Gmail Tabs Just Got More Pinteresting Posted on March 27, 2014June 1, 2016 by Jessica Lunk Remember when marketers everywhere panicked over Gmail’s promotions tab? Well, Google has done it again, and is taking the promotions tab one step further. Gmail is experimenting with a new layout that resembles Pinterest, and is turning emails into an infinite scroll of thumbnail images. Now, instead of just a subject line and from address, marketers will be able to attract attention with a compelling image right in the inbox. Google released this image to show us how: What a Visual Promotions Tab Means for You The latest development from Gmail means that there’s even less room for junky, irrelevant email marketing spam. Your email content will still need to be personalized and targeted to your audience. And if your email lands in the visual promotions tab, your email image will play just as big of a role as your subject line does in getting your message opened and read. Gmail’s visual promotions tab is another development stemming from the trending dominance of visual communication. The popularity of online video, infographics, Pinterest, and Instagram all point to the ability of great design to help us digest information in a noisy and complex world. Tackling images and design may sound overwhelming to small business marketers, but it’s actually a great opportunity for the SMB space. Unlike a large Fortune 500 corporation, small businesses are nimble. As a small business marketer, you can adapt quickly to changes like this one, take risks to find out what works best, and carve out an opportunity to stand out in this visual inbox competition. In addition, I think that this new development transforms the promotions tab from a wasteland where emails go to die into a showcase for engaging eye-candy that will keep consumers scrolling. Consumers have already fallen in love with using infinite scrolling images on Pinterest to curate products and dream purchases. Bringing the same design to the inbox could mean great things for marketers. Imagine your best customers scrolling, mesmerized through their inbox where your email image and logo await. With Images Front & Center, What’s a Non-Designer To Do? As a small business marketer, you are used to being a jack-of-all-trades because there isn’t always extra budget for graphic designers or sophisticated design tools. But don’t worry. Design is really about solving a problem visually – and small business marketers are excellent problem solvers. You’re talented, and creative. You just need the right tools. Here are a few to get you started: Canva is a simple graphic design tool for the masses. Use it to easily create eye-catching email images as well as flyers, banners, presentations, and social media assets. DeviantArt Muro is a free, in-browser design app that is less complex than Photoshop, but more robust than MS Paint. Use it when you want to create something from a blank slate. Colourlovers compiles colors, patterns, palettes and trends you can browse or create. Use it when you need a little color and design inspiration. As you add “design” to your checklist of “Things to be Great at Today!” don’t forget that design and content go hand in hand. A stunning visual in the inbox is totally superficial. It might get them to open , but will your prospects click through and convert? They will if your content is as scrumptious and inviting as your email image. If you want to take part in the Gmail promotions tab experiment, you can sign up here for the field trial. Be a guinea pig now so you can deliver your prospects a great experience when the new layout goes live.
3 Gmail Tab Realities and How They Affect Your Small Business Email Marketing Posted on February 7, 2014June 1, 2016 by Lindsey Stroud It’s been quite some time since Gmail introduced tabs to its inbox. While all of your emails use to land in one inbox, now they are automatically separated into multiple categories (Primary, Social, and Promotions tabs) via a Google algorithm. As a Gmail user, I – like many marketers – was taken aback by the changes that took place to my inbox overnight, and fearful of the dive my open and response rates would take. But here we are in 2014, and email marketing hasn’t taken the catastrophic hit that we may have anticipated. Here’s why: 3 Gmail Tab Realities and How They Affect Your Small Business Email Marketing 1) Gmail Tabs Don’t Actually Affect Too Many Gmail Users – While Gmail is the most popular email provider with 425 million users, the new inbox change hasn’t even affected a fourth of the overall user base. Why such a low number of email users affected by the change? It’s due to the rise in popularity of mobile devices. As of now, the tab feature is only supported in official Gmail apps for Android and IOS. This means that those who read email through the mail device on their iPhone or Android device are not affected by the email layout change. Litmus recently conducted a study on 5 million Gmail users and found that only 19% of Gmail users actually open their emails using Gmail. The take away? The new tabs feature might not affect as many Gmail users as we originally thought. 2) Relevancy is now more important than ever If you consider your email strategy blasting out a one-size-fits-all newsletter to all of your contacts, think again! Not only will this land you in the Promotions tab, but will most likely result in you getting disregarded all together. The key to Email Marketing is to provide relevant content over time that provides value to your contacts. The way to do this is by segmenting your contacts into identifiable groups and providing content that meets their interests or solves a problem they are facing. In small business CRMs, like Hatchbuck, you can segment leads in the sales pipeline or tag them by their interest category. 3) Ask and You Shall Receive If you have a large following of dedicated readers, supply them with the information they need to receive your content into the Primary tab with no problem! All a Gmail user needs to do is to take your email and drag it into the tab they would like to receive your emails in. Gmail will then pop up an alert and ask the user if they would like to this for all future emails from you. It’s easy for your contacts to do, and will guarantee you always land in the Primary inbox! This paid off tremendously for Gap when they sent an email asking their customers to move them back into their inbox. Sometimes all you need to do is ask and you shall receive! Make sure you continue to provide relevant and engaging content for your followers after asking them for a favor! As you see, the Gmail tab feature doesn’t have to be a detriment to your email marketing! As of a rule of thumb, make sure you are always sending to a list that has opted-in to receiving your content. Once you have a confirmed group of contacts, make sure to segment them according to their needs or interest and provide them content that is relevant to them. This is the easiest way to ensure you land in Primary tab, and continue to see high percentage of open rates and click throughs!