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Email Breaches Remain a Costly Threat

October 4, 2022 by Paul Schwegler

You would need to be new to the internet to be unaware of threats to cybersecurity. With Internet World Stats reporting that 69% of the world is now online, that naïveté is increasingly unlikely. But is your business doing all it can to prevent email breaches? We know better than to use “123456” or “letmein” as passwords, but the threat remains.

No matter the industry, global businesses are always at risk. Scammers send emails and set up spoof domains to get employees to enter access credentials online. Or criminals simply buy leaked emails and passwords from a previous data breach.

Once they’ve gained access, they can easily hide their activity. Setting up a simple “forward all email” rule gives them access to business communications. They can also see what services you use from the emails you receive.

For example, they can identify which payroll software your business uses. Then, they go to that site and say they “forgot the password.” The reset instructions go to the email they can already access. So, they follow the steps, delete the email, and take control of the account.

Criminals will also impersonate you and send invoices to your vendors or customers. They might send an invoice that looks like your genuine ones, but they end up paying the crooks.

These attacks are working for cybercriminals. So, don’t expect email breach attacks to go away any time soon. Instead, take action to reduce the risk of compromise.

How to protect your business

Educating your employees is an important first step. You can take all the steps we outline next, but humans will remain your weakest link. You’ll want to:

  • institute an effective training program to safeguard your business;
  • teach employees about the risks;
  • emphasize the importance of strong passwords and good cyber hygiene.
  • Foster a culture of compliance and individual sense of responsibility for cybersecurity.

Put a password manager application in place so employees set more complicated passwords.

Enable multi-factor authentication on all email accounts. This makes it so that having the stolen credentials isn’t enough. A bad actor may have the username and password, but they also need the user’s authenticating device. That’s less likely.

Another important move is to limit access to functions and features online. Take a least-privilege access approach. This means users can perform assigned roles but can’t access other applications. This can curtail the damage if one user’s credentials are exposed.

Ongoing monitoring of technology for signs of suspicious activity is also key. Set up alerts, and track activity logs. Your business wants to be able to react quickly rather than finding out weeks later about a hack.

Keep online attackers at bay

Create a business environment that prioritizes prevention and detection. Email scams aren’t going to slow soon. Instead, your business needs to take action to shore up its defenses. We can help. Contact our IT experts today at (515)422-1995.

Filed Under: Business, Security, Tips Tagged With: business, email, security, tips

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Changing Your Email? A Checklist

August 16, 2022 by Paul Schwegler

Changing your email is never fun, but it can be necessary. When you need to make a change, there are several things you need to consider. Follow this checklist to ensure you don’t lose data, keep up with your old contacts, and avoid security risks.

There are many reasons someone might decide to endure changing their email address. These include:

  • losing access to the old one and not being able to recover that account;
  • changing your internet service provider (ISP);
  • having to stop using a professional email for personal messages too;
  • falling victim of identity theft;
  • deciding to give yourself a more professional email by changing your address from yourbusiness@yahoo.com to you@yourbusiness.com;
  • not feeling as proud of your hotbabycakes@hotmail.com address now that you’re above the age of 14.

Whatever prompts your move, try these tips to avoid missing mail and risking account compromise.

Notify your contacts of the change

You will probably be amazed at the number of people you have in your contacts folder. Still, you can make the change easier by letting your friends and family know that you have a new email address.

When you send out a message to your contacts, respect people’s privacy. Send your update with their names in the blind carbon copy (BCC) line.

Migrate your old inbox

Most domain providers make it simple for you to migrate your old emails and contacts. Once you set up the new account, you’ll typically be able to go into Settings and find an option to import your old data. You may have to migrate the inbox and the contacts separately.

Don’t move on too quickly

You may be ready to move on, but don’t delete that old email address too soon. It’s a common mistake. Instead, try to hold onto your old email as long as possible. You don’t have to continue using it, but if you still have access, you can:

  • set up forwarding so that any emails to your old address will go to your new one;
  • see what emails are still coming to identify accounts you might have forgotten to change.

Inventory all accounts using that address

Use a password manager? We recommend its convenience. Plus, you can search there for accounts using the old address. The password manager can be a landing page for you to jump to all those accounts and make the necessary changes.

Inspect your trash and old emails

To help you think of other sites connected to the old email address, review your trash and sent emails.

Think also of accounts that may use that email address for recovery. For instance, you may have set the old account as a backup for PayPal, online banking, or streaming services. If you don’t change the recovery address, you might have difficulty regaining access to that account.

You might wonder why you should bother doing this. If you don’t, someone could claim your old account and gain access to your connected accounts. If you press a recover password link on a banking site, for instance, that email will go to that person instead of to you!

Get help making the email move

The many little things to take care of when you change your email can make this a big deal. Our IT experts are here to help. We can set you up for simple, secure email communications in the future. Contact us today at (515)422-1995.

Filed Under: Residential, Tips Tagged With: email, Migration, residential, tips

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Businesses Beware OF Fake Meeting Requests

May 31, 2022 by Paul Schwegler

Hi,

Important that we meet discuss speerfishing attacks over business comunicatons. We need to make plan about this IMMEDIATELY. Please click on the link [uurl.callender.com] to make an appointment with IT for quick tutorial.

Regards,

IT

There are several things wrong with this email, and hopefully, you noticed them. All are red flags you can look for to avoid fake meeting requests or calendar-invite scams.

Business Email Communication (BEC) scams are not new. For example:

  • Facebook and Google suffered a $121 million BEC scam.
  • Ubiquiti lost $46.7 million to an attack.
  • Toyota transferred $37 million to crooks in a BEC snafu.

In 2020, BEC attacks were the most lucrative scam. The US estimated cybercriminals made over $1.8 billion with this approach. Beyond money, falling victim to a BEC attack also costs your business time and reputation. Here’s what to look for and how to protect against BEC scammers.

How BEC Scams Work

With many more people working from home and meeting virtually, there’s been an uptick in BEC spearfishing attacks.

On Gmail, the bad actor needs only your email address to send an invite that adds to your calendar by default. Then, you might click on what appears to be a meeting link, which actually takes you to a malware site.

Zoom has also become an attack vector. You get an invite to a meeting that asks you to login into Microsoft Outlook. You’ve done it so many times before, except this is a fake login page, and it’s set up to steal your access credentials.

How to Protect Against BEC Scams

Educate your users. As with any other type of email scam, users need to learn to be careful about the links they click. Some indicators to look for, which you can see in our opening example, include:

  • spelling mistakes;
  • urgent appeals;
  • poor phrasing;
  • suspicious links.

Email addresses, links, and domain name inconsistencies are more bad signs. Plus, be wary if something seems too good to be true (a free laptop?) or is an unusual request (transfer $1 million from the CEO’s account).

Google Calendar users can go into General settings, then Event settings, and switch off “Automatically add invitations.” Instead, select “No, only show invitations to which I have responded.” Also, under Events from Gmail, you can stop calendar events auto-generating based on your inbox. Keep in mind, though, that you’ll also be blocking legitimate events.

In these days of the hybrid workforce, we’re used to clicking on links from Zoom, Google Docs, and Microsoft Office as part of our daily workflow. The cyber bad guys know this and are taking advantage of it. Unsubscribing from email lists, keeping your email private, and reporting spam to IT can all help.

Your business might also benefit from working with a managed service provider to use a third-party spam filter. Our experts can also review your cybersecurity posture and identify areas to improve your defenses.

Contact us today at (515)422-1995

Filed Under: Business, Security, Tips Tagged With: business, email, security, tips

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All You Need to Know about Catchall Emails

March 1, 2022 by Paul Schwegler

The majority of small businesses rely on email as their primary means of acquiring and retaining customers. When that’s the case, you can’t afford to miss emails prospects send you. A catchall email can help prevent that from happening. Read on to find out all you need to know about catchall emails.

Catchall emails literally catch all emails sent to your domain. This ensures that you don’t miss any important emails. Plus, the catchall email helps you filter mail for cybersecurity reasons too.

Let’s examine some of the scenarios in which a catchall email, also known as wildcard emails, would come in handy:

  • Someone intends to email joe@yourdomain.com but mistakenly types jo@yourdomain.com.
  • A customer emails julie@yourdomain.com, but she left the company months ago.
  • A customer emails with concerns but uses an address that doesn’t exist on your domain.

In all these instances, the email would go to the catchall email address for your domain. Otherwise, you might miss that customer desperate to buy a hundred of your product for overnight shipping because in their hurry they missed one letter in an email address. Or you might not receive that customer complaint. Then, you’d miss the opportunity to rebuild that relationship.

Using a catchall email lets your small business communicate professionally with people. The customer isn’t getting error emails telling them the address does not exist. Instead, someone can follow-up, whether the individual email is still with you or not.

Setting up a catchall email

When you set up a catchall email, you can select one person who will review all those different emails. Pick someone with a strong Spidey sense for scam emails. After all, the catchall email may mean more Spam comes to your domain.

The wildcard account accepts non-defined emails instead of bouncing them. This doesn’t mean you have to read it all. View this inbox as a staging area to review, reject, and prioritize emails.

You can also set up the catchall email as a sort of cybersecurity filtration tool. You might give distinct email addresses to your different vendors. For example, your Amazon account would go to amazon@yourdomain.com. Your cleaning services would use cleaning@yourdomain.com. The catchall captures them all for appropriate distribution.

With a catchall email set up, you can have many different aliases online. This benefits you in the case of a data leak. If you start seeing spam or malware delivered to one of those addresses, you’ll know that the vendor has been hacked. Or has sold your information. Being able to trace the threat can make it much easier to cut the risks.

Email management made easier

Weighing the benefits of a catchall email for your business? Our experts can help you with this and other email management issues. Reach out to us today at (515)422-1995!

Filed Under: Business, Productivity, Tips Tagged With: business, email, tips

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How to Spot Email Spoofing

January 25, 2022 by Paul Schwegler

The number of emails we get daily can be overwhelming. We could be excused for not looking at them all closely – well, almost. Except that not taking care to review emails for signs of spoofing could be a real risk to your business. Learn about email spoofing and how to avoid it in this article.

First, what is email spoofing? Don’t confuse this with the foreign prince’s plea for money. Email spoofing is much more nuanced; it’s still a cyber bad guy at work. They try to get you to download malware, enter personal credentials, or give money. Yet now they are mimicking a reputable company or source of an email. The email will, at a hurried glance, appear to be legitimate, and that’s how it works. The spoofer takes advantage of our lack of attention to accomplish their aim.

With email spoofing, the scammer tries to trick you into thinking they are a source you recognize. This might be a supervisor, a colleague, a vendor, or some other entity you work with regularly. Their goal is to get you to take an action you would not otherwise do.

The email will usually look convincing. The would-be attacker will duplicate design elements and mimic the sender’s style. So, you need to be aware.

How to Identify Email Spoofing

There are several signs to look for to identify a spoof email. First, you’ll want to check the email header information. This is a good place to look for tracking information about the message.

To view headers:

  • In Gmail, open the email you want to check headers for. Next to Reply, click the three dots and choose “Show Original”.
  • In Apple Mail, open the email you want to see headers for, and click View > Message > All Headers.
  • In Outlook, open the email you want to check, and then click File > Properties.

Check to see:

  • if the “from” email address matches the name of the person displayed as the sender;
  • that the “reply-to” address is the same as the sender or the site that the email purports to be from;
  • that the “return-path” is the same as the reply-to – you don’t want to think you are replying to “John Doe” when your response will go to “Scammy McScammer”.

The email header is a good starting point, but you’ll also want to ask yourself about the content of the message. If you weren’t expecting a message from that individual or organization, think twice. Also, look out for spelling or grammatical errors. A difficult-to-read message could indicate an unsolicited email from someone with a limited grasp of English.

If the email is pressuring you to act quickly or making an emotional plea for you to do something, be wary. Scammers often rely on urgency or our desire to help. That’s how they trick people into clicking on links or open attachments.

Better Safe Than Sorry

If you aren’t sure about an email’s legitimacy, slow down. Before you act, go to your contact list and send a direct message to that sender’s address to confirm the request. Or call the sender or company the sender apparently represents to verify that the email is a real one.

A managed service provider (MSP) can help you better manage email safety. Ask our IT experts to help set up email filtering and monitoring to avoid malware infection. Learn more today at (515)422-1995!

Filed Under: Business, Security, Tips Tagged With: business, email, security, tips

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To Delete or Archive Email, That Is the Question

December 21, 2021 by Paul Schwegler

An email inbox can get overwhelming. It’s estimated we send 306 billion emails daily; not you personally, of course, although it may feel that way. So, you have to come up with strategies to corral the communications, one of which is deciding whether to delete or archive an email. This primer will help.

First, let’s consider the drawbacks to having all those emails sitting in your inbox. You may think it doesn’t matter, as you work only at the top of the screen with the newest communications. Yet those old emails are more than clutter. If it’s locally hosted, they can also slow down your email platform, and, if it’s remote and you’re paying for storage, they can be costly, too.

You have alternatives: deleting the emails or archiving them.

Deletion v Archiving – The differences

You should already know what it means to delete an email. You click on the little trash can icon and the email disappears from your inbox. Yet, for at least a certain time frame, you can still find it in your trash bin. If you realize you need to recover that email, you can, but deleting that email marks it for removal from existence entirely.

Unless you’re a double-deleter. If your business imposes mailbox size limits, you may be in the habit of going to the trash and deleting emails there, too. After all, when you delete an email from your inbox and it moves to trash, it continues to take up space.

Another option is to archive the email message. This also takes it out of your inbox but puts it on a different path. The email is indexed and put in a protected storage area for you to access in the future. The indexing preserves the information in a smarter, more searchable way.

Meanwhile, you’re able to revisit those emails using the mail archive’s search function. This allows you to search body content, sender or recipient, and attachments, and it’s all done quickly.

Email archiving can help shorten audit response, keep information for litigation, preserve intellectual property, and help with business continuity. You can also use archiving to check employee communications aren’t violating any policies.

Special Considerations

Your business could be in an industry where it needs to keep records for compliance and regulation reasons. In that case, you won’t want to delete emails until you know it is acceptable to do so. You’re going to need to archive instead. In the U.S., five Wall Street brokerages had to pay $8.25 million in fines after deleting customer transaction emails.

Still, you don’t want to get into the habit of archiving everything “just in case.” Honestly, how often do you need to revisit that funny meme from Sally in accounting? And you can’t take advantage of a discount offer from a pet store once it has expired. Deleting makes sense!

Another strategy to avoid having to answer the archive-or-delete question in the first place? Unsubscribe. It takes a moment to click on “unsubscribe” at the top or bottom of an email from a mailing list. This action saves you from having to make yet one more choice in your day.

Need help wrangling your email inbox? Our IT experts can help. We can set up an email management system to help make the decisions about archiving or deletion. Contact us today at (515)422-1995!

Filed Under: Business, Productivity, Tips Tagged With: Archive, business, email, productivity

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Pushing Send? Know that Email Is Not Secure

August 10, 2021 by Paul Schwegler

We send an estimated 306 billion emails every day globally, personal and professional. Still, it’s not secure. Any private data, proprietary information or sensitive documents sent are at risk.

Sending an email is convenient and quick, but when it comes to confidential data, you’re better off choosing another method of delivery, one that doesn’t have as many potential points of access for an ill-intentioned actor.

Think about the path an email travels:

  • First, you write it on your PC, laptop, tablet, or phone. This stores the information in your email program. A hacker who has accessed your device using malware could read it.
  • The email then goes out to your email server. If that server is hacked, your data is at risk.
  • Your message then travels through online networks to reach your recipient, but there’s no guarantee those networks are secure, especially not if you are crafting and sending that email from a public network in an airport or at a coffee shop.
  • The email then hits the recipient’s email server, then their email program, and then their device. But the same risks that arose at your end are replicated on their side of the exchange, too.

Basically, when you send an email you lose control of the security of that communication, and potential problems abound:

  • Hackers could be intercepting and reading your email.
  • You can’t be certain that your recipient’s server or storage is encrypted at all times.
  • A bad actor could impersonate a server to intercept messages, and you wouldn’t know any better.
  • Your recipients may save that email in their mailbox for months or even years. Down the road, if they are compromised, your email is vulnerable.
  • Recipients can inadvertently forward that email on to unexpected parties.
  • You can’t assign permissions or password protect that email.

 

The Solution to Email Insecurity

Stop sending sensitive information via email. Instead, select a method that allows you to check and control who has access to that data. This could mean uploading the information to a private portal or sending using an encrypted file-sharing service such as Google Drive or Dropbox. There are also encrypted messengers such as Signal, Wire, and Wickr Me, which offer end-to-end encryption and autodelete data to cut the risk of email exposure.

If the recipient needs a username and password, send the two credentials separately. You might text them the password, mail it, or call and give it to the individual directly. When using a system that sends a password email to the user, contact that individual direclty. Ensure that they receive the email, log in, and change the password to something else.

A virtual private network (VPN) is another good tool for securing email. A VPN is like an online tunnel that keeps your email traffic safe. The message sent or received is encrypted from the rest of the internet. In fact, the VPN masks your internet protocol (IP) address, too, meaning you are also protecting your original location.

Sending information online is a tricky business. Don’t put your sensitive information at risk by relying on email communications. Instead, use the solutions above to protect your private and proprietary data.

A managed service provider can set up the solutions you need. Contact us today at (515)422-1995 to protect your conversations online.

Filed Under: Business, Security, Tips Tagged With: business, email, security, tips

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6 Reasons to Replace Your ISP Email

September 1, 2020 by Paul Schwegler

When you sign up for an internet service, the provider will hook you up with an email address, too. Your internet service provider (ISP) wants to keep you connected to them. But this convenient email address isn’t always the best long-term solution for you.

That “yourname@ispprovider.com” email address may work fine. You use it to keep in touch with your family and friends, you get bills to that address, and you’ve used it to login to your social media and online news and shopping sites.

But relying on your ISP for your email address may not be the best strategy for you. Here are some drawbacks to consider.

#1 If you rely on your @isprovider.com address, you could end up locked in with poor service or high prices. You feel stuck because you can’t take your email address with you if you want to switch providers.

#2 Internet service providers are not in the email business, whereas email providers such as Gmail and Outlook are always working to improve. Your ISP may not have updated its email offerings for a decade.

#3 Most ISPs have very limited storage space for email, which can make your service less reliable and convenient.

#4 Also, ISPs don’t make the same effort to keep your email secure and your inbox spam free. A provider more focused on email services offers more sophisticated filtering. ISP emails usually have primitive spam filtering that is easy to bypass.

#5 With an ISP email, your email is often accessible only on the provider’s mail servers, and you need to be able to access those servers to get to your emails. A cloud-based email provider lets you access your inbox via a Web browser. So, it doesn’t matter where in the world you are; you can still get access.

#6 You might be supporting a local ISP with your business. If that smaller provider goes belly up, however, your email address is gone forever, too.

Making the switch to an email provider

You may feel compelled to remain loyal to your ISP because changing your email address is a headache. Yet migrating to a Web-based email provider on your terms will help.

You’ll have a smoother transition if your ISP allows you to download your current address book.

Fortunately, once you make the switch to a Web/cloud-based email provider, you can move ISPs without it making any difference to your email communications.

You could even pay a small fee to upgrade your email with a custom domain name. Maybe you’ve always wanted to have your email come from @yourlastname.com, because it looks cool. Or, if you have a home business, you could have your email come from @yourbusiness.com. This looks more professional, and you can move the address to any provider, as the domain remains the same.

Whether you’re using an ISP or Web/cloud-based email provider, it’s also a good idea to back up your emails. By downloading and backing up your email, you gain more control and peace of mind.

We can help you find the right email provider or ISP for your needs. We’ll help you migrate your email, and we can set up a backup too. Let us help you, call us now at (515)422-1995.

Filed Under: Cloud, Residential, Tips Tagged With: email, ISP, residential

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Do You Copy? What Can Go Wrong with BCC

April 28, 2020 by Paul Schwegler

Try to find someone who has not “replied all” when meaning to send to only one individual. It’s embarrassing and can aggravate those people with more emails flooding their box. Another common email gaffe is misusing the CC and BCC fields in outgoing messages. This mistake can prove costly for business.

You’ll have noticed those extra fields below the “To” field in your email client. CC stands for carbon copy, and BCC for blind carbon copy.

When you use CC, it’s like you’ve imprinted your message on an old blue sheet of carbon paper. The email copy sends to your To recipients as well as anyone you have CC’d. All recipients can see who else you sent your message to. This is a great way to encourage collaboration and accountability.

When you use BCC, your To recipient and anyone else you BCC’d gets the email, but you’re not showing where you sent the message. This is for when you’re addressing a large group of contacts that may not know each other, or when you are sending a group message but you want to respect the privacy of all your recipients.

The Blind Carbon Copy Nightmare

A big problem is using To or CC when meaning to use BCC. You inadvertently expose all your contacts’ email addresses. Personal contact information needs protection, and people’s privacy demands respect. You don’t want to make this mistake with a single or a few emails, or worse still hundreds or thousands of emails.

There are many examples of BCC blunders. West Ham United Football Club faces the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office fines for confirming all season ticket holders with email addresses in the CC field. In another example, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse was fined US$260,000 for exposing possible victims of child abuse in the same way.

Scotland’s National Health Service messaged transgender patients with their addresses in the To field. Instead of using BCC, the sender used an open distribution list. This shared 86 Glasgow patient email addresses and, perhaps, patient names and dates of birth when the addresses incorporated those details. You can bet there were some heated replies to that message, although the reports didn’t share whether they were “reply all” or not.

Also, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on a real estate company employee mistakenly CC’ing 300 customer emails. A customer complained. The error resulted in a six-figure aftermath. Lawyers, a consulting firm, and eight full-time employees worked on a data breach response plan for weeks.

What’s Better Than BCC

Any CC or BCC blunder could be a data breach. Take care. Don’t risk the loss of customer trust and possible compliance issues.

When you need to send out an email to a large group of people when you’re not necessarily expecting a response, use mailing software such as Mailchimp. Email marketing platforms send an individual copy of your message to every person on your mailing list, so there’s no risk of your contact list being exposed.

Need help setting up your email client or getting up to speed on an email marketing platform? We can help. Contact us today at (515)422-1995

Filed Under: Business, Tips Tagged With: BCC, business, CC, email

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Boost Your Email Impact With These Smart Strategies

August 14, 2017 by Paul Schwegler

Most small businesses rely on email as their preferred form of communication. Either internally or externally to clients, customers and suppliers, email is the go-to format we’d be lost without. Our love affair with it is no surprise – it’s quick, simple and provides a paper trail. But its convenience doesn’t always mean relaxed. In fact, poor email communication can hurt your reputation and cost you customers. Here’s how to be smart with your business email:

Get a better e-mail service: Too often I see companies using e-mail addresses from gmail, yahoo, or even aol.com. Custom domains (the part after the @) are so common these days, that many consumers will interpret this as less professional than it could be. I believe that one of the first things a business should do is establish a solid brand, and with that comes an appropriate domain name, website, and e-mail. Believe it or not, it does not cost very much to own the rights to a custom domain, on the order of $10-$20 annually. You can register it (or we can do it for you) through any number of domain registrars, but our favorite is namecheap.com. Once you have that custom domain, you can use it to create an e-mail address that represents what you want your clients to see like yourname@, sales@, help@, or anything really. Finally, you need to choose a host for your e-mail. The domain registrars will often offer cheap or even free basic e-mail. That could be enough for some people, but we recommend a much more robust technology called “Microsoft Exchange”. In years past you would need to purchase and maintain an expensive server to have Exchange email. But, these days you can purchase a ‘hosted exchange’ inbox on a per month basis, for relatively low cost. We currently charge about $15/mo for this service. Once you have this Exchange mailbox, you can enjoy the benefits of real-time synchronized email, calendar, and contacts between all of your devices, sharing with other members of your domain, and even spam filtering that is much more effective and secure than what you get with free services such as Gmail. 

Manage your inbox: Your inbox is only for items you still need to access. Once you’re finished with an email, you should delete it or archive it. If you were to imagine your inbox as physical letters, you’d never let it grow to a 6-foot high stack of chaos. Instead, you’d either throw them out or do the filing. It’s not hard to identify which ones to keep for reference, so create inbox folders to sort them accordingly. As emails arrive and are actioned, move them to the relevant folder or the delete bin. Certain email systems such as POP and IMAP can really choke when your inbox gets too large, so better systems such as Microsoft Exchange can really be a benefit here.

Write professional messages: Stepping across the line from casual to careless is easy if you skip the basic elements of good business writing. Grammar will always be important and the sentence structure of your language hasn’t changed. All email programs include a spell-checker, many of which draw attention to errors immediately, so there’s really no excuse. Typing in all CAPS is seen as yelling, and breaking your text into paragraphs makes your message so much more readable. One last thing before you click send, quickly glance over your email to make sure your tone is appropriate and no mistakes have snuck through.

Embrace the subject line: Many emails are missed because the subject line was empty or meant nothing to the receiver. Writing these attention-grabbing nuggets can be tricky, but if you simply summarize the message, you’ll do fine. Just remember to keep them under 5-8 words so they fit on mobile displays.

Be smart with attachments:  Keep attachments small – under 2MB – as they can clog up the email server. For larger attachments, share the file location as a link using cloud storage.  When you’re sent an attachment you’d like to keep, save the file and then delete the email. And as always, be careful with unexpected attachments, especially from unknown senders. It’s more important than ever to scan all attachments with an antivirus before opening. Here is another situation when Microsoft Exchange can really benefit you. With Exchange you usually have the ability to send and receive much larger attachments, and even have them scanned for viruses or suspicious attachments BEFORE they reach your computer.

Keep your CC/BCC under control: The carbon copy (CC) and blind carbon copy (BCC) let you send the email to additional stakeholders, more as an FYI than anything else. As a rule, use BCC if you’re using an email list or privacy is an issue. But before you add extra people to the email, make sure the email IS relevant to them. There’s nothing worse than being stuck in a pointless email chain!

Call us at  515-422-1995 for help with your business email.

Filed Under: Tips Tagged With: business, email, hosted exchange, spam

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