Gmail may well be the main email address you are using as a business, and there are many reasons
why Gmail is so popular as an email account. There are lots of different features and tools that
you can use with Gmail that allow you to manage both your time and your inbox relatively
efficiently. Most people use Gmail’s tools and features quite well but there is actually so much
more that you can do with it to help you becom even more efficient.
Using Google Apps
It goes without saying that as a business you will want your own identity
and domain name, so even though Gmail may be giving you everything
that you want in terms of usability and practicality it is not likely that
you will want your email address to end in @gmail…. It is rather more
likely you will want your company name to suffix your email address
for authenticity purposes and to increase your ‘trustworthy-ness’ in
the eyes of your customers. Using Google Apps for a small price per
can allow you to use canned responses instead.
Bringing together all of your email accounts
It is possible to centralise your emails into one place so that you can
manage them more effectively. This will come as a welcomed relief for
those of you who have a plethora of email addresses under various
domain names, both personal and work-related. Mail Fetcher is the
Gmail tool that can help you to do this so that you do not have to sit
with multiple email accounts open at your PC.
With Gmail it is possible to label the content of your inbox so that you can stay on track with
each of the different emails as if they were a task. You can categorise your inbox too, and create
filters so that everything is neatly sorted until you are ready to respond and deal with all of the
emails you have received.
Replying to emails to be sent when you are ready
Boomerang is a plugin that allows you to write your emails but delay the time you going to send
them out. You might think this sounds similar to drafting an email until you are ready to go in
and send it but this involves re-visiting your inbox and drafts. With boomerang you can simply
click send, knowing that it won’t hit the other person’s inbox until the time you have specified.
So, you can get up at whatever hour of the night and reply to all of your emails if you so wish,
knowing that it won’t hit the recipients’ inboxes until the morning so that they never need know
the time you sent it.
Creating Canned Responses
Canned responses are a great way of replying to different emails with the same response so you
can save time. It can be tedious writing out the same email to each of your recipients in response
to the same questions. This tools is based on keywords.
Alternatives to email
Don’t forget, with Gmail you can reply with video or in chat mode, which is more instantaneous.
Often an email is not needed and you can save some time by getting in touch and resolving an
issue in a matter of moments.
Muting unwanted mails
If you use social media then you will be familiar with the frustration of receiving notifications
about topics or threads that you are no longer interested in. If you belong to an email group then
you might have the same problem. To deal with this, Gmail provides you with a mute function so
that these emails are hidden from you and do not clog up your inbox.