Choosing the Best E-mail System for Your Needs
Contents
Choosing the Best E-mail System for Your Needs
As an online businessperson, you need the professionalism of receiving and sending mail from your domain name. SBI! has long offered that with SBI! Mail, which includes Spam 'n Virus Blast It! (SVBI!) and WebMail. SVBI! has allowed thousands of SBIers to eliminate virtually all spam and viruses received to their Inbox.
Not everyone has the same needs or wants however. If that's you, MX It! is here! How? By using Google!
Google Apps provides many useful tools, the most valuable of which is the ability to receive and send e-mail from your domain through the Gmail interface ("Google Apps' Gmail").
MX It! makes it as painless as possible to make the switch to Gmail (or other e-mail providers, but Gmail is our recommendation).
If you are a new SBIer and if you have just registered your domain name, we recommend that you start with SBI! Mail. Why? Because your e-mail needs are simple at the beginning and because Google Apps requires verification of site ownership...
You have to upload a file, which you may feel more comfortable doing with some site-building experience under your belt. All the info you need to get started is in your Site Build It! MAIL e-mail, which you received after registering your domain name.
If you already have a site and have been using SBI! Mail, you can either continue to use SBI! Mail or you can use MX It! to switch over to Google Apps (or another e-mail resources that allow MX record switches).
Decide which to use according to your needs. SBIers generally have 1 of the following 5 e-mail system needs...
- Solo business person with little need for e-mail (ex., an infopreneur, who bases her site on ads or affiliate products for revenue and therefore has little customer contact).
- Solo business person who needs filing/sorting capabilities.
- Solo business person who wants to receive/send mail from a desktop mail app (ex., Outlook, Eudora, Apple Mail), with little need for Web-based mail.
- Solo business person who wants total control over all incoming e-mails (ex., wants to review all spam mail, too).
- A business person with employees, who needs individual e-mail accounts with separate logins for each person.
Here is our recommendation for each type of user.
Solo Business Person -- Little Need for E-mail
If you don't expect to send or receive much mail, at least at the beginning, you should start with (or stick with) SBI! Mail. You should receive little spam for quite a while, even without using Spam 'n Virus Blast It!, if you follow the usual precautions outlined when setting up SBI! Mail (ex., don't publish your e-mail address on the Web and use Form Build It! forms for your "Contact Us" page).
However, if spam starts building up, Spam 'n Virus Blast It! eliminates almost all spam from your Inbox. The excellent spam:quality e-mail ratio will mean little work managing your e-mail after the initial setup.
Solo Business Person -- Needs Filing/Sorting Capabilities
SBI! WebMail is unique in that it lets you create multiple folders, including nested folders, to manage your mail. Google Apps only allows you to add a star to messages and to apply labels. Labels can serve as one level of folders, but if you need greater organization, your client-side e-mail application's and SBI! WebMail's folder-within-folders features are exactly what you need.
Another option, if your ISP allows it, is to use Google Apps, changing the POP and SMTP settings (click on "Settings" at the top of the Gmail page to do that) and using your client-side e-mail application to send and receive Gmail mail, using that application's filing/sorting system for your mail.
Solo Business Person -- Wants To Use a Desktop Mail Application
Some SBIers neither need or want to use Web-based e-mail. Both SBI! Mail and Google Apps allow for POP (getting mail) and SMTP (sending mail) setup in a desktop application (ex., Outlook, Eudora, Apple Mail).
However, since some ISPs don't permit the SMTP part (sending) due to worries about spam being sent through their servers, you might not be able to use either SBMI! Mail or Google Apps from your client-side application. Use the Web-based Google Apps instead.
Solo Business Person -- Needs Total Control Over Incoming Mail
SVBI! deletes all spam messages before they land in the WebMail Inbox. Properly set up, it should be impossible to miss "good" e-mail, so there is no "Junk" folder. Rarely, however, an e-mail you want might be deleted. So...
If you want total control over this and the ability to review all mail that is sorted to Junk, you'll want to use Google Apps. Google Apps' Gmail filters most of the spam into a separate (Junk) folder, which you can review at any time. If you find a message that you need, simply move it to the Inbox.
On the other hand, you may decide it's not worth sorting through the haystack (there will literally be thousands of e-mails going to Junk at Gmail over time). If SVBI! is properly set up and managed, you should not lose mail, which means that you don't lose time in the haystack.
With Site Build It!, you have the choice of two different systems. Pick the one that works better for you.
Business Person -- Has Employees and Needs Accounts for Each
SBI! Mail places all mail into one Inbox, accessed by one username and password. If you are a solo proprietor or have a single partner who shares the work, that's fine. But if you have employees, you need to use Google Apps' Gmail to set up multiple accounts, each with separate username and password (or use some other similar e-mail resources, but Gmail is free and excellent).
A Final Word
If you are a heavy user of Web-based mail, no company in the world "does Web Mail" like Gmail. We highly recommend it over any other system, including SBI!'s WebMail. And we also recommend it for the type of needs outlined above. But if you are a solo entrepreneur with simple needs, SBI! Mail (with or without SVBI!, depending on how much spam you may start getting) will meet your needs.