TEN TIPS to keep your EMail from Managing You by Rhonda Hailey If you have advertised online, or responded to an ad, especially fr*e offers - then you already know what it is to have a FULL Mailbox. For those who have been operating online for more than a few months or a year the ole saying, "If I had known then, what I know now..." takes on a whole new meaning. Your TIME is precious. Handling unwanted e-mail, and even the mail you do want can become a full time job almost overnight. This article will attempt to teach you how to use multiple mailbox accounts, filters and scripts, to help you manage your most precious commodity (TIME) and avoid turning your job description into that of: MAILBOX MANAGER. TEN TIPS to keep your EMail from Managing You: 1. NEVER give out your PERSONAL e-mail address to anyone other than your personal friends and family. 2. If your ISP offers multiple mailboxes - GREAT! If not, get a web based e-mail account and RESERVE IT for your Business use - only as a Contact e-mail for those who PAY you, train you and support you. IMPORTANT: You will want one that does NOT filter mail. Avoid: yahoo, aol, hotmail and msn. 3. Use yet another mailbox as a Customer Service e-mail for your customers/prospects. If you promote more than one business or affiliate program, you may want a separate Customer Service e-mail for each program. 4. Use a separate box for companies from which you purchase advertising. If you use safelists, or traffic exchanges, I suggest you use a separate Contact addy for your safelist memberships, and another for your exchanges. You will also want a separate e-mail to which to receive your ezine subscriptions. Why? Many safelist owners have taken to selling solo ads and sending them to their contact lists. Just as many or more send out daily - sometimes hourly updates/offers to their contact list. Handling admin messages can become a full time job. Exchange Companies aren't as bad about it, but for the sake of time management - it is easier to sort this mail separately. You definitely want to keep your ezines separate and set up a filing system for saving articles and free ad guidelines. 5. Use a separate e-mail to receive your Safelist Mail. Get a BIG BOX, with FILTERS and deleting capabilities. Business is business. For safelists to be effective you must belong to hundreds, which generates thousands and thousands of incoming messages. No one can or expects you to be able to read it all. Use FILTERS to capture confirmations and account validations. Filter mail that you want to read for credits or resources. (Of course you want to do business with those you are marketing to; so when you are shopping for a product/opp - shop your listmail first.:) Set up your Mailbox Cleaner to delete mail once daily. This way even if you do not have time to read your mail, or you are out of town - your mailbox will not bounce costing you your memberships. You can further organize your listmail by type of lists. ie: PAID/PRO, Free Lists, Those that earn Credits, HTML capable, etc.. TIP: When you create a new safelist account, create a folder for your account information and file it under the appropriate type of list, in your INBOX. Example: In a FOLDER named: Safelists You would create additional Folders for: Free Lists, PRO Lists, Credit Lists, HTML Lists... and then create a folder for each account and file appropriately. (Whatever makes sense to you and the way you work.) 6. Use an auto-delete mailbox for your FFA/Classified Lists Submissions. These will receive an unprecedented amount of response mail. 7. Free Mail Accounts: You can do a search on Google and pull up any number of free e- mail accounts. Remember with free - you get what you pay for; so don't expect much in the way of reliability or support. Of many free e-mail accounts I have tried, this one thou only 6 MB has been the most reliable, multiple accounts are allowed and they do not filter your mail. BUT, it is small and the free account does not allow pop3 access, so you cannot program a mailbox cleaner to it. You will need to check this one regularly and often... if you send safelist mail to it... you'll need to check it at least 2x aday. Can quickly become Labor Intensive... recommended for low volume. MegaMail: http://vortals.mail.everyone.net/email/scripts/joinuser.pl 8. Recommended Paid Services and Mailbox Cleaners: ***** listmail4u.com - Excellent with customer support that is over the top. Classes offered on filtering and pop3 setup. http://rumblesfromthejungle.com/lm4u.htm listmail4u is currently upgrading servers to handle growth of their customer base. Yuhknow.com - get any size box, with cleaning and 1 button delete, all the bells and whistles. BUT no pop3 access. Good for secondary usage. http://rphinc.net/yuhknow.htm yuhknow.com planning to add added fees based on volume... 9. Script to protect your e-mail from robots that spider your site/s. Just insert this script in place of your e-mail address whenever you display it on your website pages. Instruction: If your e-mail address is sam@hotmail.com You would replace 'safari' with: sam Replace var domain 'rphinc' with: hotmail Replace domaim ext 'net' with: com You can also change the text your visitor will see on the last line, 'e-mail Me!' to whatever you desire. 10. Free Online CLASS on how to set up and use INBOX filters and pop 3 Access. (Usually at least one class per week.) provided by owners of Listmail4u.com Once you are using all of these methods, you will have Much More TIME for the more important aspects of your business, like advertising. :-) Happy Marketing! ====================================================== Copyright © Rhonda Hailey 2003-2004. Editor, RUMBLES from the Jungle Ezine. We focus on saving time and money and getting better results. Fr3e Weekly Classifieds: http://rumblesfromthejungle.com Permission to reprint with resource box included.