A growing number of inboxes (such as Gmail, Outlook and most mobile devices) offer a small preview text for each email. Gmail's look like this:
Those greyish words right next to the subject line are pulled from the email's own copy. This is known as "snippet" or "pre-header", which you can - and should - use to add some extra sizzle to your subject!
This, along with your sender name and sending reputation, is what affects your open rate the most! However, if your email's first words are not particularly engaging or you've added something like "Images not showing? Click here for a web version" to the top of your copy, that's what the snippet will display. Aw, bummer :(
E-goi to the rescue! Let's customise your snippet with a dedicated text without affecting your copy at all:
1) While editing your email message in E-goi, go to the Options step and click Advanced.
2) Untick Auto-generate snippet (which would use your email's first words as a preview) and type in your snippet text (no more than about 160 characters long). Make sure it's punchy, straight to the point and a fitting clincher to your subject line.
Done! That's as simple as it gets. While previewing your email in E-goi, you'll see your custom snippet next to the subject.
If my snippet text is small, the email's first words will sneak into the preview. How can I prevent this?
You can't :( . Gmail's preview, for example, will always snap your email contents to the snippet (even if you add trailing spaces to it). You should either make your snippet text longer or change your email's first words so they segue nicely from your snippet.