On August 30, 2010, Google started rolling out Priority Inbox for Gmail. Priority Inbox, in its simplest form, is an algorithm that sifts through massive amounts of email and sends emails that users are likely to read and respond to to their Priority Inbox. Priority Inbox is able to do this because its algorithm analyzes keywords, contacts lists, and email habits, and it has the capability to learn email habits. Users simply have to promote their emails to their Priority Inbox, and it’ll be assimilated to Priority Inbox’s algorithm.
Priority Inbox will impact email marketing because if your customers are not opening or clicking through your emails, Priority Inbox’s algorithm will sidestep your email marketing efforts and your emails might drown in an inbox filled with hundreds and hundreds of emails. However, emails not sent to Priority Inbox are SPAM. Think of Priority Inbox as the opposite of SPAM folders – SPAM folders segregates unwanted email, while Priority Inbox promotes wanted emails.
The key to optimizing your email marketing efforts for Gmail’s Priority Inbox is not to outsmart its algorithm. Rather, you should create a pleasurable email experience for your customers so that your customers are likely to interact with your emails and thus become assimilated to Priority Inbox’s algorithm. Here are four essential tips:
Double Opt-In
Double opt-in is the process in which customers sign up to receive your emails and go through a second confirm via email. This process is similar to signing up for a social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, where users finish setting up their account by confirming via email. The downside to double opt-in is that it might decrease your email list up to 50%; however, while diminished, you’ve narrowed your list to customers that are interested in your business or product – or at least interested enough to complete the double opt-in process. It’s these customers that are likely to open your emails and, in doing so, will promote your email to their Priority Inbox.
Preferences
Give your email recipients greater control over the emails they receive from you so that they’re more likely to open your email. You can give them greater control by giving them options of what content they would like to receive and how frequent they would like to receive them. If you’re in the ecommerce business of wholesale jewelry, you can send out separate newsletters for brooches and another for necklaces – and give your customers options of which newsletter they’d want to receive. Great examples of customers having control over how frequently they receive emails are job search websites CareerBuilder and Monster – subscribers can chose whether to receive job notifications daily or weekly, and which day of the week if weekly.
A/B Testing
Research content and how it’s presented by conducting A/B testing. Send out two versions of the same email promotion on a product to two small sample groups of, say, 150 recipients each. See which sample fares better with a higher open and clickthrough rate (see below), and send that version to the rest of your email list.
Open and Clickthrough Rates
In the world of internet marking, we’re always concerned with metrics, and rightfully so, because they signal to us which tactics and methods are working. Analyze which email campaigns are garnering high open and clickthrough rates and generate like-minded emails. More specifically, analyze which emails have high clickthrough rates based on open rate. High open and clickthrough rates will register positively with a user’s Priority Inbox.
There’s no outsmarting Priority Inbox’s sophisticated algorithm. In order to get your emails promoted to a user’s Priority Inbox on Gmail focus instead on generating email marketing campaigns that customers find interesting and engaging. Customers will be more likely to open and interact with your email and become assimilated to Priority Inbox.
Written By: Jaszver Bauzon
