Email is a constant in every business owner’s life. Whether you love the satisfaction of an organized inbox or the idea of unread emails sounds like a headache, email communication is a unavoidable part of today’s working world. That’s why it’s so important to find the email setup that’s going to work best for you and your business. We’ve compiled a list of some of our favorite options below.
(1) Google Workspace / Gmail
Gmail’s widespread popularity makes it easy to communicate and collaborate with other users. Its many email features are customizable and allow you to manage your inbox in whatever way works best for you.
- Labels and sub-labels let you organize your inbox as desired
- Option to schedule emails to send at specific times
- AI tool “Smart Compose” speeds up writing emails with predictive text
- Notifications can be turned on exclusively for high priority emails
- Undo button lets you unsend an email up to 30 seconds after hitting send
- Email templates allow you to reply quickly with pre-written responses
- Variety of theme and design options for your inbox
(2) Microsoft 365 / Outlook
Microsoft Outlook is a classic option for business email setup. Unlike Gmail, it is a paid service, but it boasts many helpful features that make it a strong competitor.
- Option to schedule emails to send at specific times
- New tasks or events can be created without ever leaving your inbox
- “Quick Parts” feature lets you save a section of an email to fill out future emails
- Variety of keyboard shortcuts help you speed up your workflow
- Customize how new emails appear in your inbox with different fonts/colors/styles
- Different inbox view options
(3) Domain-based email with forwarding
If you’re a fan of Gmail’s features, but you want to include your domain name in your email address, setting up email forwarding is a great option. Using Google Domains, you can add an “Email Alias” that will automatically forward all emails to your Gmail account. This is also an option with other email programs such as Outlook, Yahoo, or Apple Mail. The disadvantage with this option, however, is that when you reply to emails they’ll come from your Gmail (or other email provider) address, and not from your domain email.
(4) Domain-based email setup for sending/receiving emails
Let’s say you want to take it one step further and actually send and receive emails from your domain-based email address. There are step-by-step instructions you can follow to set that up with Gmail or Outlook!
No matter what kind of work you do, you’re most likely going to be checking your email daily. Making sure you’ve picked the right email setup can streamline your daily work and save you precious time so you can focus on running your business!
