Call it what you will – a blow to the email marketer or a win for the overcrowded inbox – Gmail’s new Promotion Tab will likely be around for a while. And it will give email marketers as many headaches and sleepless nights as the SPAM filter did in its early days.
In truth, it’s too early to tell. The Promotions Tab may ultimately prove to be advantageous; for now, email marketers simply need to do the following:
- Keep calm and monitor the numbers: stats can tell you a lot.
- Keep creating viable, valuable email content: great content creates brand believers.
- Keep thinking strategically: your marketing message is lost without a solid strategy.
Not surprising: there have been several emails and blog posts covering the topic of the Promotions Tab. Many have focused on tutorials for the customer, a la “Here’s How to Revert Back to the Original Gmail” or “Make My Message Appear in your Primary Inbox!”
Haven’t seen one yet? Here’s the gist:
How to Clear Messages for Display in Gmail’s Primary Inbox
- Visit the new “Promotions” tab.
- Locate message you wish to appear in your Primary Inbox.
- Drag the message from “Promotions” to “Primary.”
- Click “Yes” to make the change permanent.
Rather than recreating the wheel, below are a few articles that talk about ways to show up in a user’s Primary Inbox rather than the new Promotions Tab. There is a primary consistency between all three: each recommends marketers inform their subscribers of the changes.
Spreading this message may not prompt substantial follow-through, as only those who are truly and regularly engaged by your brand’s emails are likely to follow the steps. But it’s a start, and vital to keep your subscribers informed.
Email marketers will also need to become smarter in their email content development.
1. Copyblogger: 7 Ways to Survive Gmail’s New Promotion Tab
This is one of my favorites. Copyblogger provides tips on optimizing your email marketing while emphasizing the importance of communicating the change to your subscribers. Copyblogger reminds readers that there may be benefits to the change:
If your readers are engaged, they’re not going to stop thinking you’re a good egg just because your email is in a different tab now. And putting your email newsletters (and blog posts) into a special tab might allow your readers to devote more attention to them.
The article then goes on to list seven tips to keep in mind given the new change, including a renewed “focus on your most engaged customers” and providing “a blog and social media ‘cover’ for important emails.”
2. Entrepreneur: No, Gmail’s Promotions Tab Didn’t Just Kill Email Marketing
What I like about this article is author DJ Waldow provides a simple five-step process for email marketers to follow if they are concerned about how the Promotions Tab is affecting/will affect their marketing. Here are the first three:
- Don’t panic. Take a deep breath. Chug some water. Walk around the block.
- Create a segment of your email list showing only subscribers with a Gmail address.
- Run some reports to see what the historic open, click, and (most importantly) conversion rate is of your Gmail subscribers.
Visit the link for the final two.
3. Marketing Land: Keep Calm & Send Email…
Marketing Land takes a different, more data-driven approach. Author Amy Gesenhues drops in quotes from several email marketers, including notables from email marketing platform companies like Constant Contact and MailChimp. The following quote is from the latter:
“I trimmed my data to a lean six weeks around the introduction of tabs. That’s about 1.5 billion emails, which is plenty of records for a good analysis,” writes MailChimp’s Matthew Grove, “I learned from my research that the new Gmail inbox is bringing down open rates, but the change isn’t dramatic at this point.”
This is a great article as it begins with an overview of the situation and delves into how it may impact email marketing before getting analytical.
Above photo by Mindaugas Danys on Flickr. Leave a comment with your thoughts, findings, or another link you found useful.