Hit Them in Their Preview Pane
By Stuart Ayling, Solutions Found

Research in 2007 by Marketing Sherpa showed that around 70% of at work/business email recipients view their emails in the preview pane (the small window in Outlook).

For consumer email recipients using other email clients, such as Hotmail, about 26% are viewing their emails in a preview pane.

It is critical that your email is designed so that the top 60-70 mm of screen usage contains information that will grab your readers interest. That is what will show in the preview pane.

Use a Fixed Width Format

Equally important is to maintain a fixed width for your email of around 600 pixels. Why 600 pixels? Because layouts wider than that will cause the scroll bar to appear in most computer screens (with the exception of some newer wide screens). Many readers will not scroll to the right to see what they are missing, and will therefore not see any text or images displayed there.

The top section of your email should contain important elements such as:

• Link to read the message on website.

• Permission statement about why they are receiving the email.

• Company name or logo.

• Headline, offer, or reason to continue reading.

• Contents list.

• A personal message from the writer.

That’s a lot to fit into a small space. So sometimes you might need to compromise to get the best result.

40% of Images are Blocked

Keep in mind that images do not always display within recipients email clients. The same research study mentioned earlier identified that 40% of email clients block images by default.

Many users don’t understand how to change their settings so even if instructions are provided to un-block images, it doesn’t always get changed.

Use the screen real estate of the preview pane wisely. Focus on benefits for the reader, and use a layout that combines text and images that will still appear OK and get your message across even if the images are blocked.


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