Overwhelmed by Email? Here Are 11 Great Tools for Organizing Your Inbox

November 30, 2015 at 02:00PM

Most people have a love-hate relationship with their email inbox. On the one hand, email can be exciting -- whether you're making progress with a client, replacing a meeting with a (much more efficient) email thread, or receiving an invitation to a fun social gathering.

On the other hand, though, email can be overwhelming -- especially if you lose control.

And boy is it easy to lose control. After all, email is one of the top ways we communicate with a lot of the people in our lives, from our best friends to people we've never spoken with before. Many of us get bombarded by new emails on a regular basis, and it's stressful to know that we might be missing out on the truly important stuff amid the flood of less pertinent stuff.

Luckily, there are a lot of tools out there that can help us get more organized. In this post, we'll go through 11 of our favorite tools for organizing your inbox. Try 'em out, and help pave your own way to a more productive and less stressful email experience.

11 Tools for Organizing Your Inbox

1) Unroll.me

Price: Free

The first step to relieving your inbox from all that email is to unsubscribe from all the newsletters you've subscribed to over the years. But unsubscribing manually from tens, maybe hundreds of newsletters would take forever.

Enter Unroll.me, a free tool that lets you mass unsubscribe from all the newsletters you don't read. You can either wipe the slate clean and unsubscribe from everything at once, or you can pick and choose. Read this blog post to learn more about how it works.

2) The Email Game

Price: Free

If you're overwhelmed by the amount of email in your inbox but dread the thought of clearing it out, and you're a competitive person, The Email Game might be right up your alley. This free tool for Gmail and Google apps gamifies the act of clearing out your inbox.

All you have to do is enter your email address, and the game will begin. It gives you five seconds per email to decide what to do with it: reply, "boomerang" (i.e. archive now and resurface in your inbox at a later, specified time), archive, delete, or skip. You get a certain number of points for each action and you're penalized if you go over time. If you click "reply," then you're given three minutes by default to respond. You can always add time if you really need to, but speed is in your best interest here.

3) FollowUpThen

Price: Free; Paid Versions Available

Here's another simple but useful tool, this time for reminding you -- and even your clients, if you want -- to follow up on specific emails.

Here's how it works: Compose an email, and then include [any time]@followupthen.com in the "Bcc," "Cc," or "To" fields of your email. The "any time" wording here is pretty flexible: It can be "tomorrow@followupthen.com," "nextwednesday@followupthen.com," "3hours@followupthen.com," "everyday@followupthen.com," "every3rdwednesday@followupthen.com," and so on.

What happens to that email when you click "send" depends where you put that @followupthen.com email address:

• Bcc: You'll get a follow-up regarding the email (without bothering the original recipient).
• Cc: The tool will schedule a reminder for you and the recipient.
• To: The tool will send an email to your future self.

It works for every email client, and it's free for up to 50 follow-ups per month. You can increase the number of follow-ups and add features like calendar integration for between $2–$9 per month.

4) Boomerang 

Price: Free

Boomerang is a powerful tool I've been using for years to manage my Gmail inbox. This Chrome extension for Gmail users does two things really well:

1. It lets you schedule emails to be sent later.
2. It lets you archive emails that will reemerge in your inbox later as an unread message.

The second concept here is similar to that of FollowUpThen, except you have a lot more control over tracking and changing the times at which emails reemerge in your inbox. It's free and works on desktop and mobile, including Android.

5) Sidekick

Price: Free; Paid Versions Available

Ever wanted to know who opens your emails and when, how many times, and from where? When you download the Sidekick Chrome extension, you can opt in to get live notifications whenever someone opens or clicks on the links in your emails.

Another cool feature is the contact information sidebar that pops up when you open an email thread. It includes all the relevant information about the person you're emailing, including past contact history (kind of like LinkedIn's "relationship tab" function), social media content, mutual connections, and so on. Soon, the extension will let you schedule emails to send later.

Image Credit: Sidekick

The free version gets you 200 open/click notifications per month and unlimited email profiles. For unlimited open/click notifications, you can upgrade for $10 per month. There's also a version created for sales teams that includes email templates, document sharing, and other functionalities you can learn about here.

6) SaneBox

Price: $2/month

If you're looking to automate prioritizing each email as it comes in, you may want to give SaneBox a try. There's nothing to install here: Basically, it works with any email client to create three new folders: SaneTop, SaneLater, and SaneNews. When a new email comes in to your inbox, SaneBox quickly analyzes it to determine how important it is. This analysis is based on your past interaction with your inbox. If SaneBox finds the new email important, it'll keep it in your inbox. If not, it'll send it to one of those three folders.

Later, you'll get a digest of the emails that were sent to those three folders so you can decide whether any of them need your attention when you have the time. Over time, you "train" SaneBox to filter certain types of emails into each of these folders.

Image Credit: SaneBox

SaneBlackHole is a fourth folder that'll help you delete emails and unsubscribe from them in one fell swoop. When you manually drag an email into your SaneBlackHole folder, it'll delete the email and unsubscribe from the source automatically.

There are other cool features in here too, like the "attachments" feature that automatically sends all email attachments into a Dropbox folder.

You can try SaneBox for free for two weeks, but after that, it's $2 per month.

7) Checker Plus 

Price: Free

Checker Plus is a Chrome extension for Gmail that helps you manage multiple Gmail accounts at once so you don't have to flip through multiple inboxes. One of the main features is instant email notifications even when Gmail isn't open. So if you're a fan of notifications, then you'll like this one.

Without opening Gmail in your browser, Checker Plus will give you desktop notifications when you get a new email, along with the option to read, listen to, or delete emails.

I'm a big fan of the extension's voice notification feature. If I get an email while I'm busy cooking dinner or something, I can choose to have the extension read the email out loud to me, even if Gmail isn't open. (Just remember to shut this off when you head into the office.)

It's worth noting, by the way, that Checker Plus has pretty extensive online support and documentation. If you're having an issue with the extension, it's not hard to find a solution.

Image Credit: PC World

8) Hiver 

Price: Free; Paid Versions Available

If your team (or heck, even your family) uses Gmail as their main email client, then this could be a useful app for collaboration. Hiver lets you share Gmail labels with other users to streamline collaboration. That way, you can share emails with other people -- even if they weren't an original recipient -- by adding a shared Gmail label to that email. A great way to use these labels is by assigning tasks, delegating emails, and tracking their status.

Hiver also lets you create and share email templates with your team, as well as share notes on emails that help you summarize or explain what's going on in an email thread. This can be helpful for anyone working on proposals, tasks, or support tickets.

Hiver's free version lets you share labels, notes, and so on with three other users, and lets you share three labels and ten email templates. For added features and functionality, paid versions range from $6–$18 per user per month.

Image Credit: Hiver

9) Mailbird

Price: Free; Paid Versions Available

There are other email clients out there, like Mailbox, Boxer, and CloudMagic, but Mailbird manages to stand out.

While it only works for Windows users, this email client unifies your inbox with your apps by rolling your email and all your calendar, task, and messaging apps into an all-in-one interface. And it's a simple user interface, which you can customize in different colors and layouts.

Here's an example of what one layout looks like with email and WhatsApp integration:

Image Credit: IT World

Other popular choices for app integration include Google Calendar and a video conferencing app called Veeting rooms.

Mailbird works for Windows users on desktop and mobile. The Lite version is free and will allow you to sync three email accounts. If you want to sync more than that and want other, more advanced functionalities -- like the ability to "snooze" your email, Boomerang-style -- then you'll have to get the paid version for $9 per year.

10) SimplyFile 

Price: Free

While Outlook doesn't have nearly as many organization tools as other email clients, here's one for Outlook users only that'll help you spend less time filing your email. The tool adds a toolbar (or "ribbon tab") to your inbox, with different, customizable files, which is easily accessible so you can file new emails quickly.

When an email comes in, simply drag it into the appropriate folder. You can organize both messages you're receiving in your inbox, as well as messages you're sending -- which you can file as you send them.

Image Credit: SimplyFile

11) Gmail Special Stars

Price: Free

I couldn't write a blog post about inbox organization without including my go-to strategy for getting to -- and maintaining -- inbox zero. This tool isn't an add-on, but rather it uses a built-in feature in Gmail called "special stars," which is just a slightly fancier labeling system than Gmail labels. Read this blog post to for step-by-step instructions for enabling special stars and using the methodology to get to inbox zero in a few hours.

 

Which tools do you use to organize your inbox? Share them with us in the comments.

 

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How to Write With Clarity: 9 Tips for Simplifying Your Message

November 30, 2015 at 12:00PM

There’s something missing from a lot of content.
It’s clarity.
Clarity means making your content easy to understand. If people can’t understand what you’re trying to say, then your content is not useful, right?

The Best Times to Send Business Emails This Holiday Season [New Data]

November 29, 2015 at 02:00PM

This post originally appeared on HubSpot's Sales Blog. To read more content like this, subscribe to Sales.

We’ve finally found an effective email strategy. Our open and clickthrough rates are optimized -- or so we thought.

Until one December morning when our metrics plummet. It must be a mistake.

Or, it’s the holiday season. Each year from November to January, email behavior changes and email strategies lose their effectiveness.

To combat this, we decided to look at 4,513,689 emails to analyze exactly how the holidays impact our one-to-one emails. The presentation below reveals all our never-before-shared insights. 

Let's explore.

How have the holidays impacted your email activity? Share your experiences in the comments section below.

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How to Create a 'To-Don't' List: A Productivity Trick for Focusing On What Really Matters [Infographic]

November 28, 2015 at 02:00PM

This post originally appeared on HubSpot's Sales Blog. To read more content like this, subscribe to Sales.

When I got my first job, I was given one piece of advice over and over again: Say yes. Say yes to every opportunity that comes your way, raise your hand for side projects, and generally go above and beyond.

Going above in your role is a great way to learn and grow. But sometimes, saying no is just as important. And while you're probably already familiar with the to-do list, there's another list out there that might be even more valuable.

The to-don't list, as its name suggests, itemizes all the things you won’t do throughout your day.

Developed by Tom Peters, author of In Search of Excellence, this tool helps you focus on what’s actually important and serves as a conscious reminder of what’s not.

So what does a to-don’t list actually look like? Use the guiding questions in the infographic below to create your own, and check out what Daniel Pink includes on his to-don’t list.

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Why Last Year’s Holiday Ecommerce Sales Numbers Are Changing 2015 Expectations

November 27, 2015 at 04:30PM

You don’t need anyone to tell you that the holidays are a major opportunity for retailers everywhere (online or offline). But you might be surprised by the level of importance they carry and how some of these trends are changing.

RJMetrics analyzed data from hundreds of ecommerce stores. Some of what we found wasn’t too surprising – Black Friday and Cyber Monday are major shopping days for any ecommerce retailer. But some findings were a little more unexpected. The big one? For the past five years online retailers have been generating a decreasing percentage of their annual revenue during holiday months.

Read on for what’s behind these trends, and how they are changing expectations for the upcoming weeks.

How Important Was Last Holiday Season to Ecommerce Companies?

Overall, the months of November and December account for more than 20% of total annual revenue.

On average, these “holiday shopping months” bring in 30% more revenue than non-holiday months.

Is This Normal?

Without a doubt, the holiday season is  an important time for ecommerce companies. But you can add some additional context when you segment this data by year.

Since 2010, the holiday months of November and December are comprising a shrinking portion of total annual revenue. While ecommerce sales as a whole are growing – up 15.4% since 2013 according to the U.S. commerce department – retailers are generating a bigger chunk of this revenue during non-holiday months.

This chart does not in any way indicate that the health of ecommerce is decreasing, only that the holiday season is becoming less important to overall sales numbers.

Are All Categories of Ecommerce Decreasing Their Reliance on the Holiday Season?

As you can probably predict, this breakdown differs across ecommerce categories.

When we looked at the importance of the holiday season by category, predictably Apparel/Accessories and Computer/Electronics companies are much more “holiday-sensitive”. This means that a greater percentage of their total annual revenue is generated during holiday months than Food/Drug, Health/Beauty, and Housewares/Home Furnishings categories.

The decreasing importance of the holiday season over the years is even more pronounced for holiday-sensitive categories.

The two holiday-sensitive segments, Apparel/Accessories and Computer/Electronics, are being disproportionately impacted by this trend. In 2010, holiday-sensitive categories were generating 32% of their total annual revenue during the holiday months. In 2014, they generated 20% of their total annual revenue during the holiday months, a massive 12 percentage point drop over the past 4 years.  

Interestingly, since 2012, holiday shopping has made up only 16% of annual revenue for “holiday-insensitive” companies, which means that these categories actually generate less revenue during the holiday months than they do during the rest of the year.

Why the Leveling Out?

With data it’s often easier to answer “What happened?” than it is to answer “Why?”

"Traditional retailers, both catalog and brick-and-mortar, rely heavily on holiday shopping to hit their annual revenue targets. But today’s most innovative online retailers—companies like Mizzen & Main, Harry’s, Plated, and more—build relationships with their customers throughout the year. They use subscription models to create regular purchase habits, build high-quality brands to nurture affinity, and use effective (but not always discount-based) retention marketing. Because of this, they’re less reliant on holiday shopping than traditional retailers."

While the Holiday Season is Losing Some Importance, Black Friday and Cyber Monday Continue Surging

When we looked at revenue on a daily timeline, we saw that Black Friday and Cyber Monday were huge contributors to the revenue generated during the holiday season.

The holiday season is decreasing in importance for most companies, but the days from Black Friday through Christmas still pack a punch, generating 50-100% more revenue than the other non-holiday shopping days throughout the rest of the year.

This uptick is even more pronounced for the “holiday-sensitive” categories we mentioned earlier.

Specifically, Cyber Monday is important for any ecommerce retailer. While online sales in general rose 23% YOY from Thanksgiving day to Cyber Monday, last year’s Cyber Monday generated $2.3 billion, 29% higher than 2013’s figures.

IBM also reported that Cyber Monday sales were greater than both Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

What Does This Mean for Your Ecommerce Business?

There are two important takeaways from this data that every online retailer should be paying attention to:

1) Focus Your Efforts on the Key Shopping Days

While November and December aren’t carrying the same weight as they used to, it’s clear November 27th to the 30th will still be crucial to any retailer looking to close out the year with strong numbers.

There are a number of strategies to help you maximize your sales efficiency during this period, from optimizing your mobile buying experience to personalizing your interactions with shoppers, building customer loyalty from customers looking to change brands to changing your Google Adwords bidding strategy during the holiday season. 

2) Invest in Your Year-Round Strategy

Ecommerce retailers are less reliant on November and December sales, and that’s a good thing! Holiday shoppers are notoriously demanding of discounts and 71% expect free shipping (47% expect free returns). Rather than relying on the holiday season to be their primary growth driver, forward-thinking businesses are finding ways to drive growth throughout the year.

To dig deeper into these trends, check out the full Ecommerce Holiday Trends report from RJMetrics here.

 

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The Right Way to Reduce Your Churn Rate

November 27, 2015 at 02:00PM

Some customers are past saving. They’ve made their decision to leave, and they'll be out just as soon as they can find the “cancel” button.

Of course you don't want them to leave -- nor do you want more customers following suit. 

To prevent more customers from leaving, you need to ask yourself tough questions: How did your churned customer get to that point? And once they’re at that point, is there anything you can do to save the account?

Let’s Not Play “Hide the Cancel Button”

Recently, I was on the other end of the churn process -- and it got me thinking about those tough questions. I decided to cancel my subscription service to a local CSA. It delivered fresh fruits and vegetables to my door twice a month from local farms, but neither the prices nor the quality of the produce impressed me compared to the local supermarket.

I went onto my online account and spent 20 minutes trying to find a way to cancel ... and came up with nothing.

Finally, I just emailed them. “Hi, how do I cancel?”

The CSA's response:

Thank you for your recent inquiry. You may close your account at any time by calling or emailing us with a clearly stated request to cancel your account and a reason for cancellation. We will process this request as soon as possible.

When your account is canceled, we invite you to return at any time. You can always resume your services by logging on to your account online and clicking the link to reactivate, or by giving us a call and asking to have your account reactivated.”

Besides the fact that I was clearly speaking with a robot, the CSA's customer retention strategy was transparent: Force customers to have a difficult conversation before they go as a deterrent to leaving.

As retaining technique, hiding the cancel button doesn’t work at all. You're just delaying the inevitable. As any number of ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends can tell you, when you’re out, you’re out. Having to go through a hard talk to get there isn’t going to keep anyone around. 

The CSA could have handled this much better and perhaps even have kept my account. Here's what the cancel process should have looked like.

How to Set Up a Cancellation Process the Right Way

When a customer is jumping ship, you have a few opportunities that can turn one loss into long-term gain.

1) Have an easily accessible “Cancel” button.

2) This cancel button should auto-trigger an exit survey to find out:

a) What the customer expected to get.

b) What the customer thinks they’ve actually received (or not).

c) If there’s anything that might get them to stay.

3) Look for patterns in the responses.

People leave a service when there is a mismatch between what they hoped to achieve and what they were actually able to do.

Once you have this information, you can look for patterns that can tell you how well your company tells its story and targets the right customers. Then, you can use that information to build better policies and procedures for customer success.

(Hint: If they say “lower the price,” that doesn’t mean you should lower the price -- but rather that you have failed to impart the value of your service).

4) After the survey, include another page with succinct (yet friendly) copy that reminds them of why they signed up in the first place -- and what they’ll lose by cancelling.

This is where the CSA also took a misstep. I was welcome back any time with no penalty (not that there should be penalties -- that’s no way to make friends!).

But if there had been a loyalty rewards program -- maybe when you buy 10 boxes, you get the 11th one free -- it could have had returning customers forfeit their pre-cancellation points. For another SaaS business, what departing customers lose could be saved data or the investment in the product up to this point. Weight the decision to cancel with consequences that exiting customers have to consider carefully -- but also give them the cancellation button. Don’t hide it.

Besides highlighting what I was giving up, the CSA could have:

• Reminded me why I joined -- which was to support local farms and receive fresher (closer) produce.
• Created an email campaign introducing me to local farmers, telling me which seasonal fruits and vegetables were ripening, and upselling me to fresh-made jams.
• Helped me feel like part of a close community of farm-to-table supporters in my local area by hosing a lively Facebook group or even a Meetup group.

In other words, it needed to remind me that price wasn’t the point of the CSA -- being an integral part of the local food community was.

Once a customer’s decision is made, it’s frankly very hard to change. They’ve already sold themselves on the idea that your service isn’t worth the money.

But remember -- your customers don’t want to leave. They want to love you! So instead of trying to make cancellation harder, use entrance and exit surveys to get smarter about acquiring new customers and keeping the ones you already have happy.

http://bit.ly/1XkMZRN

How to Generate More Leads With Content Marketing [Free Online Course]

November 27, 2015 at 12:00PM

According to research, 93% of B2B marketers use content marketing, but only 42% are actually effective at it. 

Why such a big gap? As with most things, it comes down to a lack of education on what actually works and how to plan and execute on your campaign in the most effective way.

HubSpot recently teamed up with online learning platform Dot Native to create a master class in lead generation. This course is designed to cover the techniques required to plan, create, promote, and measure your content marketing campaigns to ensure their success. 

The difference between a good content campaign and a great one can be hundreds of leads. So to make sure yours is the best it can be, this free course will touch on 50 actionable lead generation tips, including:

• How to ensure your campaign is aligned with your business strategy
• How to hit all your deadlines
• How and where to promote your content
• What free tools to use to amplify your reach
• How to optimise your email marketing campaigns
• Advice on measuring success

By signing up for this master class you'll also receive unlimited access to all Dot Native courses and master classes completely free for seven days. Click here to sign up for the class today.

 Click to Tweet: 

"Learn how to generate leads from your content marketing in just 40 minutes with this awesome master class"

 

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