The ability to manage company emails and send out marketing information about your business, while also being able to data transfers and store files is easier through business email solutions. You can get a free account or for a monthly fee have as many business email accounts you need with plenty of storage space and other necessary services such as virus and spam protection.

Email solutions aren't limited to your business email accounts. In addition to sending out your own emails, you can also generate business by signing up with companies that do email marketing. Here are some additional things to consider about using email solutions for your business:

1. Find a business email service that gives you multiple mailboxes and a variety of email solutions.
2. Use email solutions for business like email hosting and marketing.
3. Get a free business email account and address to save money while still getting email business services.
   

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Use business email services to help manage contacts and increase productivity

You can find just the right business email solution for you to help you manage and centralize business contact information, integrate POP3, IMAP and SMTP services as well as have multiple mailboxes with optimum amounts of storage space, all at a cost that can fit the needs of your business budget. Some email for business companies offer free multiple mailboxes for smaller businesses, while others offer as many as three hundred or more mailboxes for a monthly fee.

I recommend: Read about the many business email solutions offered by FastMail and Toast.net, including plans for small business as well as for those that require multiple mailboxes, sub folders and web administration services.

Find business email solutions with email hosting and marketing services

Email companies that offer services and solutions such as email hosting and marketing make both managing and promoting your business easier. Instead of needing to have an in-house server, train employees or purchase expensive hardware, you can go to email hosting sites to organize your email, calendars and business contacts. Email marketing services help you send messages to generate business from repeat customers as well as new ones at a price that to fit your budget needs.

I recommend: Learn about the features of email hosting sites from MailStreet and USA.net. Both of these sites offer business messaging services along with spam filtering and virus protection. Constant Contact offers a full range of email marketing services such as campaign creation and tracking, coaching and support.

Use free business email services to get addresses and accounts for your business while saving money

You can a have free business email address and email accounts to get everything you need to grow your business online. Manage sales opportunities, find potential sales, and generate revenue all with the ease of a point and a click.

I recommend: Learn about the services offered by Yahoo Small Business, where you can not only get a free website, but also a free business email address and free domain name. Email Center Pro offers free email services for small businesses. Both of these companies also offer premium services for larger businesses for a monthly fee.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Since there are services ranging in price from free to hundreds of dollars a month, decide which email services you need before signing up with an email provider.

To many colleagues and small businesses, email has become a burden to our productivity and work-life balance. This guide highlights some of the pitfalls and steps to take to reduce the amount of email you send and receive, but make it more efficient and to the point.

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Spend Less Time on Email

The first tip is don't have your email software open at all times. Otherwise everytime an email appears you are going to be tempted to open it up.Instead, just assign a timeslot every day when you will tackle emails. This will make you more efficient to be doing all your email communication in one go.

I recommend: Manage your time more effectively by using specific time slots to tackle emails.

The reply-to-all message

Don't click reply to all if you don't need to. And in the same vain, only send emails to people who are interested. Don't blanket email the whole company!

I recommend: This blog about the dreaded reply all!

The evolving agenda message

If you're on a project team, you may get an agenda that changes four or five times before the meeting takes place. Not only does that create a lot of extra e-mail, but if you haven't kept up with your inbox, you'll go to the meeting with an outdated agenda. Team leads should send out an initial draft agenda, get feedback, and then wait to send out a final version until right before the meeting.

I recommend: Use email efficiently

Create Effective Subject Lines

Try to make your subject titles relevant to the email, include keywords such as ACTION REQUIRED, or if it is a short email then just put the body of the email in the title, such as THANKS - ALL COMPLETE. This draws the reader to any urgent actions, but also helps them to avoid reading things that are unrelevant.

I recommend: Use effective email subjects

Useless Types of Email

The cover-your-assets message – 'It's unnecessary to send out a message with the sole purpose of letting people know you're doing your job or someone else isn't.'The ball-is-in-your-court message – 'With this email you delay action by sending a message to someone else knowing that you don't need to respond to it until they respond back to you. It's very inefficient.' The ever-so-polite-thank-you message – 'We all want to be polite,' says Chris. 'If you feel compelled to thank someone, put your thank you in a subject line so people do not have to open another message.'The let-me-know-when-this-has been read message – 'There are times when you legitimately need to know that someone has read your message; however, we are just using it too much and it is clogging up the systems.'The never-ending message stream – 'These messages force you to read down about 20 emails to figure out what the original intent was.

I recommend: Don't send useless emails!

Think about what you write

It may sound simple, but make sure your writing is legible, without spelling mistakes, or mis-typed or missing words.IT only takes a few moments to check over emails and this can save misunderstandings, miscommunication, and people having to come back and ask you what you meant!

I recommend: Try using a spellchecker, and read over your email.

In today's world of cyber communication, email is a critical part of every business's success. There are a number of email services which businesses and their employees may consider and use, some of which are free to use while others charge subscription fees to use them.

At-cost email services often have their own solution provider teams. Free business email service providers may not always be as accommodating or readily available as at-cost email providers. No matter what type of email service you select, you and your staff could find specialized email solutions education and training to help your business be more productive in your communications with each other and your clients. To establish more productive use of email in your office, you should:

1. Enroll in training courses to learn about email solutions.

2. Turn to online courses (webinars) and tutorials answer common questions, resolve email problems and learn about other email solutions.

3. Join online forums and message board on informative email service websites.

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Become educated on email solutions through training courses and classes

Any time a business switches email service providers, upgrades to a new system or hires someone new, it's helpful to provide access to training classes or tutorials to get everyone up to speed. Or sometimes, a refresher course can provide new and different tips to your system administrator for handling the email system for your company.

I recommend: EganEmailSolutions.com offers persuasive and effective advice on how to manage one's email and cut down on the amount of email problems business teams face. Courses are also available to learn about individual email programs and email solutions specific to those programs and products. Alsion.com offers an online course on Gmail, how to use it and common Gmail email solutions.

Invest in programs, classes and other courses that could assist in the email problem solving

There are a wide variety of issues which pop up in the use of email. Therefore, it will be important to be educated in these various fields. The more information an individual has, the better prepared he will be to address email problematic incidents.

I recommend: AIIM offers a number of benefits through their email management course. Scribd.com offers a crash-course in email management, an important skill because it allows a business email account to run effectively, efficiently and in a reliable manner. If an email account is not reliable, it does not do much good for the individual or the business.

Investigate websites, forums and discussion boards that deal with email solutions

Another way to get information about email solutions is to become involved in an open dialogue with others. Discussion boards and forums online allow just this. Whether a business has questions, comments or concerns about email solutions, these types of environments can be invaluable for educational purposes. In many instances, businesses and individuals will run into similar, if not identical, issues and concerns when it comes to their email. Many websites will take common questions and post understandable, non-complex email solutions to these popular queries.

I recommend: BTB.Lithium.com is a positive and supportive environment for asking questions about email clients, email solutions and other learning opportunities for businesses and individuals. SliceHost.com is another beneficial site for discussing business email services and business email solution options available. Both sites also allow for general comments about email solution opportunities available. FreeComputerAdvice.org offers very straight-forward answers to common email issues businesses and individuals may have. RestartOffice.com also offers advice on common email client problems.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Keep in mind that even if one does utilize a business email service which is free, the support team for that free business email address can still benefit the company and the individual. It may take more time than one may initially prefer, but this can still help in the long run. Answers from email companies can still be useful and teach solutions to particular problems and concerns.
• •  Businesses can enjoy a variety of benefits when they invest in email solutions education and training, including saving time when someone on staff if able to quickly answer your email questions based on their training, saving money by making an educational investment in email solutions rather than paying a professional to come in and address the issue every time there's a problem and increasing employees' feeling of self-worth through the expansion of their skills and capabilities.

Today, almost all businesses depend on the use of email. There are countless applications and programs that can be integrated with email to meet your business needs. Many solutions are meant to automate some or all of the processes involved in sending bulk emails for marketing purposes. These email solutions may use autoresponders, black lists or white lists. They may keep track of bounce-backs or addresses that have opted out. Other solutions may offer listserv and broadcast capabilities. Before researching email solutions for your business, familiarize yourself with these key terms.

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Autoresponder

An autoresponder is a way to automatically send a pre-written response to anyone who sends email to a particular address. Autoresponse messages can notify people that a person is away on vacation, give them information to quickly receive help, list frequently asked questions or deliver a marketing message.

I recommend: Find a definition of autoresponder at Creative Web Solutions.

Internet black and white lists

Internet black and white lists are devices that attempt to block unsolicited email. A black list is a group of addresses that a user blocks from sending emails, while a white list is compiled of trusted addresses. A spam blocker may block mail from addresses on the black list and allow mail from addresses on the white list.

I recommend: ZeroMillion.com has more information about black and white lists and their uses.

Bounce

When an email bounces, it means that the email provider was unable to deliver the email to the address provided. Most providers send a message to notify the sender of a bounced email. Soft bounces refer to bounces caused by a temporary problem, such as a full mailbox. Hard bounces usually mean the email address does not exist.

I recommend: Check out Deliverability.com for an email glossary that includes many types of bounces.

Opt-in

Opt-in is an option that allows people to request your marketing emails. Opt-out gives recipients a way to request the removal of their address from your marketing list.

I recommend: At Innovate Media, you can read definitions of opt-in and opt-out as part of a larger glossary of marketing terms.

Listserv

A listserv is a server that sends out bulk email to everyone on a mailing list. The server can configure the lists so only the owner can send mail, or it can set up the listserv as a discussion list so recipients can reply. In a discussion list, members can respond to a bulk email and their emails will go to all the members on the list.

I recommend: NetLingo offers a definition of listserv in a glossary of internet-related terms.

Broadcast email

Broadcast email is the process of sending one email message to a list of many recipients, usually for marketing purposes. A broadcast email doesn't allow responses from people who receive the email. Rather than keeping a subscriber list, a broadcast email sends one message to all the addresses provided.

I recommend: Check out Intiger for a definition of broadcast email.