Why we LOVE Google!
I am not ashamed to admit that I have an obsession with Google and all of their fantastic products. I run my businesses through Google, and everyone on my immediate team must have a google account. Whenever we bring on new clients, I encourage them to make the switch to gmail, and find myself continually dishing out the details on why we love it so much. So here, in one place, let me lay it all out.
Gmail. This entire post will be dedicated just to gmail and it’s amazingly user-friendly and smart functionality (maybe we’ll cover other products like Cal and Docs in another post!). If you are not currently using gmail to manage your email, you are missing out and most likely wasting time. From a functional standpoint, perhaps the best feature of gmail is it’s email threading. Never again will you need to scour through email chains to find responses. Gmail appends one email to the next, so long as the subject remains the same. This key feature keeps your correspondence neat, tidy and accessible. And when in doubt, gmail has it’s own google search box at the top for a detailed search of your mailboxes.
In a close second would have to be gmail chat– including v-chat- gmail’s own video chat. We use g-chat literally all day long to communicate. It makes working independently much more interactive. Everyone on the team knows that they can always reach me on g-chat, since my gmail is always open! They recently introduced gmail video chat- which allows you to video chat with other gmail users. This came in very handy this past summer when I was in Maine and my son in NJ! We were able to see and talk to eachother at the push of a button!
So without overly obsessing on gmail, let me just mention a few more key (and mucho useful!) features- most of which you’ll need to manually add through your settings.
- (1) To do lists- this is a new addition. Take your emails and with one click, add them to your to do list, which you can then add comments to, and sync to your google cal!
- (2) Labels- gmail’s answer to folders. Tag emails with as many labels as you like. With one click, find all the emails under that particular label. Want it out of your inbox, just archive it! It takes some getting used to if you are coming from a folder system, but you will see the beauty of it when you can label one email with multiple relevant labels rather than sticking them in just one folder!
- (3) Multiple identities- Add other email addresses (just about any email will work- hotmail, yahoo, work emails, etc) to your gmail account to send messages, receive messages, forward messages. This is a key feature that allows me to keep one inbox with multiple aliases for multiple clients!
- (4) Attachment reminders- Seriously it is smart enough to know that if you mention an attachment in your email and actually forget to attach it, gmail will remind you before you can send it!
- (5) And last but not least- gmail has an UNDO feature! Oh yeah… sent out an email that was totally sent to the wrong person, or said something you had second thoughts about? Right after you hit send, gmail gives you a few seconds to literally undo your msg, as though it was never sent- lifesaver!
Now I’m not saying you need to be as obsessed with gmail as I/we are, but Google definitely deserves some love for this amazingly useful product and their commitment to developing fabulous new tools to make it even cooler!
Feelin the love… Emily
Email Marketing Service Comparison
Entrepreneurs whether online or brick and mortar all look to email as a crucial piece of their marketing campaigns. There are several great providers out there with a proven track record of delivery success and customer satisfaction. When you’re looking to initiate your next email marketing blitz, you may struggle with the decision of which company to use. Here’s a breakdown of the top two programs that we recommend and the differences between them:
Pros: Super-simple contact management and email creation, customizable autoresponders. Great customer support team!
Pricing: Free 60 day trial, $15/mo for up to 500 contacts, pricing increases per number of contacts.
Offers: Over 300 fully customizable HTML email templates for newsletters, announcements, cards, promos, surveys.
List Mgmt: Sign up box which can be added to your website, ability to easily import/ upload your contacts into segmented lists, a useful unsubscribe comment box. Real-time open and click tracking, above-average inbox delivery rate.
Cons: Because you can easily upload your contact list into their system, your list may not be as clean as with other email programs that may require subscribers to re-opt-in to confirm interest.
Pros: Small, dedicated team of developers, mandatory verifying opt-in helps you build a stronger list, and they take spam seriously!
Pricing: Free trial, $19/mo for up to 500 contacts, pricing increases per number of contacts.
Offers: In addition to email marketing, analytics and autoresponders, AWeber also offers website sign-up forms with split-test forms that let you test which headlines get the best response, the ability to send subscribers to any page on your website, or create hover pop-up forms. Over 100 html templates to choose from, split test messages (to track which gets the best results), blog newsletters, and autoresponders with download delivery. Integrated shopping cart capability.
List Mgmt: Zero spam policy, automatically processes unsubscribes and undeliverable addresses, detailed web analytics, verified list opt-in.
Cons: A third of the amount of selection in templates and while the required opt-in will eventually give you a stronger list, initially it could be tough for some to see their mailing list numbers deplete!
Our Recommendation:
If you are just looking for a simple way to manage your mailing list, and deliver a clean newsletter or html email to your subscribers, Constant Contact will give you the results you need. If you are looking to get technical, possibly integrate lots of shopping cart/ ecommerce functions eventually, and work to build out a streamlined list, consider AWeber for its additional features and stricter opt-in rules. If you only have a small list and want to send a beautiful html (simple, no coding required!) emails, check out MailChimp which is free if you send to under 100 recipients a max of 6x per month.
