In a sea of overflowing inboxes, it can be difficult to get your emails noticed. But Gmail tab placement and advanced email schema markup offer some unique opportunities for marketers.
Keep emails short: too much copy is a red flag for spam filters. Personalize your messages: referring to subscribers by name shows that you know them personally and is less of a promotional intrusion.
1. Segment Your List
Email segmentation allows you to deliver highly relevant content that encourages subscribers to take action and increases the likelihood of conversion. It is a key tool used by the most effective marketers to boost open rates and click rates, improve email deliverability, and boost revenue.
Start with basic demographic data, like age, gender, and location. This is a great place to begin because it gives you the flexibility to craft specific and targeted emails that will reach each group. Then, use other information you have collected to add even more personalization and increase the relevancy of your emails.
For example, if you know that a certain group of your subscribers aren’t interested in time-sensitive deals, don’t send them those types of emails. Instead, target them with more information about the services that you do provide, and how those services can benefit their businesses.
Another good way to target your audience is by their business type, which you can gather through web forms. If you know that a particular group of your subscribers is primarily a small business, you can offer special promotions and resources that appeal to them.
You can also track purchase history to help you create targeted segments for your audience. For example, Amazon does a fantastic job of upselling products that buyers may be interested in by analyzing their purchasing habits.
2. Ask Your Subscribers to Whitelist You
It’s an email marketing best practice to ask your subscribers to whitelist your emails. This helps ensure that your carefully crafted content doesn’t end up in the spam folder, or worse, never gets delivered at all.
As a marketer, it can be heartbreaking to see your emails get tossed in the junk or spam folders of your potential clients and customers. It’s also a big waste of time for you and your team.
Whitelisting is one of the most effective ways to prevent emails from accidentally ending up in your subscribers’ spam or promotional folders. It’s a simple step that takes little to no time and ensures that you’re always getting your emails into the inbox of your most engaged subscribers.
Asking your subscribers to add your email address to their safe senders list is easy and can be done in the first email you send them when they subscribe to your newsletter. This way, it doesn’t feel like a sales pitch and can be more of a friendly customer service request.
You can even personalize the email to make it more inviting. This helps build trust and makes your subscribers more likely to respond positively to your request to whitelist you. For example, referring to them by their name and using short emails that look more like the kinds you would send friends or family can help your subscribers identify your messages as something they want to keep in their inboxes.
3. Send Personalized Emails
If your email content isn’t personal enough, it could trigger Gmail’s filters. To avoid this, don’t use commercial or marketing phrases in your emails. Instead, refer to subscribers by their first name or use a personalized greeting in your subject line to make the message more personal.
Additionally, try to keep your email messages short and simple. Long blocks of text can tire subscribers out and make them less likely to read the entire message, especially if they’re in the middle of a workday. Instead, break up the text with headers and subheaders to make it easier for your subscribers to skim through the information.
The subject line is also key in determining whether your emails land in the Promotions or Social tab. To make sure that your emails land in the correct tab, consider using separate “from” email addresses for different types of messages. This will help subscribers differentiate the different email content types, which can positively impact their inbox experience and overall engagement with your brand.
Another way to send mass personalized emails is through a service like GMass, which lets you send email to multiple recipients while hiding their email addresses from anyone else receiving the message. To use this service, simply open up Gmail and compose a new email. Once you’ve entered all the email ids in the To field, paste them into the Bcc box so they won’t appear in the Compose window for anyone else to see. You can also buy Gmail accounts in bulk in bulk from Bulk Accounts Buy for email marketing.
4. Ask Your Subscribers to Unsubscribe
Gmail’s new unsubscribe feature flags brands that aren’t engaging with their audience and offers a way for customers to quickly opt-out. As a marketer, you can help keep this trend from hurting your email program by monitoring engagement levels and using segmentation to identify your least engaged customers. This allows you to send them something different and hopefully re-engage them.
Additionally, you can create a dedicated email preference page that allows them to choose their preferred frequency of emails and topics. This option will make them feel like you are listening to their needs and will reduce the likelihood of them using the unsubscribe button.
When you do receive an unsubscribe request, be sure to honor it. If you don’t, your subscribers may report your email as spam, which can damage your sender reputation and cause your emails to end up in the Spam folder.
Ultimately, the best strategy is to follow permission and email marketing best practices, which will allow your subscribers to engage with your content in the most effective ways possible. If you do that, there is no need to worry about changes to the Gmail inbox that will negatively impact your deliverability and open rates. In fact, it should improve your results and leave you more room for sending the most relevant campaigns to your audience.