Spam filters suck. Sorry for being so blunt, but they do. They tend to filter emails that you want to receive and deliver messages that you don’t want to receive.
Why the Frustration?
I receive about 150 emails a day on my main email account plus about 100 on other email accounts. In the spam filter, I have well over 250 emails a day. That is a lot of emails. Out of the 500 daily emails, there are maybe 20 that are important to me.
Maybe I expect too much.
I have had my primary email account for about 15 years, and it has been posted on several websites. Naturally, just about every spammer has my email address in their database.
So here are three tips I am implementing to help me manage my inbox and never miss an important email again.
Tip #1
Have a separate, private email address for your most important clients. Don’t publish this email address on your website or on any marketing material. You will want to set any spam rules to the lowest possible settings for this account.
Tip #2
Use a separate account, like Gmail or Hotmail, for news and other email subscriptions. I get a lot of new emailed newsletters each day. Quite often I just don’t have time to read through everything; so instead of cluttering my primary email box where client emails come in, I put them in a separate account.
Better yet, stop all of your email newsletters and look for an RSS feed from your favorite news sites. If you don;t know what RSS is, read this post: “What is RSS and Why Do I Care”
Tip #3
Even 150 emails is a lot to sort through, and it can be easy to accidentally delete an important email. Because of this, I am using the ‘rules wizard’ a lot more in my email program. When a new message gets delivered to my inbox, I have it go to a predefined folder automatically. For instance: when an email comes from a staff member, I have it go directly to my staff folder. Setup as many of these rules as you can, and before long you are managing your emails like a pro.
Bonus Tip
Don’t create a ‘catch all’ email account. A catch all email account is one that catches any emails set to your domain name. One of my clients had a catch all created for their domain name. After one week, they had 16 million emails! And you think you have email problems
