Inbound Marketing

Here are Google’s 10 reason’s why you should use Gmail

1. You don’t like spam. Neither do we. Don’t waste time with junk mail and unwanted messages. Gmail blocks spam before it gets to your inbox. If an unwanted message ever finds its way through, you can fight back by reporting it and help make our spam filters even better.

2. Search your mail instantly. Use Google search within Gmail to find the exact message you want, no matter when it was sent or received. You don’t have to spend time sorting your email, just search for a message when you need it and we’ll find it for you.

3. Organize replies into conversations. With Gmail, each message you send is grouped with all the responses you receive. This conversation view continues to grow as new replies arrive, so you can always see your messages in context.

4. Chat is built right in. With just one click, you can chat in Gmail with the people you already email. You can even reply to an email by chat. And Gmail can archive all of your chats, making them searchable, so you never lose any valuable information.

5. Labels, filters, and stars…oh my!. Gmail uses labels to help you organize with more flexibility. A conversation can have several labels, so you’re not forced to choose one particular folder for messages. You can also create filters to automatically manage incoming mail. Starring messages is another way you can organize your inbox. Plus, it looks pretty.

6. Get your mail on the go. The days of needing your computer to get to your inbox are long gone. You can now use Gmail on your mobile device to access your email from anywhere.

7. Lots of space (and counting). We’re always working to increase the amount of free storage we offer in Gmail, and if you want even more, you can always purchase additional space. With all that space, you can archive instead of deleting messages, so they won’t clutter your inbox but will remain searchable in case you ever need them again.

8. We have ads, but only the good kind. With Gmail, you’ll never see pop-ups or untargeted banner ads. Instead we display text ads and related links you might find useful and interesting. Learn more about how seriously we protect your privacy.

9. Save time. Take advantage of Quick Contacts and Keyboard Shortcuts in Gmail to get through your email even faster. And don’t forget that you can quickly find messages using Gmail’s search feature powered by Google search technology.

10. All this is free? Yep. One other thing Google didn’t mention was you can put spreadsheets and documents in Gmail and work on them from anywhere, or allow access to other Gmail users.

Google has two different email systems.

1.     Google regular email system. This system gives you a Gmail address which you can use and you can have all your regular email forwarded to it. When you set up the emails, it gives you the ability to send from your other addresses so your Gmail email account doesn’t have to be used to send.

2.     Google now has business Gmail. With this system your email pointers are forwarded to Gmail and you use Gmail just like any other email client. All mail is received and sent through your domain name. All email users on your domain will be required to use Gmail.

I started using Gmail about a year and a half ago just to test the system and I haven’t looked back since then. I would never go back to an in-house email client. Gmail is easy to use, and keeps me organized.

At first I worried about not having a local backup of my email (I don’t trust anyone not to crash, not even Google), but I soon discovered the work around by using their IMAP capabilities to download email to my local Outlook. I would only use the local email in emergencies (a Google crash or my lack of internet access) but so far, I haven’t used it yet.

Gmail doesn’t use folders of any kind! This takes some getting used to and really requires the willingness to change the way you handle your email. For many people, unable to break the habit of filing things into folders, this requires much effort. What Gmail offers is a powerful search engine (your not surprised, are you??) type anything into the search box and you will get a list of email pertaining to that search. You can search a person, an email, a subject, dates, etc. Using the available filter and labels you can filter email as it comes in and have instant access to all your filters.

One of the things I love about Gmail is that it keeps all emails as “conversations”. Let’s say you are writing back and forth to someone under the subject “website review”. All emails back and forth are kept together (no matter what date they come in or go out), so you can easily see the entire conversation you are having.

Gmail didn’t make it easy for a user to import their data, but with technical assistance and some planning it can be done quickly. I would suggest if you have a lot of past emails and contacts that you pay someone who has done it before to help you out. You can of course figure it all out yourself, but it will take time.

Reasons why I love Gmail and highly recommend it:

1.     Get it off your computer. Google has much more space than you can ever hope to have on your computer.

2.     Makes your email more reliable. The chance of Google’s servers crashing is small, in comparison to the chances of your computer crashing.

3.     Access your email from anywhere, any time you have internet access. It doesn’t matter if you are at a client, an internet café, or sitting in a beach-front hotel room in Mexico, you have access to all your email and contacts and your full calendar.

4.     Keeping the email in “conversations”. This feature alone makes me love Gmail. No longer do I get an email and have to search to find all the other emails sent and received on this subject. I have the entire history of the conversation right at my fingertips.

5.     Spam filters that are better than any I have seen, anywhere.

6.     Gmail has helped me to stay organized. I set myself a limit of 10 emails in my inbox. I use the filters and archive email as fast as possible, so I no longer am stressed by looking at hundreds of emails sitting in my inbox. Now, the only emails there are the one’s I am actively working on.