Relevant, engaging content is more important than ever

The 2 sides of the email marketing equation are (1) a targeted audience and (2) relevant content that engages that audience. You are well on your way to a successful campaign if you follow that formula.  This most recent post from HubSpot presents us with the next hurdle for marketers in email technology (SmartLabels by Gmail) and why you must strive to stay relevant.

Source: Kipp Bodnar, HubSpot

Gmail, Google’s incredibly popular email service, is known for its ability to push the limits of the inbox. Labs Google continues to release interesting new features designed to help email users. It has improved filtering and helped us save time doing standard email-related tasks. But Gmail’s newest feature, Smart Folders, might be received with less enthusiasm from email marketers concerned about their click-through rates.

Smart Folders automatically sorts out all bulk mail messages and removes them from the inbox, placing them in a separate email folder. Google is classifying bulk mail as “any kind of mass mailing (such as newsletters and promotional email).” The new Smart Folders feature is currently available in Gmail Labs and must be activated by each Gmail user who wants to take advantage of it.

Smart folders mark the start of a new major challenge for email marketers. With the rising adoption promotional emails and bulk mail notifications from social networks, our inboxes are being flooded. Users are looking for ways to reduce noise and smart folders are likely one of many coming tools that will create friction for email marketers.

Marketing Takeaway

Filters like Smart Folders aren’t going to change email marketing overnight. If users begin adopting these tools, however, more companies will face the challenge of being filtering out of the inbox. As a marketer, you should start planning for these potential changes now:

1. Go Beyond Email – It is clear that email and other online platforms will continue to evolve. In response to their evolution, you should start thinking like a financial investor and diversify your lead generation portfolio. If you are relying only on email to bring you leads, now is the time to start leveraging other channels like blogging and social media.

2. Increase Email Marketing Enagement – The reason mail clients start sorting out bulk emails is that many messages don’t provide any value or don’t offer engagement opportunities. If your recipients engage with your emails by clicking on them and sharing them, it is more likely that your messages will stay out of the bulk mail folder and land in the inbox.

3. Set Expectations at Opt-in – If a person doesn’t know to look for your messages and offers, it is likely that they will be relegated to the bulk mail folder and ignored. However, if you are clear with subscribers about how frequently they will get emails from your business and why these messages will be valuable to them, you increase the odds that your emails will be seen, even if they are trapped in a Smart Folder.