Gmail Priority Inbox Reiterates Need for Permission, Good Content

Eric Groves
Wed, 15 Sep 2010 10:15:00 +0000

Google launched its new Gmail Priority Inbox feature a couple weeks ago and the news seems to have e-mail marketers trembling in fear that messages sent to Gmail recipients (and those who host their e-mail through Google Apps) will be filtered into oblivion. Don't worry, the sky isn't falling -- at least for those of you who are sending valuable content to your permission-based list.

I've given Priority Inbox a try on my personal Gmail account and found that it works pretty well "right out of the box." The messages and senders I always look for appear in the "Important" feed, while the rest of my unread messages are not that far down the screen, right there for the reading. And those messages deemed important are not just from friends and family, they also include marketing messages sent from retailers and nonprofit organizations that I do business with and support.

So what does Priority Inbox and the similar filtering being done by Microsoft's Hotmail service mean for e-mail marketers? The relationship between the sender and recipient is even more important and reiterates the need to use permission-based lists containing subscribers who want to receive your marketing messages. If the recipient doesn't want your message, he's probably not opening it, and therefore it won't be popping up in the Important queue.

It also means marketers must deliver good content that gets recipients to open their messages and click the links contained within. Gmail's filters are looking at these metrics and other factors when determining where to place an incoming message in recipients' inboxes. The more they open messages, click the links, reply to the senders, or forward the messages along all plays a role in determining importance. If your messages are being deleted without being opened, they'll drift lower into the Everything Else category.

One thing you can do to help is tell all your subscribers to add your e-mail address to their address book. This will help put your messages in the subscribers' priority list. You could also suggest recipients manually bump up your message's priority settings.

But really, it's about delivering consistently good content that your recipients want to open and read. If you're already doing that, you have nothing to worry about as your messages are most likely landing in the Important area already. However, if you notice your open and click-through rates are decreasing, it's time to rethink your content strategy and start offering something new to your subscribers to get them to reengage with your campaigns.