Google recently enabled tabbed viewing in its Gmail and Google Apps email client. There is a lot of chatter online about the affect on deliverability.
In the past, there have been efforts to apply filters to email for convenience. I, for one, tend to ignore these overlays on my email because I like to decide for myself what is important and how things are categorized rather than rely on the assumptions of Google or anyone else.
However, we cannot control what our readers of our content will do with their Gmail setup. So how can this affect our marketing efforts?
Well, this emphasizes our point specifically that your content has to be awesome. If it is mediocre, then your deliverability does not matter much anyways. Your recipients are not really readers. They are just tolerant.
On the other hand, if your content is highly informative and indispensable, then a person will anticipate receiving your world-class knowledge. You are not an intrusion. They will seek out to find that article they sense they are missing and look for it obsessively. That is the magic point to hit with your audience. If they want to receive your content and find it extremely useful, then you win.
If you do find people needing help locating your content in the new Gmail promotion tab, have them drag the email to the Primary inbox. Messages going forward from your content distribution will land in the main inbox.
Furthermore, people are connected on their mobile devices and tablets. They can see they received your content and will go looking for it in their newly formatted inbox.
We cannot control how people’s varying email clients will work. Their inbox is their choice. However, the challenge is less about the mechanics of how to manipulate Google, Outlook or anyone else. It is much more about making your content so compelling and desired that people will overcome their own setups to find you.
So, as we have more authorities trying to filter out those that send out gimmicks, recommit to making every piece you send out indispensable. It is the long-term winning strategy.