How to save spans of cash on email
by Fred Roed on 08/08/07 at 3:06 pm
11 comments
A very small part of our service at World Wide Creative is to sell domain names, and as a spin-off of that we manage the forwarding of emails. We don’t do POP accounts though.
A reason for this is that providing support for POP accounts is just too much for a small team like ours to handle. In the past, when we provided the service for some of our clients, it took up days trying to figure out email related problems – only to discover, for example, that the IT guy who worked there previously had mucked up the mail server settings.
A big part of my role is to go out and meet entrepreneurs to discuss brand-building and internet strategy (it’s why I love my job). I have realised recently that I took a lot of small things for granted. I thought that there were certain things that everybody knew. An example is Google’s Gmail service, which I thought everyone knew about, used and generally agreed was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Everyone in our team uses Gmail. It’s safe, it’s user-friendly, and best of all – it’s free. So when I meet people and they tell me that their entire team is paying R150 each to have their own POP accounts, I scratch my head in amazement. It dawned upon me, after chatting to a couple of companies in the past 2 weeks (all of whom were being ripped off by their email service provider), that the average entrepreneur in South Africa is woefully uninformed about email systems.
If you are one of these people, listen up.
At the end of this month, check your statement from Mweb, iAfrica, Telkom, or whoever, and see how much you’re paying. If you are more than 2 people, and you’re paying for email, then consider the following course of action:
How to save on your monthly email bill, using Gmail
1. Go to www.gmail.com
2. Open a Gmail account (you click on ‘Pick a name’)
3. Once you’re registered, phone your IT service provider guy and ask him to visit you. This should cost around R250 – R350 for the session. Ask him (or her) to help you set up your Gmail account.*
4. Phone your service provider who administers your domain name and ask them to forward your email to your new Gmail account
5. Make sure the IT guy has set up your email account so that it comes across to your recipients with your company address (e.g. john@yourcompanyname.co.za) and NOT as the Gmail address (e.g. john@gmail.com)
6. Hey presto! You now have a free remote email account where you can store 3 gigs of mail for free – and which uses Google’s search functionality to help you find mails.
Some people have an aversion to using Gmail. A business owner recently told me that it’s not professional enough, that it’s too much like Hotmail. Folks – Gmail is nothing like Hotmail. I would love to hear some feedback on this, but as far as I’m concerned, you can have 1000 people in your company and use Gmail as your email of choice – as long as the settings are set to display your company name.
*I’m assuming that you would need help in this area. If you don’t you probably would have stopped reading a while back since you know all this stuff already.
Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. Fred is the CEO of web marketing company World Wide Creative and the co-founder of online learning portal Heavy Chef. Fred loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. Follow Fred on Twitter here. View more articles by Fred Roed.
Nicola
Aug 8th, 2007
Unsure why the man thought that Gmail was unprofessional. My worldwidecreative.co.za emails go in and out via Gmail, I use my Outlook on my computer and never have to go onto the Gmail site. At no point would you or your clients ever know that you are using Gmail.
Duncan Drennan
Aug 8th, 2007
There is just one reason (which is actually two things, but one reason) that I still haven’t switched my company emails across to Gmail, and that is encrypted emails. I would prefer to have IMAP access to Gmail (only POP last time I checked – which was recently), then I could use Thunderbird for all my encrypted emails.
The alternative is to use the Firefox addon Gmail S/MIME, but I’ve had some problems with it, and I’m not too sure about it yet.
For those who want a local offline copy of their Gmail account they can also use Google Gears (I haven’t tried this out yet though)
Chris Beech
Aug 10th, 2007
And google apps takes it even further: https://www.google.com/a/
Craig
Oct 24th, 2007
I agree that Gmail is the greatest thing since sliced bread, BUT getting a guy’s business card I make the following assumptions:
If it’s XYZ@mweb or telkom – then I know he’s ignorant and knows nothing about the internet and is generally not a prudent business man becuase he fails to research alternatives to being ripped off.
If it’s XYZ@gmail.com – I can respect him for having the know how to use what can only be described as the best free email service available.
If it’s XYZ@hotmail or yahoo – then I know that not only is he ignorant about using the best option but he’s also not making enough money to get ripped off by Telkom or MWeb.
I agree that people are being sadly ripped off when it comes to email accounts, and that they feel it’s a necessary evil to endure to remain professional. But let me tell you people – there are alternatives out there.
I’m not trying to use this as a medium to punt my own business but just know that with a little time researching domain hosting on google you’ll find plenty companies (like mine – OK a little punting) that offer domain hosting for your emails at a more than reasonable cost.
All it takes is time to actually find out what you’re paying for and if there are alternatives that you could use.
Down with Mweb and Telkom charging ridiculous rates for something that’s costing them next to nothing!
And if you’re using Yahoo, or Hotmail then please at the very least switch to gmail.
Ideate - Small Business in South Africa
Nov 2nd, 2007
[...] wrote a while back about how moving to Gmail will save you money, but I’m writing about this again because I [...]
David
Oct 9th, 2008
Hi
I gets lots of emails every day…. I like to have them on my Blackberry AND in my outlook.
I am however getting tired of having to manage the emails on the BB and my outlook (ie. delete them twice, “read” them twice).
Is there any solution. MWeb’s mail forwarding doesnt work that well, I don think.
Does MWEB offer IMAP?
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Fred
Oct 9th, 2008
David – you need to dump Mweb and move to Gmail!
James
Nov 6th, 2008
Thanks Fred for a great eye-opening article! I have a gmail account, and an mweb account for business. I would like to obviously convert this account to gmail…unfortunately I’m not tech savvy. Would you guys be able to help with this or possible point me in the right direction?
aguen
Jun 7th, 2009
why is there no adiko please send email list to me via email. thanks
regards
aguen inc
Rylee Di ninno
Nov 24th, 2009
Your blog is a very good blog. Thanx for all your posts. I hope you ll post more soon. Regards.
Alissa Pfieffer
Nov 25th, 2009
Another good article you post here.I m waiting for others to share it with my friends.