Email Automation in Gmail: 4 Tips to Boost your Productivity
Let’s admit it! Our email inbox is nowhere close to being neat, clean, and organized. Well, at least most of them do not pay too much attention in the first place. However, since emails continue to be one of the most used mediums of communication for business, it is a good idea to make sending and receiving emails a fun experience.
When we talk about emails, it is next to impossible to not mention Gmail. Despite the presence of a plethora of email services, Gmail continues to be the most popular personal email service. The story is the same across businesses as a whopping 60% of mid-sized businesses in the United States use Gmail [1].
Adobe’s survey highlights that employees invest around 3.1 hours on average each day checking and sending emails [2]. Coming to think of it, that is a staggering number. Would you not want to minimize this time? This is where email automation for Gmail can help you. While there are some amazing CRM for email automation out there, we will only take a look at email automation for Gmail in this article.
We will take a look at email task automation and understand which tasks can be easily automated to save you precious time. Let’s begin by getting an idea of what Gmail automation is.
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What is Gmail Automation?
A lot of email users often do not understand the meaning of inbox automation. Do not worry, we have you covered. Inbox automation is nothing but defining a set of rules to handle incoming emails and recurring email activities by automating them. This will help you organize your Gmail inbox effectively. Typically, people spend their valuable time answering the same set of questions, scheduling meetings, and organizing newsletters. All of these tasks can be automated, saving you time.
Did you know email automation for Gmail can help you manage your inbox effectively?
Email task automations in Gmail
Before you start automating all the mundane email activities, try to understand which tasks should be prioritized. Go through your inbox and make note of all the recurring tasks you have completed recently and also track emails to understand which type of emails you receive the most.
This approach will give you clarity about all the tasks that fall under the purview of automation. These could include:
- FAQs
- Availability requests
- Newsletters
- Marketing emails
- To-dos
- Templated emails
Power of Google Tasks and Gmail
When you use Gmail, take advantage of other Google services including Google Tasks. Google Task is a very easy-to-use tool that integrates with Gmail. The Gmail integration enables you to add emails to your to-do lists if you would like to read them later. Besides you can also add a due date and sync it to your calendar, define subtasks, and add notes. You can also use built-in filters to automate different tasks in Gmail.
Different ways for email automation in Gmail
Many Gmail users are not aware that the email service provides an in-built functionality to manage inboxes. Here are some tasks which you can automate in Gmail.
1. Labels to segregate incoming email
If you run a business, there is a high chance that hundreds of emails flood your inbox each day. However, are all mails that important? Probably not. One way to organize your inbox is by creating different categories and sorting your emails manually. However, this is time-consuming and counterproductive.
This is where labels can help you. When you open your Gmail inbox, you will see a search bar that has a dropdown menu that allows you to sort messages based on sender, date, or subject. You can also add specific labels for even more accurate filtering.
Gmail will automatically label incoming mails, which you can view by clicking on the label created.
2. Filters to automatically mark and forward emails
Email automation in Gmail is wonderful and this is another hack to organize your inbox. Another way to organize your inbox is to handle irrelevant emails or requests which can be completed by your assistant. For instance, if someone mentions the word invoice in the subject line, you would want to forward it to the accounts team and continue with your work.
Gmail allows you to automatically forward emails to the relevant recipients.
3. Message templates to send saved or pre-written responses
If you have to reply to multiple requests or send identical emails to your customers, the body of your email is more or less the same. This is why you can create different templates and use the same to respond to different types of emails. Gmail provides you a way to store responses in your mailbox and respond to recurring emails without writing the same words again.
If you want to use pre-written emails, use Gmail’s canned responses tool. You can enable it from “Settings” and save any email as a canned response.
4. Get rid of promotional emails from your inbox automatically
Promotional emails, newsletters, marketing emails, and spam emails can crowd your inbox. Although most people choose to ignore them, they can distract you from other critical emails. If you do not want to lose your focus, there is a provision to get rid of them as soon as they enter your inbox. The best way to do this is by using the filter feature. All you need to do is choose the emails and use the filter feature to filter emails from that particular sender.
Once you sort your emails based on sender, you can either delete, label, or archive the emails.
Final words
Email automation in Gmail is wonderful and unfortunately, not many people are aware of what they can do to organize their inboxes. You can set up Gmail filters, segregate incoming emails to evaluate their subject line at the first glance, and use automated emails to reply to typical requests.
Use these tricks to boost your productivity and save valuable time. Use email automation in Gmail to focus on things that really matter.
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Feature Image Source: Image by Diedry Ferman from Pixabay
Image 1 Source: Image by Pfpiovani from Pixabay
Sources:
[1] Demers. J (2021) “20+ Gmail Statistics to Know” Email Analytics [online] Accessed [May 2022]
[2] (2020) “Office workers spend a shocking 20 weeks per year on their emails” OutlookTracker [online] Accessed [May 2022]
