Preview pane optimization

Preview pane optimization isn’t the sexiest of email topics, but it’s one of the most important. After all, you’ve worked so hard to craft an engaging subject line that has convinced your recipients to read further, why waste that opportunity to capture your recipients’ attention with wasted space in the preview pane area?

Most folks assume that others view email the same way they do, but the reality is that there are so many different email clients, which all have multiple ways of being configured that it’s quite likely no single email is viewed the same way. The more someone has to scroll to get the gist of the message, the more likely they are to give up and move on. Don’t kid yourself by thinking that you’ll get a second chance to get your point across!

EmailStatCenter.com, a leading authority on email marketing metrics, posted the following note from an ExactTarget study: 52 percent of mobile phone owners access the same email account across multiple devices (PC, laptop, mobile phone, etc.), while 48 percent have a distinct eMail account for mobile-only email. -ExactTarget “2008 Channel Preference Survey”

This means that your emails should be designed to be viewed in web-based email platforms (like gmail, hotmail, etc.) as well as in Outlook, Mac Mail or Entourage (since many people view these accounts in those platforms) as well as on iPhones and BlackBerrys (or other PDAs). Sound like a big task? Just keep these things in mind and you’ll be OK:

Insert a link in your preview header (the space above your uppermost image) to view the email on a mobile device. Here’s an example from Old Navy:

When you click the “view on mobile device” page, you’re taken here, which is optimized for a BlackBerry.

Another trick is to put the main point of the email above the header image. Here’s an example from O’Charley’s:

Here’s a quick list of other ways to optimize your email for viewing in a preview pane on any device or platform:

Reduce the size of your header image. It may be great for branding, but the taller the image, the less recipients will see of the thrust of your email in their preview pane. The more scrolling they have to do to read the message, the quicker you are to lose them.

Use alt tags as teaser copy in case images are blocked or turned off. Here’s before and after copy of an email from Snapfish that still conveys the special offering, even with images off.

Do not embed copy in images or use single, large images. What happens if your headline, call to action or even the entire email is encapsulated in a graphic? The reader can’t see it at all if that image is blocked. Make your most important points in HTML text, as well as in graphics. Also, always link to a web version of your email with all graphics intact.