Personalized email is part of our “We Love Email” mantra here at WhatCounts and over a year ago our CEO, Allen Nance, talked about the future of email.
“We are finally moving beyond the era of ‘batch and blast’ into an era of ‘personalization’ Tweet this quote. Email as a marketing channel is ripe for innovation.” Blog post from 2013.
Google Inbox is a step in the direction we should all plan on as email marketers. In the grand scheme, it’s all about filtering through the junk to find the value. Value in the what’s-important-to-you sense.
Google’s Blog post echoes this, stating “It’s a completely different type of inbox, designed to focus on what really matters.”
Sometimes you like getting deals from companies, but when it’s unrelated, off-topic and just plain spammy, then it becomes intrusive. Our smart marketing approach at WhatCounts covers these topics and you’ll see our approach actually aligns with Google’s new product.
Highlights:
- Cuts out the clutter with an algorithm
- Displays useful info that wasn’t part of the mail (real-time updates like flights)
- Adapts to your personal use
- Efficient to-do portion with reminders, assists, and snooze
- Official Site: http://www.google.com/inbox/
Criticism:
Chris Taylor from Mashable says, “…it’s just another option for how to view your Gmail on your smartphone…There’s a pin symbol on top of the page that will take you to all your pinned emails, so you can see the important stuff at once. Great idea — but again, it suffers from its lack of integration with regular Gmail…it seems to be suffering an identity crisis. Is it Gmail, or isn’t it?” Read here.
To Address Chris:
My thoughts are that it’s too early to tell. All the early adopters will give their feedback so quickly that Google will have plenty of time to make changes. As a whole, I’m waiting for my invitation. But, I bet this app isn’t the first to present these types of ideas.
What are your thoughts on the new app? Should we embrace or fear this technology? We’d love to know what you think.
David Blane @davidb1ane
Digital Marketing Ninja | WhatCounts