Relying on written notes as reminders means leaving your productivity to chance. Instead, you can send reminders directly to your inbox, right when you need them.
With the many moving pieces in sales, email reminders take one thing off your plate. Let’s take a look at how to set up reminders in Gmail and Outlook today.
The benefits of email reminders
What are the benefits of using email reminders? We looked at risk managers email lists our database of hundreds of thousands of emails to find this answer.
To analyze the benefits of email reminders in Gmail, we compared email users who frequently use reminders to users who don't. We found that users who use email reminders send more emails and campaigns on a weekly basis.
This finding indicates that reminder users may have higher email productivity due to their ability to stay on top of tasks.
When do you need reminders?
Email reminders can be useful for a number of reasons, but the most important is for follow-up emails.
Why? 80% of sales deals require five or more follow-ups to close. This means that having a strong follow-up game is essential to winning business and ensuring you are consistent in your communication.
In sales, when you communicate frequently via email, messages get lost in your inbox. It's inevitable. With busy work days, keeping track of who has responded and who hasn't is nearly impossible without the help of technology.
A great standard practice is to set email reminders right when you send or receive an email that will require follow-up. That way, you can confidently move on to the next thing in your day and know that you will revisit the email when the time comes.
How to use reminders in Gmail (native)
Although Gmail’s native email reminder feature is quite limited, they do have a standard feature called “nudges.”
Here's how to use nudges in Gmail:
At the top right of your inbox, click the settings icon and then “see all settings.”
On the “General” tab, scroll down to “Nudges” and select one or both options from the list.
Scroll to the bottom and click “Save Changes.”
Now, you'll see this next to your emails that haven't had any activity in a while.
How to use reminders in Outlook
The reminders feature is completely native to Outlook. There are a couple of ways to do it. Let's take a look.
How to set reminders from your Outlook inbox
At the bottom of your Outlook inbox, click “Mail” and select an email message.
Click “Follow Up” (next to the red flag icon) at the top of your inbox.
