A Professional Way of Using Your Gmail Address

This article is for Gmail users only, and if you haven’t got a Gmail account yet, get one now! You can do much more with a Gmail account than a Yahoo or a Hotmail account! Just to give you an idea, you can get rid of 'gurus' by filtering them out (but I hope you won’t filter out my emails :D )!

Okay, and I also hope you have got a domain name and hosting account.

One advantage Gmail has over other ESPs is that its spam filters are probably more intelligent than those of Yahoo or Hotmail, which is why you will hardly miss out on a legitimate email, or have a 'spam email' land in your inbox.

Sure, mistakes happen with Gmail too, but only on rare occasions, and its 'Report spam' button' is indeed effective, which is why it learns from its mistakes pretty quickly!  :)

Another advantage is that you can add all your other email addresses to your Gmail account so that instead of logging in and out of multiple accounts, you can reply to ALL of your emails through ONE account!

Okay, let us get right on to the meat instead of munching on biscuits :D

While Gmail is good, but as an internet marketer, you shouldn't use your Gmail address as the 'reply' address for your mailing lists. The reason is that people who use 'free email addresses' such as Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail as their 'reply' address don’t appear to be professional marketers to their subscribers.

From Aweber:

"Email addresses hosted at domains owned by free services (e.g. @hotmail.com or yahoo.com) or ISPs (verizon.net, comcast.net, RoadRunner, etc.) should not be used for your reply address"

Source: http://www.aweber.com/faq/questions/373

With the technique I am going to tell you about, you will appear more professional by using a professional-looking email address as your 'reply' address, while at the same time have the flexibility of replying all of your emails from ONE Gmail account.
 
For example, if email me at:
 
arindam @ verge-soft.com
 
I would receive the email to my Gmail address, but when I reply, I would appear to be replying from my server. If you've received my replies and haven't figured it out yet, I don’t blame you at all  :)
 
FYI, I use the address arindam @ verge-soft.com for all my lists as the 'reply' address. Thus my subscribers can recognize me very quickly :)

Your task: You want to add your email address to your Gmail account. Let's say that your email address is arindam @ verge-soft.com, and your Gmail address is john.doe298 @ gmail.com!

1. Step 1: Log in to your Cpanel, then click to visit the 'Email Forwarders' section:

Click on the image to get a larger view! 

2. Step 2: Add a forwarder rule that: any email sent to arindam @ verge-soft.com would be forwarded to john.doe298 @ gmail.com

Click on the image to get a larger view!

3. Step 3: Add the email arindam @ verge-soft.com to your Gmail account. Click on 'Settings', then click on the 'Accounts' tab:

Click on the image to get a larger view!

4. Step 4: Enter the name you want to use when replying to your emails, as well as the email address you want to add (i.e., arindam @ verge-soft.com )

Click on the image to get a larger view!

5. Step 5: Click to send a verification message to your email address arindam @ verge-soft.com

Click on the image to get a larger view!

6. Step 6: Click on the verification link and you are done!

Click on the image to get a larger view!

7. Step 7: While in the 'Accounts' tab, scroll down a bit until you find this option:

When I receive a message sent to one of my addresses: 

Select the 'Reply from the same address the message was sent to' option!

So the next time you reply to an email received from your "other email account" through the Gmail interface, people won’t be able to tell whether you are replying from your server or Gmail account. Cool, eh? :)

Update: Gmail now offers two options for those who want to use their Gmail account interface to manage all the other email accounts:

Option 1: Send and receive email from Gmail’s servers

Option 2: Send and receive email from YOUR servers

Both options have their pros and cons. If you are a newbie, definitely go with option#1. In fact that is the option I use myself and discussed in this article! Option#2, though looks more professional (since it lets you use your server’s domain keys and SPF, in case you have set them up, to authenticate your emails), is relatively more complicated to setup! More information can be found here.