Will Gmail’s Priority Inbox Increase the Importance of List Segmentation?

Google launched the Gmail Priority Box a few weeks ago and email marketers are still talking about the potential impact it could have on the industry. In spite of the initial panic, the overall consensus now is that it will not force marketers to dramatically change their strategy, but does heighten the importance of certain elements, with the main one being relevance. Because segmentation is the key to achieving relevance, making sure your strategy is on point has become more important than ever. Below are a few segmentation tips marketers can apply to make nice with Priority Inbox.

If you have not segmented your marketing list by Gmail subscribers, now would be the perfect time to start. In fact, you may want to consider this a must. Keep them in the same group with your other contacts, and it might be very difficult to fall in line with the criteria the new algorithm uses to determine relevance and what messages are the most important to the recipient. Although your message might arrive in their inbox, it could just end up in the “less important” pile that the recipient never bothers to read. Once you separate the Gmail subscribers from the rest of your list, you can then work on some segmentation strategies for targeting your audience.

A good approach to segmentation is breaking your list down into customers and prospects. This same approach can be effective when devising your targeting strategy for the Gmail Priority Inbox. Though simple, it is quite effective because what is relevant to the people who regularly shop with you may not necessarily be relevant to the people you are coaxing to buy for the first time, and vice versa. When breaking down your list, do not hesitate to create smaller groups beyond customers and prospects as well. Doing this will help to ensure that your marketing content is as focused as possible and give your messages priority at the same time. 

Gmail’s Priority Box is a very new feature, hence why it is still fresh on the minds of the email marketing community. And, while we know some of the factors that are used to determine what is important to the recipient, not all attempts to appease the algorithm will be a success. Some marketers will figure out how to make it in that exclusive inbox through trial and error. For this reason, you may want to consider getting some help from the Gmail segment you created. A good idea would be targeting your subscribers with messages asking them to mark you as a priority sender. The key to this method actually being successful is the value of your message and its worthiness to take up space.

In the long run, the Gmail Priority Inbox will turn out to be a good thing for both email marketers and their subscribers. It does not call for change across the board, but it would be a smart move to learn what you can do now to stay on the favorable side of the algorithm. Other email services are making similar moves, so pretty soon, Gmail may not be the only one you have to consider when deploying your campaigns.