There is a plus to using Google for your business email

Written on January 28th, 2010 by Stuart Crawford

Last night I attended the “Startup Drinks” event in Calgary, a great nationwide group of highly talented entrepreneurs and those looking a starting up an organization. The group which had its first meeting here in the Stampede City meet in a relaxed setting over some beverages and great food. More on Startup Drinks later, I want to share what I learned last night about how businesses can use Google mail services to help figure out where email is coming from.

During our networking and conversations over some refreshments, I was invited to start talking about how our team at ULISTIC is working with a number of Calgary and Red Deer small business owners on how they can leverage the power of Google Apps. I am learning more and mor everyday on how Google can really help a business with email, calendars, contacts and so much more. Just like the Microsoft Partner Community, there is a healthy community of software developers and programmers developing applications and resources which plug in directly to the Google platform. These additional software products, some free or nearly free, really make a difference in the overall communication and collaboration when a small business chooses the Google route for their business and also personal communication.

If you are thinking about selecting or migrating to a web hosted, highly efficient and robust solution for your business email, document sharing, calendaring and much more…Google may just be the way to go and if you need help Ulistic helps many businesses in Calgary, Red Deer, Lethbridge and everywhere else in Alberta through our Google Apps consulting practice. You can reach us at 403.775.2205.

Back to what I learned about Google and this works for your GMAIL account as well. When you sign up for a number of mailing lists, newsletter subscriptions and so on. You may have a hard time keeping up with all of your subscriptions and all the email that you get from you daily newsletters. Well, what I have found through Google is a way to help managed the challenges of email abundance and spam. Like I mentioned earlier, it works with GMAIL and also the Premier accounts.

When signing up for a mailing list do something like this…

scrawford+mailinglistname@ulistic.com

If you put in the PLUS sign and then the name of the list you now have a way to manage your overall subscription to the list also if you start getting spam to this address, well you have a way to track which mailing list either sold, shared your email address or had their list hijacked.

When the mail comes into the Google system. Google will strip away the plus sign and everything after it and deliver the mail to your Google inbox, however you can still see what address was used in sending that email to you.

I thought this was a great tip and I have already started using it.

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Ulistic focuses on serving the needs of Canadian Small Business, REALTORS, and Information Technology firms across Canada and United States. Helping your business understand, deploy and leverage social media, search engine optimization and online communications to generate business opportunities and make an impact inside your community and industry.

My business partner David and I are business professionals first. We understand what it takes to run a successful small business.