When Gmail launched a new tab feature to filter email types, it sent marketers into a panic. Hailed as \u201cEmail Apocalypse,\u201d the new system created a lot of panic and confusion. That confusion is still there today for marketers who\u2019ve been unable to get their email campaigns out of what they see as the \u201cno man\u2019s land\u201d of email marketing.<\/p>\n
There are a couple of ways around this. One you can guide users how to move your email campaigns from one tab into a primary inbox. You can offer a little instruction blog post and video and keep hoping that users are catching on. Or you can embrace Gmail\u2019s genius.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s why. Worldwide there are about 205 billion email messages sent every day. That\u2019s a lot of emails. To be able to understand this from a marketing perspective, you\u2019ve got to first understand your user. Chances are they\u2019re a Gmail user and they\u2019re not in their email as much as you are. It is also not their job (as it might be yours) to get to inbox zero every day. As a frequent email user who is constantly swamped and\u00a0 uses email for work, here\u2019s a small insight into what\u2019s really going on.<\/p>\n
Most emails can take anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour to respond to, depending on the level of follow-up work I\u2019m required to do, including\u00a0 researching what the sender is talking about. This takes time. And while I\u2019m trying to get to an email, I\u2019ve got other priorities and I\u2019ve got distractions. This means that on any given day I\u2019m nowhere near email zero and my email messages are now another task I need to cross off.<\/p>\n
Having a promotions tab is a life saver because it keeps apart the information I want from the information I need to respond to. Because of the promos tab in my Gmail, I\u2019m not drowning in a sea of mixed emails that don\u2019t differentiate between priorities or data types.<\/p>\n
From a marketing perspective, you\u2019re going to be disappointed because your open rates will suffer. Since you don\u2019t have primary real estate anymore, you\u2019re not getting the same click-open rates you did before. But, when people do get to your email you\u2019re much more likely to have them stay on your page longer and increase your conversions, because now I\u2019m focused on what you have to say \u2013 because I\u2019ve come to it at my own time rather than having you compete with work emails through the day.<\/p>\n
That said, you also don\u2019t want your emails to be seen as promotions, which is the problem I have with (not the tab itself, but) the name of the tab. You want your email campaigns to stand apart from sales oriented promotions that are just about pushing something onto the reader. You can do this by starting to personalize your email campaigns. Take the example of magazine editors who start of each new issue with a \u201cletter from the editor.\u201d It personalizes the message and it leads into what\u2019s next. There\u2019s no reason why your campaigns can\u2019t be personalized. Even if it\u2019s a strict pushing of the coupon, you can still have something personal at the bottom banner of the email. Ultimately, this invokes a cultural change that makes email campaigns more intimate. If you can create a connection with your reader, your reader will come looking for you or at the very least spot your email campaigns.<\/p>\n
This strategy also helps reduce unsubscribe rates. I have about one unsubscribe per email campaign until I started leading with a \u201cMessage from Shireen Qudosi\u201d at the start of each campaign. It completely squashed the unsubscribes because now it\u2019s personal and being personal means being \u2013 and getting others \u2013 invested.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Gmail launched a new tab feature to filter email types, it sent marketers into a panic. Hailed as \u201cEmail Apocalypse,\u201d the new system created a lot of panic and confusion. That confusion is still there today for marketers who\u2019ve been unable to get their email campaigns out of what they see as the \u201cno…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":309,"featured_media":12338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2186],"tags":[572,2204,2644,2646,2647],"class_list":["post-12337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2186","tag-gmail","tag-2204","tag-2644","tag-2646","tag-2647"],"yoast_head":"\n