Much has been written about the very-quickly-becoming-mainstream preheader.
- I first saw mention of it by Lisa Harmon in her MAKE IT POP!: The Preheader Express post.
- At Bronto, we first blogged about it in February, 2008 - The Underutilized Preheader / Snippet Text.
- Chad White at The Retail Email Blog has a label dedicated to preheaders and recently posted about the postheader.
- Additionally, in June 2008, we dedicated an entire episode of BrontoFire to the famous preheader.
*This post was originally going to be titled “Preheader FAIL” and focus on how TweetBeep misused the preheader space. However, after a lengthy, healthy conversation with Chad White of The Retail Email Blog, I’ve changed my tune.
Take a look at how TweetBeep (mis)used the oh-so-precious preheader space?
- TweetBeep email in “preview pane” of Gmail
- TweetBeep email in Gmail with images off
- TweetBeep email in Gmail with images on
I’d argue - as I did in the preheader episode of BrontoFire - that you need consistency with your subject line, preheader, and call-to-action. In the TweetBeep preheader example, they utilize the space to advertise an unrelated product (Netflix). I’m not sure I agree with this approach.
Chad told me yesterday that as the preheader begins to gain more momentum (as it clearly has over the past 8 months), email marketers will experiment with different uses of the space. Maybe that is what TweetBeep is doing? Maybe they are testing. Maybe not.
What do others think? Please comment below.
DJ Waldow
Director of Best Practices & Deliverability at Bronto
Related posts:
- BrontoFire: Live – Preheaders The power to persuade a consumer to click within your...
- BrontoFire: Email Design (live from the EEC) On Monday, Chad White (one of the leading industry experts...
- The Underutilized Preheader / Snippet Text One of the many cool aspects of working in the...
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I completely agree with you that the subject line, preheader and call to action should be consistent on the whole. I would argue, however, that the intent of this email is not the same as that of an online retailer, this is an alert that you received from a social networking site. Their bread and butter, so to speak, is advertising dollars. I think utilizing the preheader space for a sponsored message in this instance makes sense: you already know who the sender is, you know what the message is regarding, so the reason to open the message is to see who and what the tweeter said about Bronto. Keeping that in mind, why wouldn’t TweetBeep utilize the preheader space to promote an advertiser? I think it is a smart and interesting new way of getting their advertiser’s message to Twitter subscribers.
That’s not to say I would agree with taking the idea a couple steps further where one retailer promoted another in its preheader space. What new trend we may find emerging is brands beginning to promote their co-registrations in this space. For example, Netflix may promote their new relationship with TiVo in their preheader space.
-Kelly Lorenz
We always use the pre-header to call out a current event on our site. Whether it’s a new promotion, Finals Week of our contests, or new product/feature on the site, it’s consistent to the CTA in the email. Some weeks it’s “Judge!”, or “Check out the iPhone App” or “Join the T-Pain competition”.. but it is always a clear CTA that is reinforced in the main message.
Brian Whalley
Community Manager
OurStage.com
I have to disagree with Kelly, based on that Gmail inbox preview view alone. If I had received that message, I might not have opened it, thinking it was some kind of third party ad for Netflix. That’s a big turnoff for me.
It wouldn’t display that way in most other email clients, though, and it is an interesting new use of that space… however, as a marketer I wouldn’t want to give that precious real estate up to another company’s advertising.
Wowser. This is what I love the *most* about email marketing. So many opinions. Two of the first three comments on this blog post are from my fellow Bronto Account Managers (Kelly and Julie). Believe it or not, we sit in the same pod…no more than 3 feet away from each other.
To me, the bottom line is this: Email marketers are still learning about the power of the preheader space. Best practices have yet to be defined, so everyone is trying, testing…exploring the space.
Love to hear others’ thoughts.
dj