How Gmail Tabs Impact Email Marketing

2013 brought about some changes for Gmail. They introduced Gmail Tabs. These tabs were designed to make Gmail users inboxes less hectic and easier to manage.

Essentially, tabs divided all of your Gmail messages into five sections: Primary, Social, Updates, Promotions, and Forums. Primary was for any direct person to person communication. Social was for any and all social media updates that you have pushed to your inbox. Updates include shipping confirmations, receipts, and the like. Promotions is for any sales or promotions emails and Forums was for things like Reddit and comment boards.

While many email marketers were worried about what would happen with the new tabs, the segmentation has actually helped marketers. Here’s how it’s helped.

Google made the change for your benefit

 Google did not create the promotions tab to punish you and make sure that your email subscribers don’t get your emails. They made that change so your emails would be delivered to your customers at the best time and within the best context.

It can sometimes be easy to forget that Google uses email marketing too. They are not going to design something that is going to punish email marketers.

Emails delivered at the right time

 Timing is very important when it comes to email marketing. When Google designed the promotions tab for Gmail, they kept that in mind. People do not want to shop when they are sorting through their initial emails of the day.

By moving promotional emails out of the inbox and into their own area, Google ensured that your promotional email would be read when your customer would be receptive to the message in the email. The promotions tab allows marketing emails to be read and not ignored, it’s a good thing that they have their own tab.

Emails delivered in the right context

 People open sales and marketing emails when they want to shop. The goal of email marketing is to drive sales. Now, with the Gmail promotions’ tab, people know where to look for deals and where to make a purchase.

Gmail’s promotions tab actually helps drives sales by making sure that your email is read when people want to shop. Segmenting marketing emails into their own tab helps put them in a place where people want them and where they will be more open to the call to action of the email.

Good content equals more sales

 It is being said over and over and over but it is worth saying again. They key to driving email sales isn’t where the email goes in the inbox or what time of day it is received. The key is good content.

Create top of the line copy. Use subject lines that stand out. Find out the calls to action that your customers respond the best to. Take great pictures and shoot standout video. Keep your email marketing message straightforward and to the point.

Great content pays and if you want to have a successful email marketing campaign, you have to focus on content. Listen to your customers. Find out what they like and what they respond to.

When you take the time to learn more about the people you are emailing and selling to, you will see the sales start to come in. Keep your content fresh and on message and people will respond to it.

At the end of the day, you can spend time fretting over changes to email clients and how it may or may not impact your business’s email marketing goals or you can buckle and make good content that can stand up to any email client changes.

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