Priority inboxes, intelligent inboxes, quality bars and you
Latest posts | By Mark Brownlow | 18 Comments | Licence this content
Isn’t email marketing great? It continues to deliver good results, even when done badly.
At least it used to.
Because barely a day goes by without another nail plunging into the coffin of those who practice status quo email marketing.
And Google’s new Priority Inbox is more of a steel stake than a 2-inch nail.
In essence, the feature (which all Gmail users will get over the next few days) allows users to split the inbox into three sections.
The default top section contains all the email Google feels is important to you. The second is the email that’s been starred for later reading, and the bottom section is for “everything else”.
Guess which section is likely to get most attention?
Indeed, according to Mashable…
“…the search giant found that users spent 16% less time reading insignificant e-mail.”
At Gmail, not every message now gets an equal chance of attention. That’s 100+ million Gmail users where the inbox is no longer a level playing field.
Back in March I wrote:
“It seems inevitable that ‘intelligent’ inboxes will highlight ‘priority’ messages, based on the user’s previous interactions with that sender’s messages or whether the recipient has some formal connection with that sender.”
“The inbox becomes an expert system, looking for signals that indicate an important email or one that can be safely ignored”
Here we are just five months later and Gmail explains that it…
“…uses a variety of signals to predict which messages are important, including the people you email most…and which messages you open and reply to…”
The intelligent inbox is here. And not just at Gmail.
Yahoo, for example, allows users to switch the inbox display to “view emails only from your Contacts or Connections”.
Hotmail has the “sweep” feature which lets recipients move all messages from a particular address to a folder or the trash at the click of a button…and tell Hotmail to repeat that procedure for all new messages from the same source.
These developments make a mockery of the status quo marketer’s success mantra:
“As long as what we’ve always done is more than we can get away with, all is well”
Intelligent inboxes mean you can get away with less and less. They are driving a welcome wedge between bad and good email marketing.
The rewards for providing valuable, wanted messages that people interact with are ever greater: better inbox positioning in a less-cluttered inbox.
The penalties for not doing so are also greater: poorer inbox positioning or never reaching the inbox in the first place.
In January, I argued that the bar for what you can get away with is rising faster than the quality of most people’s email marketing. 2010 would be the year when many marketers would find the lines crossing:
I was wrong.
Intelligent inboxes mean the graph looks like this:
So what needs to change to turn intelligent inboxes into a marketing win? Gmail’s priority inbox was only announced yesterday, so all the implications will take time to reveal themselves.
In general, all we need to do is all the things we’ve long-known we should be doing…better targeting and segmentation, striving to provide more value, trigger emails, etc.
Specifically…
1. Intelligent inboxes need intelligent messaging
Email marketing went a long way with the shotgun approach. If some people respond to the message and the rest aren’t too bothered, then the “blast” approach survives.
This survival depends on a low penalty for being “uninteresting”. But all these inbox developments (not to mention changes to the deliverability landscape) now mean this isn’t the case: your position in the inbox becomes directly related to the worth of your message.
2. Intelligent inboxes demand interaction
In the spirit of the social inbox, interaction drives inbox success.
The more people interact with your message and the sender, the more weight an intelligent inbox gives that message and sender.
This speaks to the whole quality of your email marketing program. It begins with setting the right expectations at sign-up, then delivering value all the time. Every time you compromise, there is a penalty.
Even if your promotion per se isn’t getting a response from everyone, you can still drive meaningful interactions with requests for feedback, surveys, competitions, content, secondary CTAs, etc.
Here’s a post with dozens of ideas for getting a click when the main offer or content isn’t interesting enough on its own.
3. Intelligent inboxes demand a strong start
Your welcome messages are the initial interview that decides whether you deserve a place in the prime inbox real estate. Use them to:
- reinforce benefits
- encourage recipients to add you to their personal whitelist, safe sender list, connect at social networks, etc.
- provide links and offers that you know will get a high response: consider making a short-term loss here at a long-term gain in attention and profit
4. Intelligent inboxes demand connectivity
The intelligent, social inbox values connections, since connections are a measure of trust and value. Any formal recognition of a subscriber’s connection to the sender (as follower, fan, address book contact, whatever) is a quality signal to the email address provider.
Integration of social and email marketing is still in its infancy. What works and what doesn’t is still under investigation. But it seems likely that it won’t just be about having people share your email on Facebook or visit your newsletter achive through a tweeted link.
The very existence of multichannel connections looks set to help lift the priority of your individual messages through each channel.
The inbox is changing, email is changing…is your email marketing changing, too? Love to hear your thoughts on all this!
Update: some ideas from others in the field on the impact of intelligent inboxes on email marketing:
Are You Ready for the Ultra Managed Inbox? by Stephanie Miller
What does Gmail priority inbox mean for email marketers? by Elliot Ross
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18 comments on “Priority inboxes, intelligent inboxes, quality bars and you”
I definitely think you make a valid point when you touch on that initial welcome message/email.
- “provide links and offers that you know will get a high response: consider making a short-term loss here at a long-term gain in attention and profit”
This would be a great study on the ROI per user when you focus first on getting that interaction and secondly on revenue.
Great article! Thanks!
Thanks Bennett. Yep, I think where this is all leading is to longer-term evaluations of email success.
We always tend to think in terms of how each individual email shaped up in terms of direct response, but inbox changes perhaps force us to consider investing in the recipient initially to get a return long-term.
There are going to be measurement problems there and trouble with explaining to others why this campaign didn’t bring any sales but means a lot for profits down the road.
I think the second graph sums it up quite well Mark, even though it could spell doom for quite some email marketers.
I’m not sure everyone understands the gravity of the situation: even though GMail might not be the biggest webmail provider, they’re big: and today the news broke that Hotmail will be using new metrics to consider inbox placement: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=134786
This all makes it a way bigger challenge to just get delivered to the inbox than before. We’ll see how it pans out in 6 to 12 months from now. In that period, most people should have gotten their priority inbox puppies trained
I agree Remy: all these inbox changes simply make it easier for folk to ignore bad email and find good email. Which kind of tells us which type of email we need to send in the future!
I am a big fan of your graphs! A very good point about getting away with less. I’m curious about clever inboxes – half worried that I might miss half my emails though.
Glad you like the graphs Michael. They use state of the art imaging technology that came out of the NASA space shuttle program. Honest.
I think in the area of business email, people will be more reluctant to automate sorting, because we really can’t afford to miss any important email.
Consumers may be more for it, though.
Of course, the email is still there in the low-priority inbox, so it will still be scanned. Just I think the scanning process will be considerably less attentive than before.
And, by definition, Gmail is inviting people to think of those emails as “not important”. So there’s a psychological impact too.
Interesting stuff above. I have been unimpressed these past six months with auto responder management by Sponsors treating me as a new boy weeks after I have signed up. This suggests that sponsors are failing to edit their lists regularly which leaves clients with constant duplication. If the new priority box helps sort that neglect out then it will be great for the client. The lesson to all of us is may be we must pay more attention not only to the content but to the address list for each and every email placed on autoresponder systems. In short pay detailed attention to your client lists aswell as the email content.
Mike.
I’m concerned that the algorithmic-centered Google may miss the mark with their algorithm and very important, but rarely sent, email will get lost in the shuffle.
Alternatively, do I want Google to decide what I should deem important? Certainly, there are JUNK/SPAM filters, but this takes it to a whole other level.
Anyone else share this concern?
George, I think a lot is still unclear.
From the consumer perspective, I have no concern as it’s not compulsory. If I don’t like Google’s algo then I can simply revert back to a normal inbox or use the buttons provided to teach the system what is/isn’t important from my perspective.
Consumer reviews so far are mixed, but with plenty of people really liking it (even before fine tuning).
The “important but rarely sent” email is a good question. So far, my Gmail account is doing a solid job. I bought some software online yesterday and the activation code went into the Priority Inbox, even though that was the first email I’d ever got from the sender.
I’m not too concerned myself because ultimately it’s not in Google’s interest to have email considered important by recipients not appear in the PI.
The problem for marketers, I think, is going to be that what we consider important isn’t necessarily what recipients and Google consider important.
Priority is so critical in this era of information overload! Cohuman.com also does a nice job of prioritizing your tasks. Which also happens to have the effect of reducing email by making your digital life more streamlined. . .
I know the focus here is email, but a broader view can be useful.
What does this say about, feeds and no email at all?
In some cases the smart thing to do is going to be “no automated emails”. Change the mix.
It’s algorithms so I’m sure it’s scammable. There’s a trend though for recipients to take more direct action. Worth keeping an eye on.
Mike – ultimately I think the wider trend is giving end users more control over incoming information. Makes sense, since info overload isn’t going to get any less…
Very interesting article Mark.
Inbox priority adds a whole new dimension to email marketing and how to optimize it – in fact I think it changes it completely.
So how do you make Hotmail, Gmail and so forth prioritize the emails you send out?
-I especially find the combination of social networks and email marketing interesting in relation to this. Has anyone done any studies on this area or have any thoughts as to how this disiplin can be approached?
Niels, I think we’ll see a few different strategies emerge with time, other than the obvious one (send better emails!)
One thing I’ve read about is people actively encouraging their gmail subscribers to mark messages as important. I read recently about Moosejaw(I think) doing this, but can’t find the original reference.
I find this very interesting.
This shows how important personalization and targeting will become. Plus it encourages marketeers to set up a certain dialogue with the receiving end.
Niels, concerning your remark, I read an interesting piece the other day on conversation.net about social media and sharing tools in e-mail marketing.
Michael – is this the article?
Mark – yes that’s it.
Thank you Mark and Michael for your replies.
I think a lot of exciting new approaches can be taken regarding the subject at hand.
I know I’m already in the process of figuring out, how I can use this in my business.