What if your email messages could be more interactive? It’s not entirely impossible, and already certain marketing emails are full of images and links that redirect you back to their main site. But what if the redirection could be bypassed all together?

ReadWriteWeb mentioned Gmail’s enhanced messages today, noting an important aspect of the evolution of email messaging and marketing. With the enhanced messages, readers can opt to have real-time updates in their emails. An icon will denote an updated message from a participating business, and the content viewable to the reader will be more along the lines of an interactive website.

Freaky, but true. The enhanced Gmail messages have been in testing for some time, and they could become a promising way in which we interact with our inbox.

As ReadWriteWeb stated, such interactivity in our emails could mean a great deal to brands looking for better ways in which to reach consumers and convert their email mailing lists into business transactions. Instead of having to return to the site, you could use your immediate and open email account to authenticate your account and interact with the website without leaving your inbox at all. For shoppers, this could greatly simplify the online purchasing process.

From a business perspective, the real-time updates in a user’s inbox means less clutter, a highlighted presence and a time-saving way in which to appeal to consumers. This form of advertising is both scary and practical, as it lends to a great deal of trust on the part of the brand, the consumer, and Google as the provider of the email client.

The larger trend we’re seeing is for marketers to find better ways in which to directly communicate with consumers. This is often done through socially integrated applications, among other things. While the inbox may not be the final frontier, it does point towards a highly personalized tactic for approaching the consumer base. As the ecnomy continues to balance iself back out, advertising has taken a decided turn towards highly directive campaigns, seeking more effective ways in which to cultivate quality relationships with users.

This particular tactic is quite necessary when it comes to consumerism online, as it reflects a changing necessity to provide value to consumers. That is the only way Gmail’s enhanced messages will work, as it is ultimately up to the users to find value in the new message options instead of viewing it as an invasion of privacy. To that end, many businesses are likely to approach the enhanced messaging option with caution.

It also speaks to a growing ability to interact with content in a “remote” sense, via the web. As expected, the email inbox has become more central to a good portion of our web activity, as it seemingly remains an unbiased service we use as a portal to communicate with other people and other services. This occurs both online and offline, making the email inbox a necessary portal for our generation. That being said, a way to better incorporate messages from brands could actually be a good thing, provided it is useful and accepted by the population at large.

Beyond marketing purposes, such real-time updates could offer a wealth of options for improved electronic communication, even on a personal level. Whether or not the world is ready to shift its thinking around the capabilities of our rather static inbox remains to be seen, but I’m excited about the potential. It highlights email’s ability to transcend the physical traits we’ve assigned to an inherently intangible process of communicating with each other. Once we unwrap our brains around our current concept of email, the greater the possibilities will become.