997 – New way to get your email opened: Tom talks Email Preview Text

SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

In this episode, Tom Antion discusses email preview text, a powerful yet underutilized tool to increase email open rates.
• What is it?
It's the short text that appears near or below your subject line in email clients (also called snippets, message preview, or just preview depending on the system). It's visible before the email is opened and can entice readers to click.
• Why use it?
Proper use of preview text can increase open rates by 8% to 30%. It offers a second chance to grab attention beyond the subject line.
• Best practices:
o Don’t duplicate the subject line.
o Add additional engaging or intriguing content.
o Keep it under 90 characters, even though some clients allow more.
o Put the best stuff first—most users don’t read long previews.
o Subject lines still matter most, since some users or platforms won’t show preview text.
• Tools:
Good email platforms like Kartra and AWeber offer easy ways to add preview text. No technical skills are needed—just type it in.
Tom closes by teasing the next episode about AI-generated email summaries and how they might impact open rates.
He also plugs:
• His free automation book (v3.0)
• Mentor program at GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com
• Digital marketing school at IMTCVA.org
• Kartra discount at screwthecommute.com/kartra
Takeaway: Use email preview text wisely—don’t ignore this simple, effective way to boost your email performance.

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Episode 997 – Email Preview Text
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 997 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today we're going to talk about email preview text. This is a relatively new thing that can help get you more open rates and stuff. So we'll talk about that today. Hope you didn't miss episode 996. That was brand visibility. These are things that you need to do because getting free traffic from Google because of I overuse in the beginning has been plummeting. The traffic to even the top sites has been plummeting. So make sure you listen to that. Episode 996. Anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to screwthecommue.com, slash, then episode number. That was 996. And make sure you pick up a copy of our automation book. It's free. And I know you've heard me say that 998 times before. Alright, but grab another copy because version 3.0 is out. That does a lot of updates. So grab that and check out my mentor program. GreatinternetmarketingTraining.com and my school IMTCVA.org.

[00:01:31] All right. So what is email preview text. Well it's text that's either below or near your email subject line. It's extra lines of information about what the email is about. And it can give the person a greater need excitement about opening the email. It helps your open rates.

[00:01:57] We talk about that in a minute. Now it has different names in different email systems like Gmail calls it snippets. Some places call it preview outlook. I mean, you think Apple calls it preview outlook calls it message preview. And a lot of your like for instance this kartra email program and I mean complete shopping cart system that includes email. You know, a lot of your places are giving you a place to put preview text. And so you should take advantage of it because it's extra chances that you'll get the email opened. And some places, I mean, the testing that's been done so far is could be an increase from eight to as high as 30% more higher open rates because of this. Now it's not to be confused with preheader text. Preheader text is like in my copywriting 901 class is pre headlines. We call it smaller text before the main headline, but that's after they already have opened the email. Or in some cases you can make it hidden. But that's too deep for this discussion. So this is seen along with the subject line when it can be seen not all email clients recognize it, but so what? It doesn't hurt you because it just because some don't use it. Many of them do. And it can help you get open quite a bit more. So this the conventional wisdom on it is you want to keep it to about under 90 characters, including spaces.

[00:03:44] Now see, the people receiving email can set their email clients from anywhere to 0 to 5 lines of preview text. Well, if they set it to zero, it ain't going to show. All right. But at five lines you can have up to 278 characters. But if you get carried away with that, hardly anybody, you know, sets them to read that many lines. And so you're probably not going to they're probably not going to see. And when you when you're limited, when you limit yourself, it forces you to put the best stuff right where they can see it. All right. Right near the beginning. If you had 278 characters, you might get to the point long after most people would have never even seen it. So don't do that now. You still must concentrate on the subject line, and a couple episodes from now I'll be doing a specific episode on subject lines, part of my email masterclass. Because again, some people refuse to to look at the previews or even allow the previews to be shown, and some don't even have the ability to see them. And so you still want to make the major emphasis on your subject line. But whenever you have the opportunity to fill in a preview text for your email, do it. And don't just make a duplicate of your subject line. Make it some other information that's exciting, that makes them want to open the email more.

[00:05:16] So you get in that increase of 8 to 30%. How about that? So I just wanted to give you a little brief thought on that. It can be complicated, but all you have to do is Google email preview text. And you'll see, you know, geeks will give you 50 pages on the details of it, but it doesn't have to be that crazy because especially if you have a good email thing like Kartra or a Weber, you know, some, you know, a Weber's just email. But Kartra is a complete shopping system that I now represent. And if you want a discount on that, you go to screwthecommute.com/kartra. But anyway, you'll start seeing when you're using these good email programs a place to put preview text. And so I want you to take advantage of it. That's the point. And if it's a place that you just pop it in, that's all you have to do. You don't have to know any geek stuff. Just put it in there and keep it. 90 characters or less is a good idea. All right. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. We'll catch you all in the next episode, which I think is, oh, a generated email summaries, which is another thing you got to start worrying about that it doesn't usurp your email opens and all that. All right. So we'll catch you on the next episode. See you later.