Armaghan Saqib

The new “Priority Inbox” feature of gmail divides your Inbox into three sections.

No more hunting of important messages in your inbox full of unread messages. Gmail will automatically identify the important messages based upon the frequency of your contact/replies and probably few other things. You can also mark a message as important using + button.

This feature will keep all those emails which are not spam but still unnecessary or unimportant (like a promotion from your favorite store or a funny movie clip from a friend etc.) at the bottom of your inbox.

This feature has interesting implications for mass email marketers. Your messages are going to end-up at the bottom part of the inbox and probably will get a lot less attention (or none at worst) then these get now. Time to read “Permission Marketing” by Seth Godin. First four chapters are free.

There was a time when you could get away saying “It is a trade secret”. We were doubtful whether there really existed some secret or you were just bluffing. We were really not sure. We gave you benefit of doubt and status of an expert.

It is really amazing how Internet has changed all this. All amazing people in the world are sharing their wisdom and expertise generously through free ebooks, websites, blogs and social media tools.

We still need you as an expert. We still want to pay you handsomely because you are an expert and can help us ignore the 90% which does not matter.

But now we know you are not an expert. You are just bluffing us about secret knowledge. And we know this for sure.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/phauly/35555985/

I visited a charity eyes hospital few days ago. This small hospital is providing 100% free treatment and surgeries for last couple of years. This is an air-conditioned and well equipped place with a doctor, a senior surgeon and other staff in a clean and purpose built premises.

This hospital was facing a problem; it was running below its capacity. Due to fixed overheads, cost per patient was more than other hospitals; something which did not please its donors.

This situation was mostly because of new setup and lack of experience. Step are being taken to rectify this issue with better “marketing” strategy.

This visit made one thing very clear to me; even a free and well managed service like this needs promotion and marketing efforts to let people know its existence and get benefit, free.

So don’t just depend upon the greatness of your idea or product for its popularity. You will need to spend a lot of time and effort to promote it and make people/users passionate about it. This is something creators and technical people often forget.

I did this mistake for a long time. I don’t want you to do the same.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robotson/51775591/