12 Ways Marketers Can Make the Most of Gmail's Tabbed Inbox

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Email marketing, either to promote business or share the latest announcement, is a staple for many companies. It’s still the best way to reach warm leads quickly and with minimal fuss. However, Google’s new tabbed inbox and prominent unsubscribe option has the potential to affect email marketing strategies — for good or ill.

Curious how ever-adaptable startup founders would cope, I asked a group of innovators from the Young Entrepreneur Council their thoughts on Gmail’s new setup, and their strategies for managing the change. Their thoughts are below:

Google wants users to not have spam, and it also wants your business to reach the user. Sometimes customers opt into a company’s send-to list, but they later decide they don’t want the emails. If they can’t find the unsubscribe button, they might mark the message as spam. This prominent unsubscribe option will hopefully replace the spam button, which, in turn, should prevent delivery problems for all of the company’s emails. We'll be sending emails as usual with careful segmentation to make sure our emails continue to be received.
— Brett Farmiloe, Digital Marketing Company

We use multiple sending accounts. We use one for mass marketing emails, one for mass important announcements and one for transactional emails related to customers' accounts. This prevents scenarios where we can't send customers important information because they hit unsubscribe. This update will affect us a little. Gmail recently started showing remote images without asking its users' permission. The benefit from this far outweighs the changes to tabs and unsubscribing.
— Gideon Kimbrell, InList Inc

Most people don't use Gmail. For those who do, this will be another reason for us to optimize, test and better market our campaigns to be stronger than ever. Overall, it won't change the way we share our message; it will merely encourage us to provide even better content.
— Joe Apfelbaum, Ajax Union

Ultimately, we would like to avoid having our emails go into the "Promotions" folder, so our emails must become more personalized and have a more informal tone. We can accomplish this by having the email messages come directly from various employees within our business. Additionally, we will reduce (if not eliminate entirely) the amount of graphics within our emails and the number of URLs we include. Also, we’ll include our promotions within our transactional emails. Although it's less of a direct approach, the real estate provided within these simple text-based emails can allow us to continue to promote without getting buried in Gmail folders.
— Janis Krums, OPPRTUNITY

Our email open rates have not declined much, but we're working to make both our emails and our site more personal. Because we're a subscription program with a lot of ways to use the service, it's important that we make sure people make the most of their memberships. Initially, our experience was cold. Now we're collecting more data about our users (where they like to eat, work and play) to better tailor their communications. Additionally, we're adding a lot more options for searching and browsing benefits on the site. Visitors can tailor their own experience. In short, we are using personalization to facilitate a "pull" model and to make email communications more relevant.
— Carlo Cisco, SELECT

Gmail's tabs haven't affected our business and have shown nearly zero impact on our retail clients' open rates, as well. If anything, the tabs ensure customers are in a shopping state of mind when they open their "Promotions" tab to check out the latest slew of deals. If you're sending personalized offers, the new setup should actually aid in click-and-purchase increases.
— Erik Severinghaus, Simple Relevance

You can use a mail merge function in Google Spreadsheets and Gmail to send mass personalized emails. These emails will land in the priority box because it's sent from you. Obviously, the more you personalize and the more value you give, the better.
— Neal Taparia, Imagine Easy Solutions

It could definitely have an effect on the visibility of your company's emails. We have already sent an email to our clientele asking them to add our email address to their "Primary" list. Our email consisted of a visual guide that showed them how to do the task. The goal is to get in the primary tab before Gmail puts you in the "Promotions" tab.
— Evrim Oralkan, Travertine Mart

If folks are unsubscribing, they’re often telling you they’re far from engaged by the content/emails you're sending. Now that unsubscribing will be easier, we’ll be able to receive better feedback on success statistics from email campaigns. Ultimately, that’s a good thing.
— Andrew Fayad, eLearning Mind

The new tabbed interface only enhances the delivery of our email marketing strategy. It provides a proper place for the messages we send. Now a customer's expectation is actually met because they expect to see promotional emails under the "Promotions" tab. The unsubscribe button is a much-needed tool that is frictionless. It allows us as marketers to remove someone from our list without being punished by the "Mark As Spam" button effect.
— BJ Cook, Digital Operative Inc

I think the tabbed inbox is a bigger concern for legitimate marketers than the prominent unsubscribe button. We see very few unsubscribes when we communicate via email, but I think the tabbed inbox makes it easier for your content to get lost in the sea of messages. The tabbed inbox makes it even more important for marketers to develop clear subject lines and compelling opening statements so that users know why your email is worth opening.
— Sarah Schupp, UniversityParent

If you are sending useful, interesting and relevant content to your customers, they will want to read your emails. No changes to Gmail's user interface will matter. However, if what you are sending your users does more to serve you than them, they'll always find a way to unsubscribe.
— Danny Boice, Speek