9 Small Business Gmail Plugins to Boost Your Productivity, Bottom Line
I’ve heard the rumors that email is becoming obsolete, but I don’t see it happening soon, so we still need things like the 9 small business Gmail plugins listed here to help keep you organized and productive.
And hey, although I’m billing these as great small business Gmail plugins, several of them will be very useful for your private email accounts! Most of these have various pricing tiers – sometimes with free levels – and generally require the use of Google’s Chrome browser.
FollowUp.cc. This is billed as a “relationship manager.” It gives you the timing, tools, and intelligence you need to wisely follow up with prospects. You can set reminders, see who has read emails you sent, and be alerted when you haven’t received an expected response. It also integrates with various productivity apps and CRM systems.
Boomerang for Gmail. This share several functions with FollowUp.cc, but doesn’t have the integrations built into it. You can schedule email sends for a later day, “archive” received emails and have them reappear in your inbox at a later day (when you need to act on them), and alert you if you don’t hear back from someone.
Rapportive. This is now owned by LinkedIn. It gives you a great profile about your email contacts. Receive or send an email and you’ll see the person’s employment information, actual location, and social media contact details. This small business Gmail plugin improves your ability to engage and connect with prospects. (Free)
Todolist. This app allows you to turn emails into items for your to-do list. A long list of extensions let you take this productivity to virtually any device you – or your team – uses. You can prioritize, set reminders and notification, visualize your increased productivity, and much more.
CloudMagic. I mentioned integration with productivity apps above; that’s the whole idea of CloudMagic. You can update popular apps and services like Salesforce, Evernote, Zendesk, Mailchimp, and others right from your Gmail inbox.
Streak. If you want to skip “integration” with a CRM, consider Streak, which bills itself as “CRM, inside Gmail.” Email “power tools” include: snoozing, send Later, mail merge, templates (useful for boilerplate), thread splitting. CRM specific tools in this small business Gmail plugin include sales, product development, deal flow, fundraising, support, hiring, and real estate.
BatchedInBox. Email services think they’re doing us a favor by notifying us every time something hits our inboxes. It just isn’t so! With this app, you can schedule when you want emails to hit your inbox. Don’t be distracted until you know you’ll be ready to deal with your email. (Free)
Bananatag. The main function of this app is to allow you to track where your email and email attachments go. You’ll know when emails and other materials have been opened and when they’ve been sent on to decision makers to review. It also gives you scheduling, templates and more.
Unroll.me. Many small business owners subscribe to blogs and newsletters for specific reasons and when the reason is gone, they just let them continue to fill their inboxes. This app makes unsubscribing easy. Further, you can combine the subscriptions you want into one email that appears each day. If you want to join to the “zero inbox” crowd, this app is a must.
Look over these small business Gmail plugins. With the right ones in your arsenal, you can transform your inbox from a productivity sapper to a productivity enhancer.