7 Ways to Make Gmail Even Better

Gmail has become a powerful and inexpensive way to run your company's email. I moved each of my domains there last year and found it to be extremely helpful. As Google continues to add features and collaboration tools, Gmail might be a useful service for your small business to consider.

Here is my suggested plan of action:

1. Let Google host your domain

First, get a Google Apps for Business account. Move the MX records for your domain from your previous server to Google's servers (this isn't as difficult as it sounds). In doing this, you can use Gmail and its functions while still having your mail come from john@yourdomain.com.

You can also create custom emails for your staff. This service costs $50 a year and allows you to share calendars, tasks, and contacts throughout your team. (Most Web hosts these days give you access to the mail server for making this change.)

2. Use the Priority Inbox feature

Once email starts coming in it can be a chore to wade through, looking for what's the most important. Turn on the Priority Inbox feature and Gmail will start moving what it deems the most important email to the top.

Priority Inbox learns what's important by how you interact with it, and by who and what you reply to. You can also simply mark email as important and it will learn that way, too. After a few weeks you'll wonder how you ever got by without it.

3. Label and filter for better workflow

You can create an infinite number of labels (like folders) and filters in Gmail to store and organize your email. I recommend trying the Nested Labels feature, which allows you to create a subtopic within a parent label. To create these, simply connect the parent label to the sub label (ie: clients/nameofclient).

Filters allow you to automate how your email is handled and sorted. If you get a lot of email from one service, create a filter and the mail will go straight to that folder, relieving the clutter in your inbox.

4. Create multiple link-rich signatures

I use a Firefox add-on, Wisestamp, to create different signatures for work and home purposes. You can create a number of different signatures depending upon who and what you are responding to. You can also use the add-on to insert signatures in Web forms.

You are also able to add images and links as well as social media icons in each variation.

5. Get social with Rapportive

Rapportive is another browser add-on that adds social media and other contact information on the people you correspond with. You can learn a great deal about who just sent you that email without ever leaving your inbox.

You can also start an email with someone in your inbox or contact list and see things like their last few tweets. This can be a very handy conversation and research add-on.

6. Use Boomerang to manage responses

This browser add-on makes me much smarter and saves me a lot of worry. With Boomerang you can send a reply and tell Gmail to remind you to follow up if you don't hear back, or just follow up at some set future date. Then the email pops back into your priority inbox.

You can also review your email and tell Boomerang to remove an email and remind you in a few hours or a few days. Again, the email magically pops back into your inbox.

(One word of warning: If you use the Google Apps version of Gmail for domains, you will have to get or give permission to users to use these 3rd party browser apps.)

7. Turn Gmail into an autoresponder

In Google Labs (click Gmail Settings and find the tab marked "Labs") you can turn on a host of options that will enhance Gmail's functionality. One that I like is the Canned Responses, which allows you to store email copy that you frequently use.

We get lots of similar requests for information and whenever we need to use the copy, we can insert it with one click. Combine this feature with some smart filtering and you can automatically send different messages to different types of inquiries.

(Google has stated they are phasing the Labs project out, but many of the established labs, such as Canned Responses will likely become product features.)

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John Jantsch is a marketing consultant and author of Duct Tape Marketing and The Referral Engine and the founder of the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network.