When it comes to email marketing, everything matters. From the subject, to the design, and the text, all these play an important role in catching the reader’s eye and inviting them to open the email. One of these most overlooked aspects is the email preheader. This article will help you understand what email preheaders are, why they are beneficial, and how to use them effectively.
Understanding Email Preheaders
Email preheaders are second-level subject lines that give readers an insider look into the email content. They’re important for a number of reasons:
Open rates — higher open rates: Preheaders lure subscribers to click through the email by giving additional content along with the subject line.
User Experience: Preheaders allow for a seamless shift from the inbox to the email, removing confusion and driving more engagement.
Mobile optimized: Preheaders are even more important for short and snappy email previews due to the smaller amount of space available on mobile devices.
Benefits of Email Preheaders:
Open Rates: A preheader can entice people to open emails by offering a preview of the content which makes the email appear urgent or intriguing. By crafting a preheader carefully, companies can really increase their open rates and improve the probability that their subscribers will click through the email and convert.
Greater Email Relevance: Using a preheader, companies can help their subscribers understand why their emails are relevant. By including relevant or personalized information and coordinating preheaders with subject lines, companies can make sure their emails are visible in a cluttered inbox and drive greater reads and conversions.
Better Branding: If an email preheader is combined with a professionally designed email template and a short subject line, it creates a unified, professional brand. That, in turn, enhances the recipient’s impression of a trustworthy and solid business, resulting in stronger relationships and a more satisfying customer experience.
Improved Deliverability: Using preheader best practices can improve the deliverability of your emails. This is because it establishes that your email follows the established format, thus signaling to email providers that the message is authentic and credible. Thus, you increase the chances that your emails land in the inbox rather than the spam folder.
Best Practices
Keep it short and sweet: Preheaders should be 40-130 characters inclusive. Avoid cluttering the text by placing the most important data or call to action in the forefront.
Action verbs: When writing a preheader text, you should focus on action verbs that compel the reader to take action. This is how to write killer preheader copy:
a. Set the bar high: Using language to make the recipient open the email as soon as possible (e.g., “Final opportunity here!”) or “Don’t wait – exclusive offers are waiting for you!
b. Ask a question: Pose a question that would interest the reader, such as “Want to transform your productivity? or “What’s the new one on the menu?”
c. Draw attention to benefits: Briefly explain what is the main benefit of receiving the email (“Get 20% off your next purchase! or “Follow the steps to boost your health today!
d. Smear the content: Provide an unmasking teaser for the email’s content (ex: “Exploring our new product line” or “Introducing our new employee!)
e. Personalize the message: Use personalization tokens like the recipient’s name or location to craft a more effective and targeted preheader, e.g., “Hey, Jessica! Look at what we’ve curated just for you!”
Match the subject line: The preheader must match the subject line and add context. Don’t use the same words or data over and over again in your subject line and preheader.
Get mobile-friendly: More than half of all emails are opened on a mobile device, so your preheader should be optimized for smaller screens. Make sure the text is legible and easy to read on desktop and mobile devices.
Evaluate and test: It’s imperative to always test and evaluate your email preheaders to ensure the highest level of effectiveness. Here are some tips to test and evaluate your preheader text as best you can:
A/B Testing of Different Preheaders
A/B testing is one of the most effective ways to improve the content of your preheader text. If you try out various versions of preheaders, marketers will ultimately decide which is the best option for their audience. You can, for instance, alter the tempo, body and call-to-action in your preheader. In some cases, the short and simple set up might be far better than the long one, and vice versa. That’s the deal: a regular analysis of the open rates for each release, as well as analytics to help you refine your approach over time.
Analyzing Engagement Metrics
Beyond open rates alone, it is crucial to keep track of all engagement metrics. You should not only know how many people opened your email, but click-through and conversion rates as well. This allows you to better understand how your preheader text aligns with the rest of the email. If you have high open rates and a low click-through rate, that may very well be a pretty good indication that there is a disconnect between your preheader and the letter itself. Trying the metrics mentioned above on a regular basis allows you to determine what needs to be changed and what messaging drives engagement.
Comparison of Performance Across Devices
Because there are multiple devices users use to receive e-mail, it’s fair to say that devices vary in performance during testing. Quite a few preheader renderings behave differently on different devices and often, readability plays an important role in opening rates. Try testing exactly what your preheader text appears on different screens and adjust accordingly to ensure you’re speaking the same language to everyone. It means that an consistent, immersive interface allows you to leverage a better user experience to encourage recipients to read your content on any device they might have.
Segmenting Your Audience
Your audience will not be all the same when it comes to preheader text. Consider variant testing on several different preheaders with different audiences in order to maximize ROI. A demographic-, customer-persona- and behavior-based response analysis reveals which preferences govern how your emails are received by segments. If you create preheader copy that is crafted on the basis of this data, you can increase engagement rates to an exponential extent by making messaging seem more unique and tailored to the group at hand.
Tracking Subject Line and Preheader Responses
Finally, think about the combination of subject lines and preheaders. These go hand in hand; both a great subject line and a great preheader will encourage more engagement in your emails. Learn the subject line/preheader combinations that get users’ attention, and refine your approach accordingly. And sometimes, by simply adjusting what’s written in the preheader, you’ll make the subject line more open-friendly.
Conclusion:
Email preheaders might not be that big of a deal, but it can greatly affect the success of an email marketing campaign. Preheaders make your email more likely to be opened, received, and clicked on if they present an attractive summary of what’s inside. As long as you do the optimum thing, test and analyze your performance over and over again, you can take advantage of preheaders in order to make the most out of your email campaigns.
