As this is such a common talking point in clients we work with, we wanted to create an “Email Playbook” to do a deep dive on the topic. It can get complicated when we’re discussing 20 other topics, so we’ll reserve this for all information that is email!
I’m a technically inclined person, so detail makes sense to me but I’ll keep it as straightforward as I can here without getting into the weeds! I want clear communication with everyone I work with, hence creating this article here.
So, everything on the internet is stored on hard drives, much like files on your computer are on your computers hard drive, and files on your phone on your phones hard drive. So it is the same with your website and your email.
For quite a while, email has been commonly hosted on your websites server, along with your website. To get that [email protected] email address you had to have it linked to your website! It seems intuitive. The same email files are hosted on the same files as that website. This began to change when services like Gmail and Office 365 came about.
With the advent of G Suite (Google’s services offered at a business level) and Office 365 (Microsofts services offered at a business level) it all changed. This now allowed you to host your email on Google or Microsofts servers while STILL retaining your [email protected] address!
The main issue previously was that if you didn’t have a competent web developer and you wanted to change who was doing your website, you would have to change your hosting, which meant LOSING all of your old emails. This could be years and years of important documentation. Sign up emails, passwords, contracts, invoices, important data stored in email. This could quite literally ruin a business.
With the advent of G Suite and Office 365 we now had the beauty of having our email completely separate from our website! You can now change web developers and hosting as many times as you want, and your email will be its own independent entity, you have your own email servers that will remain with you forever! (Or until Google or Microsoft implode which I don’t see happening anytime soon).
To put it simply, with G Suite or Office 365 you can feel safe knowing you will have your business emails FOREVER. If it’s tied to your web hosting, like it can be with GoDaddy, there is a possibility of losing them.
But this is just the beginning of the benefits of using behemoths such as Gmail and Office Email. Say goodbye to ending up the spam folder…
It is not uncommon when someone decides to start a business that they have 300 things they have to do to get going. One of them is a picking a domain name, building a website, and getting their business @ email going.
The typical route is GoDaddy. Everyone knows them and their brand is so recognized that they have worldwide trust. 10 years ago they certainly did offer something great but as they’ve become such a household name they really haven’t had to compete to keep up quality to keep generating profits, so they became outdated and a unbelievable headache for web developers. Their website is clunky, it logs you out randomly as you browse around, the interfaces just make no sense at all… if I have a nightmare, it’s usually about how I have to deal with GoDaddy again for a massive project.
As the business develops and the owner gets his feet on solid ground, they’ll tend to look back at what they’ve been working with and think they could probably use an upgrade. Some question why they’re paying $250/mo for this website that never gets updated, some just realize they need something that looks more professional. Once this realization occurs, this usually means hiring a new web developer and that usually means something has to happen with the email situation, which we discussed above.
Now aside from having absolute certainty that you’ll never lose your emails business email – which is huge – there are a whole host of benefits from having G Suite / Office 365.
We recommend using G Suite over 365, so we’re going to argue our case for that here. Not that Office 365 is a bad product but Google clearly understands that you just want to get things done and to keep it simple. Office 365 can get complicated, Microsoft level complicated.
These services don’t just come with an email inbox, they come with an entire SUITE and an entire OFFICE of applications.
These services are bundled into “suites” containing email, a business calendar, word processing, spreadsheets etc. that you can share with your company that is only accessible by those in your “administration”. These makes sharing sensitive information a breeze. Only those with the permissions to access them can do so. For the majority, you will probably only use Gmail, the Google Calendar, and Google Docs. Several years ago when Google Docs came out it was a game changer, allowing multiple to work on the same document in real time. It is still the king in this domain. Google Calendar works so effortlessly with the ability to integrate several calendars into one that it is my absolute go to still to this day.
G Suite’s simplicity offers a strong appeal to the average user. With Microsoft Office desktop applications you can get complex and achieve quite a bit with them, but unless this is your primary method for doing what you do for your job it can just get in the way.
G Suite pricing is clear, and simple, it is understandable. Office 365 has a complex sleuth of different tiers and subscriptions and add ons that unless you’re an IT expert, it can be a deal breaker to even begin to figure it out.
All G Suite documents are stored in the cloud. Unlike Microsofts desktop suite (Which is included in some 365 subscriptions) no files will be on your personal computers hard drive. This means, you will never lose them.
During nursing school one of my friends had an entire years worth of documents and files from school on his laptop. The laptop died and along with it every file he’d ever saved from college. This hurt me a little bit inside. I had my Google Drive sync’d to my laptop, so every file on my computer was synchronized to the cloud. If I added a file to my Google Drive folders on my PC, they’d instantly upload to the cloud. If I added a file to my cloud from another computer, they’d instantly sync to my PC. Needless to say, all my nursing documentation was sync’d to the cloud. I could set my laptop on fire and run over it, get a new one, and in 20 minutes all my files would be right back where they were just like my old laptop. I literally can’t lose my files.
Another point of contention when considering a new email platform is what is going to happen to all of your old emails? Well, with JBMD Creations we would migrate all your old emails to your new inbox. It doesn’t matter if you have 5,000 of them, they will all be sitting in your brand new state of the art Gmail or Office 365 account as if they’d always been there. This is a great benefit of some of the software available these days, old emails can be critical to a businesses finances and legal documentation.
In conclusion, getting off of webmail is going to be better for business in the long run. If you’re looking to set yourself up for success this is the way to go. It’ll take some time to learn the ins and outs of G Suite or Office 365 if you go with that, other than just using basic email, but it will dramatically increase your productivity and just ease of doing business. Having processes in place that remove frustration and technology that burns up energy can really take the grind feeling out of your day, I know it does for me.
Hopefully all of that was helpful, it’s great to see clients get on board and be much happier in the end after initially not wanting to change what they’d been using for so long.
