Anne Holland

How to Write a Powerful Opt-In Message

December 3rd, 2001

A MarketingSherpa reader writes, “I’m trying to find advice about developing a powerful opt-in message that is both honest, yet compelling. Any idea where I could look for how-tos or great examples?”

My personal favorite email newsletter opt-in message (this week at least) was written by Dan Eskelson of ClearWater Landscape. It reads, “Learn professional landscaping tips, from ‘hands on’ gardening technique to design theory, in our free monthly ezine.”

Dan told me that he chose the wording after carefully examining his site server logs to find out what search terms visitors from search engines had found him using. Then he incorporated the most popular search terms into the opt-in message so it would strike at the hearts of visitors!

Inspired by Dan, I looked up which terms most people find our site by, and it turns out “Case Study” is the most popular — so you can guess how I’m rewording our subscription offers for the site redesign due out soon. 🙂

BTW: Case Study about ClearWater’s online marketing at:

http://www.MarketingSherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=1882

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