Is Gmail going to change your marketing?”

There’s a lot of buzz right now about the new filter options that Google has set up for Gmail users. If you’re a business owner – especially one who actively uses email marketing then you may be freaking out about what’s going to happen to your marketing.

Now before you get worried that you might end up in the gmail trash bin, you could remember that you already offer amazing content and services and no matter which part of your reader’s mailboxes your emails land – they’ll open them no matter what.

However if you’re concerned that readers may opt out or not see your emails because Gmail has filtered them into the “promotions” tab you could email your readers and recommend that they follow several simple steps:

#1: Don’t accept the new filter tabs

A simple way to make sure that you don’t have the new Gmail filters sort your inbox is to not accept the new filters. Go into the settings area in your inbox and click on configure inbox then uncheck all of the tabs except primary and then click save. Or simply don’t accept the new filter option. This way you can still have control over what gets sorted where.

#2: Keep the tabs

The other thing you can do is to accept the new tabs and allow the sorting to happen. But I recommend that all of the important emails you receive (including mine 😉 get moved to your primary inbox. To do that all you need to do is click on the email and move it over to your primary inbox. This way it trains your inbox to filter all messages from that person or company to where you’d like them to go and ensures that you won’t miss them.

#3: Let your readers and subscribers know and decide

Send an email out to your mailing list to let them know how to keep receiving the emails they want. You can either include it in your newsletter or send out an email to your readers with instructions on what to do.

You can even take it a step further and include the how to’s in your autoresponder so that when you get new subscribers they’ll know how to filter your messages so they won’t miss them.

Now I’d love to hear from you, what do you think about Gmail taking over your email inbox (and that of your readers)? As a business owner and marketer do you think this is a positive or negative change? Feel free to let me know below.