Gmail Priority Inbox encourages Digital Rapport in Email Marketing

We've been talking  about things like preference centres being rapport building because it gives control to the recipient, well now Gmail has announced the beta launch of 'Priority Inbox' a new feature which gives more control within the inbox itself.  Andy Thorpe takes a look at this new feature and what it means for email marketers.

What is Priority Inbox?

We've been talking  about things like preference centres being rapport building because it gives control to the recipient, well now Gmail has announced the beta launch of 'Priority Inbox' a new feature which gives more control within the inbox itself.

Using Google's industry leading algorithms for user and content tracking, the Gmail inbox is capable of prioritising your emails for you based on your interaction history with each sender.

It also associates those metrics with content in other emails to mark similar emails you like as more important.

Priority Inbox has three priority levels, which essentially gives users three inboxes:
‘Priority’, ‘Starred’ & ‘Everything Else'.

To add to that, in the same way as your spam filters learns what to send to junk every time you hit the spam button, Inbox Priority will adapt its own rules every time you open an email, click a link, reply to an email, add your safe list and of course archive without opening  and mark as spam.

In addition you also get your own inbox controls where you can change the priority of each individual email in the inbox to correct any incorrect assumptions, and of course Inbox Priority will learn from these actions too.

Finally, the cherry on top is the advanced filtering option, which allows you to nominate priorities when creating manual filters as well.

If you haven't got it yet, don’t worry, Google will be rolling Priority Inbox out to everyone over the coming week.

How can it help me?

Inbox Priority will prioritise emails from senders who have the best 'digital rapport' with each Gmail user. Never before has it been so important to get that open and that click but now also to receive replies and to be added to their address book and more. Much like many people's common filtering of regular online retail emails like Amazon, you want to avoid being de-prioritised.

1.    In order to make sure you get to where you need to be in your Gmail recipients' inboxes, you have to be and stay relevant. 

2.    Segregation of your lists in relation to preferences of content and frequency is increasingly important. You can do this easily by linking to a preference centre from your welcome message - merely a click through to a modified and pre-populating sign-up form to ask an extra few questions that would have been too complicated.

3.    Gmail's inbox snippets will play a big part. The first line of your preheader or "Trust Earning Text" will be included next to the subject line in the inbox, so elaborate on your subject line in that first line with a teaser for instance. Add your brand name and why they got the email to the 2nd line and leave the external view link and the ‘add to safe-list’ instructions for the 3rd line.

4.    Making your emails easy to read while the images are blocked and more importantly getting the call to action(s) visible, obvious, accessible and in context whether the images are blocked or not.
 This is as simple as keeping your header banners small at the top of the email to ensure that you can convey what you need to say in the top third of your email before the images are loaded. You still need about 3 images to get past the spam filters but they can be further down to help elaborate and illustrate your other stories or articles.

5.    Now replies and adding to the safe-list are that much more important, people will be paying more attention to your from address than before. Gone are the dreaded days of the no-reply and in are the days of the 'digital dialogue'. Make sure your from address is friendly and reflects your brand and the reason you are sending them an email. Not too long ago, the legend of Mark Brownlow stated that Pure360 domain masking and link tracking was the friendliest. Also you can actively request replies to the email, near the social share links too if you like.

None of these are new, they are just more important. Have a read of our other resources: The marketer's guide to email design, Tips for Effective Email Marketing Templates and Designs, Beating Amazon's Bulk Email Marketing Strategy.

Outside the Inbox

If you would like to prioritise other things like Gmail, you can; Google haven't invented nor-reinvented the wheel here but implemented the classic time management method of "The Important Urgent Matrix" in your inbox.

1.    ‘Priority’
•    Important and Urgent

2.    ‘Starred’
•    Important but Non-Urgent

3.    ‘Everything Else'
•    Not Important nor Urgent

"The Important Urgent Matrix" is well illustrated on BusinessBalls.com and may add context to Inbox Priority and many of your own prioritisation and delegation decisions during a normal day.
See, we are more than just email marketing software ;-)

Other References:

Google themselves have made a nice little video to illustrate how good and easy it all is and have linked to their hep pages where you can find out everything you need.

The extremely popular and successful Social Media Blog: Mashable have done a very in-depth Walk through with screenshots on how to use it.

Techie thought

Due to the 'Google Bot' we have all been confident, for a while now, that Gmail content filtering is so good that they have not yet had to invest in the complex reputation tools of Hotmail, AOL and Yahoo. This new feature may delay the requirement further or even remove the need for it at all, all though the latter is unlikely.