It’s a change directed for the 425 plus
million users of Gmail.
But how it can affect your email
marketing?
And what you can
do about it?
The New Change
Recently, Gmail
has rolled out a tabbed feature which categorized mails in five different
compartments:
Primary:
person-to-person conversations and messages that don't appear in other tabs
Social:
messages from social networks, media-sharing sites, online dating services, and
other social websites
Promotions: deals, offers,
and other marketing emails
Updates: personal,
auto-generated updates including confirmations, bills, receipts, bills, and
statements
Forums: messages from
online groups, discussion boards, and mailing lists
The Impact on Email Marketing
Gmail’s
new tab has empowered the users who can now easily sort through personal mails,
social updates, sales and marketing promotions and other updates from their
online forums. Since Gmail’s new tab automatically separates the promotional
mails away from main inbox, readers can straight away delete unwanted marketing
emails. And it has already started to pose some new threats (though nothing much
to panic about) for email marketers, if reports are to be believed. MailChimp
has concluded that they have registered small but definite drops in open rates.
Return Path had registered a .5% drop in open rates, but only for desktop
users. And according to HubSpot, “the impact of the changes has been mixed.”
So how do you as an email marketer
combat this new change?
Educate the readers. Gently
address this issue with the customers. You can educate them on how they can use
the new tab features to migrate your mails to primary tab. Gmail will implement
this reader’s preference.
Timing is important. You
need to figure out the best time when you need to send out your emails. Readers
will perhaps check their primary folder throughout the day; but might have
allotted time for the social and promotional ones. So you need to deliver your
emails when it has the best chance of getting open.
Quality is still the king. Quality
content will always find acceptance with the readers. So if you continue to
deliver useful, relevant and engaging content – readers will seek out for your
emails irrespective of whichever tab it’s located in. The golden rule of email
marketing remains unchanged.
Use data analytics. Rigorously
look for the changes in the metrics and align your email marketing campaigns
based on the results. For example, if there are no changes in the opens and
clicks, you need not worry much about the tabs. However, if you see a decline
in the metrics, then you definitely need to do something about it.
Email
marketers just need to keep a close watch on how Gmail’s new tabs affect the
results of their email marketing. And based on the data, they can come up with
their strategies. As of now, it’s little bit premature to pass on any judgement.
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