience.

Strategy: To confront potential hesitancy to signing up, I immediately connected the benefits of subscribing to positive and desirable mood/feeling states in the headline. The subhead includes “mood-shifting” to produce further enticement, “straight to your inbox” to signal effortlessness, and “twice a month” to communicate lack of inbox burden due to infrequency. The body copy provides an idea of the type of content available to subscribers. It also paints a picture of a fantasy identity through which the client’s audience can live vicariously. Subscribing would be the next step to assume this fantasy identity and enjoy the benefits of being part of something fun, meaningful, and unique.