Header text is a must have best practice for any serious email marketer.  This text will display in an email even when images are blocked and formatting is not quite right.  This actionable area, at a minimum, should deliver the point of the email and have a link to the online version. Header text should be clear, clean and actionable.

The specialty kitchenware retailer and culinary mecca, Sur La Table, recently updated their email header text.  The new text not only follows header text best practices, but it also conserves precious email real-estate, and looks great.

Here is the updated header text. Notice the links are all clickable and are in one line at the top of the email.

Here is the original header text.  The text is not all click-able, is a bit long-winded, and takes up valuable, above the fold, vertical real-estate.

What do you think about these updates?  Have you updated your header text?  Please share your experiences and thoughts with us!