You’ve most likely heard that Google’s free email service, Gmail will be undergoing some radical layout changes. In fact your inbox may already reflect the changes. These changes are causing a ruckus, especially with small businesses.
Why? Well, check out the changes for yourself and see if you can spot it.
Did you spot it?
Marketers and small business people are struggling with the “promotions” tab. Some view it as the kiss of death for email marketing. Spending time creating killer content for your email subscribers only to have it end up in the “graveyard” of the promotions tab is a tough pill to swallow.
Popular blogger Derek Halpern of SocialTriggers.com wrote this on his Facebook page:
Google declared war on small business when they rolled out the Promotions tab.
The sad truth is, the only reason why I can see them interested in doing this is to sell more ad space.
Now why is this war on small businesses? Businesses who provide great value and content to their subscribers?
Big companies will redirect their marketing budget towards buying ads.
But small businesses, businesses who spend their time (instead of their money) on providing highly valuable content to their subscribers will be left out of the mix.
Sadly the only way to combat this new filter seems to be to “continue the path” of creating “great content.”
Early looks at the data seem a touch inconclusive, at least according to Hubspot.com. They reported that after a month and a half of the layout being live:
HubSpot customers saw an average of 58.9% more email opens and 63% more unique email opens in June than May after the new feature was rolled out. On the other hand, MailChimp found that open rates decreased three weeks in a row after the new layout was launched
source
This was an early look. It’s hard to imagine that this new promotions tab won’t have an impact. The general feelings shared over social channels appear to indicate that it already has impacted small business’ email efforts.
No matter what the fact remains that the game is changing again. This time it’s email. With 425 million active Gmail users it’s a game you’ll want to pay attention to. As time goes by and new strategies to combat these filters arise, we’ll be sure to share.
Have you run into problems with these new tabs? Let us know in the comments below
Everything you do will be regarded as evil to someone, always. Google is not an angel-even angel harms-it is to provide better user experience to his users, not us.
If your subscribers really enjoy being on your list they will search for your emails, in spite of the Promotions label. It’s up to you (as always) to make your subject line and content as enticing as possible.
The Promotions tab is only a graveyard for spammers.
As a gmail user i think the new layout is really good because the old was (old and dated) the new is much quicker to go through. But as an online marketer it is going to be a kick in the gonads for me big time.
But it will get rid of a lot of crappy spammers. So the only way is to keep giving your customers and readers good content and only what they are interested in. I will be honest i need to step my game to keep up.