Brian LaMannaAE @ Gong | Closed Won 🦙 | 7x President’s Club

Increase Your Email Open Rates (one overlooked tip)

2 Jan 2026 · 1 min

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1:16

Brian LaManna, a former Gong account executive, argues that preview text—the first 30-40 characters visible in inboxes—is critical for cold-email open rates. He generated $3 million in pipeline using cold email and says strong preview text should reference an exec's name, product, or specific initiative like a launch date, not generic greetings.

Questions this video answers

Over $3 million in pipeline.

Over 73 meetings.

The first eight words, realistically ~30–40 characters of your email.

50%.

Chapters

As an enterprise account executive at Gong last year I self sourced over $3 million in pipeline and self sourced over 73 meetings via cold email. This advice here is the forgotten stepchild of cold emailing. It's preview text. It's the first eight words, realistically 30 to 40 characters of your email. See, 50% of emails today they're read on mobile and the preview text especially stands out there. Your goal is to use unique verbiage in your observation right off the bat. These first eight wor should include something like an exec's name, a product name, a customer of theirs, a specific new initiative. So here's what bad sounds like in a preview text. My name is Brian Lamana and I'm the new rep assigned to or hope all's well with you and you had a nice weekend. Or to introduce myself, I work at gong, the leading revenue blank blank blank. Here's what good sounds like. Alternatively, I came across the launch of Cyber Blast that went live January 15th. Or read about our new launch into manufacturing and med tech. Or listened to Kevin on Grits podcast and heard him mention when you parry really strong subject line with a compelling preview text, that is your formula for success for breaking through inbox clutter in 2025.