Google’s new Android App, Google Inbox is just one among the many customer centric apps that Google has launched – and that’s exactly the point, it has been designed and deployed with the user in mind and not the marketer. Thus far the App is available by invite only but will be available on a far more accessible scale very soon. It’s good to take note of this app at beta stage however especially due to how it will affect your overall visibility on email.
The most important feature of Google Inbox is its ability to allow readers to bundle or group emails from those of friends, to bank statements to unwanted marketing spam. This means they chose what emails are visible which would automatically allow your content to get ignored. This is certainly not good news for the email marketing arena especially due to the fact that Gmail already corners promotional matter into a separate tab.
There is a strategic way about this – you need to rethink the way your content is actually created. If you are a café or restaurant owner for instance, you wouldn’t want to send emails about your new promotion, instead you’d be better off by sending an email about healthy eating habits that could merely end off with the promotion that offers these healthy options on your new promotional menu. This way you are also offering something of value, getting seen in your reader’s inbox and still managing to get your core message across. The essence of this is to find areas of interest and value in and around what your business is about instead of merely focusing on communicating a particular marketing activity at hand.
Good marketers should know this anyway and Google Inbox shouldn’t be the only reason you spend more time anticipating customer needs and if anything this new service by Google should spur you on to deliver this kind of content that much more. The point is that marketing needs to be less focused on what is happening in your store and more about what is going on in your customers’ lives because it enables you to deliver better content overall.
Google Inbox will force marketers to be better ones which in essence is not a bad thing in a world that is far more consumer centric than product centric. Dig deeper into understanding your consumers, potential buyers and your overall audience at large, because the advent of Google Inbox is not the only reason you should be doing this. Start now if you haven’t already so that technological changes won’t affect the way you communicate and will allow you to have better relationships with your audiences in the long run.