An email came in the other day from my utility company, telling me they received my payment.

“Return to Home Dear Scott Burton” it began…

Obviously, when the message was pulled up completely, it was formatted to look all pretty, but that doesn’t come through on a preview in Gmail, Outlook, etc, as well as most PDAs.

This brings up two keys points about email in general, but especially the first line.

1. Make sure it is readable if no styling is applied. As mentioned, the first glance at your email will usually be through a preview or a PDA. The biggest offenders here are generated mailers and that means they’re the easiest to fix, although it may take a little fight with your marketing department.

2. Make your point in the first sentence. For the same reason, you don’t want your reader to have to scan through a few paragraphs to get to the point of your email. They may have to refer to the rest of it later to get details, but between the subject and the first sentence, they should be able to know what’s going on.