Google today announced several changes to Gmail in a bid to give users more control over their inboxes.
One of the changes involves a preview function for email newsletters, meaning people are able to quickly scan emails from publishers and brands before they click to open them.
Read more: The essential elements of email marketing
“It’s now easier to preview the newsletters you read often and click through to the articles that interest you most,” Google software engineer Pras Sarkar wrote in a blog post outlining the changes.
“And once you’ve taken a look at the latest, newsletters will minimise to save space in the inbox.”
Michelle Gamble, founder of Marketing Angels, told SmartCompany Gmail adding more features to people’s inboxes is good news for email marketers.
“They’ve got a little bit more opportunity to entice people to opening their emails other than just the headline,” Gamble says.
“[Brands] may need to redesign their emails slightly… but I think you’ve got more opportunity now to really sell what’s in your email than what you had in the past. The people doing sneaky things with headlines, they will now have to lift the bar. But I think it’s a win both for consumers and for marketers.”
Gamble says Gmail’s new preview function also serves as a reminder that there are lots of things brands can do to make their email marketing better.
“Segmentation is a key thing,” she says.
“Depending on the size of your database, segment where possible and do split-testing on headlines, who it’s being sent from, and how that affects open rates – as well as time of day.”
Broede Carmody is a former senior SmartCompany reporter. Before this, he was a co-editor of RMIT University’s student magazine Catalyst.
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