August 31st, 2011
by Kelly Kohen
I always say we LOVE google and that we are self-professed google gals. That is true-I LOVE almost everything about google. Some of my favorites are free branded email, google analytics and blogger. I have to admit that there is one area that google falls short in and that is Gmail. I miss my days of outlook where I could set up emails to send at whatever day/time I want them to send. Gmail hasn’t offered a comparable service yet.
Since I work in a virtual office (ahhhh, love pajama PR!), I often find myself working at all hours of the day and night-it’s sometimes hard to find the balance when you can easily hop online and work “just for a second!” BUT, I don’t necessarily want my emails sent at 3 am or on the weekends-and this is where Boomerang comes in!
I have to admit that I was not expecting much initially. My installation of the app wasn’t seamless, BUT I emailed the “help” address and what do you know…I actually got a LIVE person replying to my email and offering support. Ok, at this point, I was curious to see this new program would live up to my expectations. After a few more tries, I was up and running. After a week, I was hooked! It’s been a month now and I can confidently say that this is a MUST have for folks using Gmail for business or personal use!
A quick rundown on WHAT boomerang can do for you:
- It allows you to send an email later – you get to pick the day and time OR you can allow boomerang to pick a time for you ( it typically defaults to 9:37 am for me)
- It sets up follow-up reminders – you can select “boomerang” for each message and it will bring it back to the top of your inbox at the time you select
- It sends reminders if you don’t hear back from people – if you don’t get a reply for a message you send, it will bring it back to the top of your inbox at a future date that you select
This is a GREAT tool for so many reasons, but I think the best way to explain what it does is watch their video:
Thanks Alex at Boomerang for getting me up and running. Also, what other company can boast that they closed their first investor by picking him up and driving him to his auto mechanic. Really!
Mary Sandor
(August 31st, 2011 at 7:34 pm)
Great info Kelly! Now I can schedule weekend work to be sent to LTR during the week – and not forget – Brilliant!
Michael Kramer
(September 1st, 2011 at 11:40 pm)
Thanks Kelly for this article!
I just installed Boomerang. This gem will save me from many forgotten ToDo’s that seem to slip through the cracks.
Michael
Kelly Kohen
(September 2nd, 2011 at 12:07 am)
Michael, I hope you enjoy it as much as I have…it is THE BOMB! in my book! And yes, it does allow you to appear totally on top of everything! It is great at helping me multi-task!
Amanda DiSilvestro
(September 12th, 2011 at 11:26 am)
This is great information! What I love about Boomerang is the fact that you can write an email and schedule a time to send it later. I work for Business.com, so I am constantly writing articles for many different sites. When publishers email me back and say “write me back in one week” or “check back in two weeks with a sample article” it gets extremely confusing, and I end up spending a lot of time re-reading all of these emails just to remember who I need to email when. It looks like with Boomerang, problem solved!
Kelly Kohen
(September 12th, 2011 at 11:48 am)
Amanda, I couldn’t agree more! It is the perfect “assistant” to help keep you on track with little reminders so we can concentrate on all the other million things we have to do all the time!