This past May, Google announced the new layout of Gmail. Considering the fact that Google has 425 million active users, I’d be willing to bet that this change has effected some of you! In this new layout, email messages are automatically filtered into five different categories.
For your every day emailer, this is a dream! A realization that you no longer have to sort through all the junk mail you receive every single day, Google will do it for you. But for the people on the other end of the deal, the marketers, what does this mean for them? Do they have to work even harder now to get people to look at their emails? Hubspot customers have yet to conclude whether or not this new Gmail layout is affecting email marketers, so it is still in debate. But one thing is for sure, it is incredibly important that inbound marketers know how the new Gmail’s layout and functionality work and how this will effect how people see your email.
How Does the New Gmail Work?
The new layout distributes your email into a maximum of 5 categories: Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates, and Forums. Most of the email that marketers send out will end up in the Promotions tab, where as emails from family and close friends will appear in the Primary tab. Of course the users are able to move emails from one tab to another if they end up in the wrong place. With a little direction, Gmail will learn where you want certain messages to appear
A Change in Power
It is arguable that this new Gmail feature allows the receiver of emails to have way more power than they have ever had before. You no longer can bombard someone with a bunch of emails about your product or service and expect them to at least see them in your inbox. Now, Google will sort them and the emailer has to actively seek out the promotions tab, and then your specific email for it to be seen. However, after a consumer clicks on your email a few times, it is much more likely to end up in their Primary tab, meaning they will never miss one your of your emails again! All they have to do is drag your email to the correct tab and assign those messages an appropriate feature. So I strongly encourage making sure that your email marketing is done well and not in an overbearing unlovable way. Done in the right way, the type of email you send out to your customers could make or break where your messages will continue to end up in their Gmail Inbox.
What do you all think of the new Gmail? Do you appreciate the new features or are they making your lives harder as Marketers? Fill us in!
