Web Podcast - Episode 23: Emails EXPLAINED

Read the transcription of this podcast:

Hey guys, episode 23 today. I'm going to be talking to you about email. Setting up an email for your business, how they work, the different types of emails, software you need and setting up smart things like email signatures.

Initially, when they start a business, a lot of people set up an email which is generally a gmail or hotmail, or Yahoo email address. That's fine, but when you're setting up a business you need to set up an identity. The cost for a proper email address is insignificant. When I say proper email address I mean something like info@bobscleaning.co.nz not bobscleaning123@gmail.com, that's not a good idea. You need a proper email address.

What you need is two things. A domain name, which is bobscleaning.co.nz or facebook.com, thats a domain name. You need a domain name. Then you need email hosting. Email hosting is the mailbox.

You have an address and you have the mailbox, two seperate things that you pay for.

If you have a website, or you're having one built, generally you'll find it will include email hosting. You'll pay website hosting, generally website hosting and email hosting are one thing. In some cases they're not, they may charge more for it. We dont, we charge a set amount for website hosting, and you also get emails included too. You have two parts of it and they are affordable.

Email comes, and it goes through a mail exchange, then it goes into your inbox. So when you send an email it sends it to a server that hosts the email you're sending it to, then it delivers it to their inbox. It's just like a two way chat.

There's two types of email, you've probably heard of them before, the first one anyway. POP 3 is a protocol for emails.
In layman's terms POP emails are set up so that when the email comes in, it goes to the inbox and its permanently stored there, on the device that the email comes through on. The email comes in, the email comes, it stays in your inbox, it's there. If you have another laptop, or phone with the email setup with, you're going to find that they don't synchronise together. They don't link together. If you read an email on one device, it will stay unread on the other device. That's the downside with POP.

The good thing about it is that you have a local copy of it. If you ever forgot to pay your email bill and they canceled it, you wouldn't lose all your emails. You've got a copy of it there, a backup on your device. They’re uncommon nowadays, we use the other protocol which is IMAP.

IMAP stores the emails permanently on the server, just like your website, or Facebook account. Anything that's online like DropBox. That's all stored online. It is synchronised to your computer, your computer has a copy and your computer, every couple of minutes, will look to see if there's any new emails on the server, then it will pull them onto the computer. It's like a cached version.

IMAP, at the end of the day, is the better way to go. If you read an email on one device, then you open it on another device, you'll find the other device will automatically label it as read. It knows you've read it on the other device. They synchronise together so that they keep up to date. That's because everything is based on the server. When you read it on your phone, that's pinged back to the server, the server knows that it is read. The other device asks for an update, which then recognises that the email has been read, so it knows the device needs to say the device has been read. If you have sent an email, or replied to one, all those emails will synchronise on both devices so they are the same replication of what's on the email server.

That's the best way to go, at the end of the day, the best way to go in terms of emails, is IMPA. the only downside is the IMAP uses a lot more storage, if you're doing hundreds of emails a day, you'll quickly use up the disk space. You'll end up using a lot of memory on the server. The more memory you use, the more you pay. Some providers give you a lot of room, so it should take you a few years to use it. But some people only have a couple of emails a day, so it doesn't really matter.
What you can do, once a year, grab all the emails from the year before and dump them into a backup on your local computer. If you ever need to get to them again you can, that will free up disk space on the server.

If you have emails already, and you're getting charged an arm and a leg, consider pulling the old emails from the server, and store them on your local computer. Then it means you can free up room and you'll no longer have to pay for the room that you are using at the moment.

What software should you use for emails?

Im sure youve all heard of Microsoft Outlook. If you have an Apple you'll use Mail, more than likely. I used I used an app called Postbox for a while, which was good, until I had too many emails. It started to slow right down.
You really need a good email application. To be honest, like printers, emails is a frustrating technology. I generally use Outlook, or I use Apple Mail if Im on my Mac.

You can also use free email software on Windows if you don't want to spend money on Outlook. That's Mozilla Thunderbird, from the creators of Firefox, which you'll know. Thunderbird is a free application, its similar to Outlook and has all the same features. It just takes a little bit of getting used to. But it's a great alternative which saves you money.

With emails I recommend two other things.

You have an email signature. On every email you send out, you'll have the companies name, email address, its phone number, the website, Facebook. Its all important stuff you should have on every single email. You're basically signing off your email with your details. A lot of people don't have anything, they just have thanks, or thanks Bob, or Kind Regards Bob. No, don't do that, you need a proper email signature. I'm sick of people running around with no email signature. When I go look for them an I want to call Bob to ask him to clean my office. But, in all the emails from Bob, there’s no phone number. I don't want to email him, I want to give him a call, but none of the signatures on his email has his phone number. Or has his store address. I want to see all of that stuff on emails as I don't have time to go to Google and search for his website, or go to his website and find his contact page.

You need to have an email signature, especially when dealing with new customers and you're dealing with quotes. They're going to want to call you. Put your phone number on there, your website. Make it look professional otherwise people may look at another guys email, see he has an email signature which make shim easier to get a hold of, so they end up getting a hold of him.

Spam filter:

A lot of email hosting providers include this nowadays. You can get commercial grade spam filters. You won't get a big bulk of emails hogging up your inbox every day which are full of rubbish like Viagra, and Russian ladies wanting to come over to your country.

That's the stuff you want to avoid as it wastes productivity. Get a spam filter which will take all of that out without you even seeing it. It frees up time in your day, and stops notifications from going off on your phone. Which, by the way, you shouldn't have going anyway. You shouldn't have notifications distracting you throughout the day. But that's a whole other topic.

Consider making sure that you have a spam filter setup on your email so that you don't have all the rubbish coming in. also, it helps prevent virus attacks. If someone sends an invoice email, and you panic wondering who you have money to, but when you click on it it’s a virus.

It gets rid of all that too.

That's emails guys, I hope that helped. Listen through a few more times if you're unsure of anything.

In summary, use IMAP, get a proper email address with a domain name and email hosting, make an email signature, get a spam filter, then set yourself up on Outlook or Thunderbird if you want to save some money.

Thats Matt from the Razor Web Design Wire Podcast. Please guys, if you wouldn't mind reviewing me on iTunes, or follow me, whatever so that I can grow my base.

Cheers guys. See ya.