Email Marketing Still Matters: Gmail Priority Inbox and Permission Marketing

Despite the growth of social networks, email is popular as ever. A recent survey found that 72% of respondents check email during their time off,19% check email in bed and 50% check email while they’re on vacation or during days off.

Last week Gmail released it’s Priority InBox, which has some marketers declaring the death of email marketing and others trying to figure out ways to get past the Priority Inbox filter - like adding “Important” to their email subject lines.

But these marketers are missing the point. Gmail’s Priority Inbox gets us back to the basics of email marketing. Email marketing is effective because it’s based on permission and, as Seth Godin states,

the future of marketing is based on permission. It’s based on sending messages to people who want to get them, who choose to get them, who would miss you if you didn’t send them. It’s not easy and it’s not cheap to earn permission, but so what? This is my attention, not yours, and if you want to use it for a while, please earn the privilege.

If you’re sending your newsletter to people who want it then you shouldn’t be worried about it getting lost in their inbox - people will look for it if they don’t receive it.

We like email newsletters because they’re:

• A proven way to communicate with your audience.
• Easy and inexpensive.
• An opt-in way to send information to those who are most receptive to your message.
• Effective. Everyone has email and is comfortable with email. People understand how to subscribe and unsubscribe.
• Measurable. A newsletter subscribe button on your website is a measurable call to action. In addition, email newsletter software has analytics that measures how many people are reading and clicking through links within your newsletter.

So if you have a newsletter, keep sending it out and if you don’t, we recommend starting one. Make sure your newsletters include a clear call to action, an unsubscribe link, and effective copy - strong email subject lines, headings and opening paragraphs. Also make sure to use a service dedicated to email newsletter distribution, like Campaign Monitor or MailChimp to manage your list and get metrics on your readers’ behaviours.

More email resources:

• Stop Yourself From Making Egregious E-mail Errors
• The Three Key Elements of Irresistible Email Subject Lines
• Gmail Priority Inbox: 5 Tips for Better Productivity