Why Does Moving Emails From Promotions To Primary Matter?

When your phone rings, are you more likely to answer a call from your mom, or from an unknown number? Of course your mom!

Your mom has a strong connection with you; she’s been taking care of you her whole life, she sends you gifts, maybe even bakes you cookies. The unknown number, on the other hand, is just one more interruption that will be ignored during your daily routine.

The same happens with emails. If an email goes to the promotion tab, it most likely will be ignored. If they go to the primary tab, they most likely will be read. This is Google's best attempt to keep your inbox manageable in a world of marketers and businesses trying to get your attention.

Today, I want to share with you not only the importance of landing in the primary inbox, but how to move emails you actually want to read (like from your mom and other important people you want to hear from) from promotions to primary.

Why Does Moving Emails From Promotions To Primary Matter?

0.3% Club (remember this number)

Matt Navarra built Geekout: the world's most useful newsletter for social media managers and professionals. Even though Matt does consulting, and has several appearances on TV and important social media channels, he said an email newsletter is one the best ways to create an organic audience, build relationships, and get new deals. The question becomes, how can you do the same?

In 2022 alone, 333.2 billion emails were sent on average every day. According to a study, 90% of all emails end up in the Promotions tab! And only .3% of emails make it to the primary tab. These are wild statistics!

Geekout has been so successful that a lot of readers in the industry read the newsletter on Monday mornings to prepare for their work week.

Let’s be honest, who doesn’t want that?

The good news is that you can do it, too! The secret is simple: you have to make your customers move your emails from the promotion tab to the primary tab.

Why is it important to be in the primary tab? The answer is easy:

Being in the primary tab = more emails read = better relationships = more deals.

In this article, we will teach you how to ensure your new subscribers move emails from promotions to primary. Welcome to the 0.3% club.

The Forgotten Rule

“Permission marketing” was a term invented by Seth Godin back in 1999. Not only is it a concept with more than 20 years of history; it’s the key to unlocking long-term customer relationships and building a successful brand. By focusing on creating a mutually beneficial relationship with customers, you are able to engage them in meaningful ways that keep them coming back for more. If you are new to newsletters or want to create a newsletter, here are eight proven ways to get your first subscribers.

In contrast to traditional marketing - which is often intrusive, disruptive, and gets forgotten at the bottom of the promotions tab - Permission Marketing provides consumers with more control over the process. By seeking permission from the consumer, companies, entrepreneurs, and content creators can ensure that their messages are being seen by those who have an interest in the product or service being marketed. In other words, get your emails in the primary inbox. If you want more clients this holiday season, here are five ways to improve email deliverability this holiday season.

Permission Marketing:

• Helps to create a mutually beneficial relationship between the company and the customer.

• Encourages customers to stay engaged with a product or service for longer periods.

• Increase brand loyalty and overall satisfaction.

• Involving customers directly in the conversation surrounding a product or service.

• Understand what features they should focus on when developing new products and services.

As Seth Godin said, "The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing." Permission marketing allows brands to give their customers exactly what they want without feeling like they're being marketed to. I say all that because it is a fight for attention. Even if someone wants to hear from you and has opted in, they still might not see your emails if they have marked it as a promotion, or if they haven’t dragged your content into their primary inbox tab.

How To Move From Promotions To Inbox (Step-By-Step)

Moving emails from promotion to primary is one of the easiest things to do. Here are four ways you can do that and better instruct your subscribers to do the same.

Drag and Drop (this option only works on a desktop):

A. Find the email you want to move from promotions.

B. Select the email you want to move by holding the left mouse button pressed.

C. Drag and drop the email into the primary box

This is a great way for you to ensure that your contacts and subscribers don’t miss important emails from you in their inboxes. As an added bonus, this will help boost your open rates as well!

If you have multiple contacts that are moving or have already moved your emails into the Primary tab, it may be worth considering setting up special campaigns just for those contacts. That way, they know they won't be missing out on any of your content while also having all of your messages delivered exactly where they want them. By doing this, you can make sure that those important emails get seen and read by the right people at the right time!

Right click

1. Find the email you want to move from promotions.

2. Right-click on the email. (Control + click on Mac)

3. Select "Move to Tab," and then click on “Primary”

4. Confirm “yes” on the gmail popup. If you choose to move the email permanently, a prompt will appear asking you to confirm your decision

Successful delivery of emails to the intended recipients' inboxes is an essential part of email marketing. With beehiiv, you have a team of deliverability experts coupled with our best-in-class infrastructure that will have your emails landing in your inbox. Sign up now and make sure your emails arrive to your subscribers’ Primary Inbox.

Create filters

By creating filters, users can customize their email experience so that only relevant messages reach their inboxes. This is a great way to keep on top of emails without having to sort through everyone that comes in.

To create a filter, you should:

A. click on the settings icon at the top right corner of the Gmail view window.

B. Create the filter with all the parameters you want. For example, we will create a filter for all emails containing the word "beehiiv." You can also choose any contact by adding the @+Domian. If you are using beehiiv, here is a quick tutorial on how to configure custom domains.

C. If you want to create a new label, select "Apply the label," and then "New Label..." If you already have a label created, you can click on "Choose Label," and pick the label you want.

D. Add the name of the new label, and then click on "Create."

E. Finally, click on "Categorize as:" and then click on "Primary." To finish the setup, click on “Create Filter.” Automatically, Gmail will move to primary and will label any new email you receive from that sender.

This will ensure that subscribers get all of your emails and news updates quickly and easily so that they can easily find your newsletters in their inbox when they want to read them.

Add the email sender as a contact

A. Find the email you want to move from promotions.

B. Open the email and click on the profile picture.

C. Click the “Add to contact” symbol. It is a person with a + sign

D. Confirm “yes” on the Gmail popup.

Don't hesitate to ask your subscribers to add you as a contact. Adding you to their contacts also helps keep your emails from ending up in the spam folder. If a subscriber's inbox is flooded with emails from unknown sources, the filtering system is more likely to send your messages to the promotions tab or, even worse, the junk folder. When subscribers add your email address as a contact, it tells their email provider they expect and look forward to hearing from you. By adding your From address as a contact, subscribers can take an extra step towards ensuring they get all the content and special offers you're sending out!

If you need help getting started on asking your subscribers to add you as a contact, here's an example of how it could look:

"Want to make sure that you never miss one of our emails? We suggest adding our From address to your contacts list - it only takes a few seconds! In Gmail, hover over the sender's name in the top-left corner and click Add to Contacts. That way, you can be sure that all of our messages make it into your inbox!" Be brave and ask your subscribers to add you as a contact.

Next Steps

Now that you know how to add contacts and move emails from promotion to primary, add us or move us from promotion to primary so you get all the emails from us. We will help you to stay ahead of the competition with the best practices of the email newsletter industry. Add us now! See you in the primary inbox.