Can You Afford to Ignore the Existence of Priority Inboxes?
In August of 2010, search and online advertising company Google rolled out the Priority Inbox for its Gmail webmail service.
The feature was designed to bring organization to what is increasingly becoming a chaotic inbox by prioritizing messages that are deemed most important to the user and placing such messages the front of line. While this has not impacted email marketing to the degree some initially thought, the email marketer would be wise to make a few accommodations for the new feature.
If you have a good number of Gmail subscribers, the Priority Inbox definitely matters. Here are some actions you can take to make sure your message is considered important:
Bring the Relevance
Giving your message prevalence in the Priority Inbox is all about knowing how the feature works. Seeing that Google is the mastermind behind it all, it is not too surprising to see that the function utilizes an algorithm to rank messages based on their importance to the user. What this basically means is that if your message lacks relevance, it doesn’t even have a chance of receiving priority rank. Where does it from there? Below the fold grouped with the others that have been viewed as less important. In today’s crowded inbox, this is one step from being in the spam folder.
Increase Engagement
Now more than ever, email marketers must deliver content that keeps their list active and responsive. This is an attribute the Priority Inbox was built on. Another thing the algorithm does is evaluate how Gmail users interact with a message. If they are opening, clicking and interacting with your message in other ways, it will likely be displayed above the fold. If those users are not taking action, then your message will sink towards the bottom of the inbox. In order for your message to bubble to the top, you must raise the stakes on engagement. Offer incentives, discounts, or whatever you can afford to get subscribers interacting.
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