If you're using email marketing to keep in bear on with customers and prospects, you probably spend a lot of fourth dimension coming up with that perfect subject line to go every bit many people as possible to open your emails.

Y'all probably too spend a lot of fourth dimension trying to whittle the bailiwick line down to effectually fifty characters, which is typically all that can fit in an email client's window earlier it gets cut off. I know, I know, there's and then much you desire to say!

Here'south a little secret: Y'all can say more than in the pre-header of your email.

If you lot don't know what a pre-header is, you're not alone. At my company, VerticalResponse, we get this question a lot since email marketing is what nosotros do. The pre-header area is nothing more than what you include in the very top of your email. Here'due south an example, using a recent VR Buzz marketing newsletter. The subject line is about x awesome events, just the pre-header tells the reader that the email also contains 8 tips for creating a tiptop-notch blog:

The pre-header has get increasingly of import because of the growing number of people who are looking at their emails on their mobile devices. Many people accept their mobile settings set so they can at least browse the outset few lines of an e-mail without really clicking to open it. That's a huge opportunity for you to include something at the top of your email that gets your readers' attention and entices them to open information technology. Check out the same VR Fizz e-mail on an iPhone:

Here are three pre-header ideas I can recollect of off the peak of my head:

one. Phone number

If your subject area line had a killer offer and your pre-header said, "Phone call u.s. at 800-555-1212 to become this offer," all your readers would have to practice is click the phone number on their phone to call. Pretty cool, huh? I am on the email list of one of my favorite restaurants whose menu changes every mean solar day, and they fit their master form plus the reservation telephone number in the pre-header of the email.

ii. Newsletter article

If you've got an electronic mail newsletter and you lot include what you remember is the catchiest commodity headline in the discipline line, why not include the second catchiest 1 in the pre-header? If the first i didn't go subscribers to open your email, maybe the 2nd ane volition!

iii. Mobile site

If you've got a mobile version of a landing page that you lot want to send mobile users to, include the mobile link in the pre-header and the normal link in the residuum of your e-mail. You may find an increment in your overall conversions once people get to that folio.

Using a pre-header in your email marketing is a no-brainer, in my opinion, and super-like shooting fish in a barrel to include in your next campaign. Are you using pre-headers? How are they working to increase your response rates?

Did you enjoy this post? If and so, sign up for the gratuitous VR Buzz weekly newsletter  and check out the VerticalResponse Marketing Blog.