This week on the Magnet Minute, Amy shares some advice on ways to re-work your email marketing strategy to ensure getting optimum results with Gmail’s new Tabs system.
Gmail Tabs essentially help users organize their inbox by categorizing the emails into appropriate tabs, ranging between the following categories: Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates and Forums. Users can start to take control of where their emails go by dragging them to their preferred tab and letting Gmail know to continue that trend in the future as a Tab rule.
The Promotions Tab is getting the most attention because any emails coming from email marketing platforms like Mailchimp, Infusionsoft, Aweber, etc., are being sent there. Many marketers are concerned because they don’t want their content to be surrounded with a lot of pitches and feel their open rate will significantly drop if their emails stay in this tab.
One of the most popular ways marketing companies have been handling this is to send an email from their service directly to any subscribers using Gmail. That email aims to inform them of how to move their company’s emails out of that promotional tab and to continue to see content without interruption.
But it’s tough to make this call so early on in the Tabs’ release, because we should really look and see how the open rate is being affected over time. Tabs may actually be helping your open rate rather than hurting it, as it allows people to focus on their first priorities and then, when they have time to go through everything else, it’s less overwhelming to digest promotional and other emails in these pre-set categories.
You might also consider going the route of trusting that your readers will find and read your content no matter which Tab it falls into. Instead of telling them how to handle their inbox, let them read your emails on their terms. If it turns out they never read again, it’s likely they were never really interested in the first place. If they had been, they would have located your emails in their inboxes. This could be viewed as a way to find out which of your readers is most likely to care, continue reading, and eventually contribute to your business.
Most importantly, bottom line: this is an opportunity to work on your headline writing skills. You need the attention of your readers, in whichever Tab you may fall, and a good headline will do that for you.
Any thoughts on this week’s Magnet Minute? What do you think of Gmail’s new Tabs system? Let us know in the comments and connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn.
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