I’m not the only one who finds it difficult to keep my inbox organized, right? Will all the Link Builders out there please stand-up? Every day I spend countless hours trying to sort my incoming and outgoing link requests and communications. Thanks to my recent discovery of Boomerang, a Firefox/Chrome plug-in for Gmail, this link strategist now has a personal assistant.
Building relationships is a huge part of web marketing. For each of my clients, much of my time is spent reaching out to bloggers in their industry. I craft copious amounts of e-mails every month and have goals that I’m trying to reach. Therefore, every day counts and it’s vital to manage time wisely. Before coming across this plug-in, it was challenging to remember when I sent e-mails out and whom I needed to follow-up with.
My Life Before Boomerang
No Way To Schedule E-mails
Each week I send out a number of link request e-mails. The list of contacts is usually nailed down at the beginning of the month. I stagger the requests throughout the month so I have time to conduct due diligence, write content and figure out all the other details. It would be nice if, at the start of the month, I could write and schedule all of my inquiries. Instead, it’s this confusing cycle of sending e-mails, due diligence, responding, sending more e-mails, responding, due diligence, negotiating, etc.
Forgetting To Follow-Up
Now it’s time to set timelines for our content with the ones who responded. Also, I need to contact my clients and let them know what opportunities we are proceeding with. Does this sound familiar? Wait, what about the ones who didn’t respond? Often times they’re forgotten about. I’ve moved on, not because those leads were dead in the water, but because I forgot to follow-up. There have been many occasions where a second or even third follow-up was needed to secure a link. No follow-up means no link.
Cluttered Inbox
Scheduled events are important, and reminders are great. However, when my inbox is full of e-mails, reminding me a few days prior to something can be distracting. If I delete the e-mails or file them into another folder, I might forget about them. If I leave them in my inbox, I will look over them a few hundred times prior to the time of the event.
The Inbox Transformation
Send An E-mail Later
Boomerang allows me to write my link request e-mails at the beginning of the month and schedule when they go out throughout the month. Then I can focus of follow-up, due diligence and execution without having to write initial inquiries each week. Boomerang lets you set a specific time and date for an e-mail to be sent.
Remind Me If I Don’t Hear Back
It gets even better. So, forgetting to follow-up is a thing of the past. I can schedule an e-mail to return to my inbox if I haven’t gotten a response. So, I schedule to follow-up in a week if I haven’t heard back. No more digging through my sent box two weeks after I sent an e-mail to discover I never followed-up.
As a link-building strategist, I love this feature. This helps the process to be more organized. The e-mails I don’t have responses for end up back in my inbox on the date I set.
Follow-up Reminders
If you have an e-mail in your inbox and don’t need until a later date, you can send it out of your inbox and schedule it to come back when you need it. This feature comes in handy for meetings, webinars, conference calls and other important events.
Boomerang is a free plugin, and it’s easy to install. The company that made the plugin, Baydin, also makes a Boomerang plugin for Google Calendar. I haven’t tried it yet, but if it’s as good as the Gmail plugin, it’s worth having.
What plugins have you used and found helpful for increasing your productivity? I’m always looking for new tools to assist me in being more efficient. Please share your treasured finds in the comment section.
Image credit: sellingpix / 123RF Stock Photo