e-skills UK Guide

Using email

An overview of email technology

Email is one of the most important tools for many small businesses, and to ensure that you get the most from your email system it is important that you understand the basics of how it works. This will enable you to implement the right type of solution for your business.

Email enables you to send electronic messages to customers, partners and suppliers on a near enough instant basis. Once an email has been received in a recipient’s inbox the message can be read and acted upon. This sending of messages will enable you to work more effectively and with careful use will help promote the image of you and your business.

Unfortunately bad management of email can result in a lot of pressure on you and your colleagues, along with the possibility that people will be upset due to the difficulties in conveying emotion or humour with email messages.

We cover these and other important aspects of email implementation and use in these projects; Accessing Email Remotely, Eliminating Spam, Email Best Practice and Promoting Your Business Using Email.

Understanding email basics

You will hear some words and phrases banded around when you talk to people about email. Here are some of the key areas you will need to understand;

An inbox is just like its “real world” cousin. It is where your messages will arrive awaiting a response. Most email applications, including those hosted on the web, have the ability to sort and filter messages. You may find that the volume of your email can become quite large – it is not uncommon to receive many tens of emails a day. Some of this may be unwanted spam messages, and we show you how to deal with these in the Eliminating Spam Guide.

You may here people talking about their email addresses. An email address is unique to you and will be based on a domain. A domain is the name of a location on the internet. It is usually used in both web site addresses and email addresses. Usually this address is also used for your web site so email addresses would look like:
sales@businessname.co.uk and fred@businessname.co.uk;

while your web site is: www.businessname.co.uk.

You need to select and register a domain name and it must be unique on the internet. Note that most common words and phrases have already been registered by others so you may need to be creative in your choice of name.

Most, if not all, of the internet service providers (ISP) that offer you your email service will also register your domain names for you. We have listed some suppliers at the end of this project.

Domain name charges vary a lot depending on the type of address you are looking for. This cost is usually between £15 and £50 per year.

You can, however, avoid this by using an email server hosted on the internet – expect to pay between £50 and £100 per email address per year.

Basic email setup

It is possible to setup a very basic email service that uses the internet to store and access your mail.

An internet-based email service provides you with:

An email address.
The ability to send and receive emails using a web browser.

Although this may be seen as basic, for a small business just starting up it is a perfectly valid way of getting live with email. You can get internet-based email for free from two sources:

1. The company that provides your internet connection will almost certainly include one or more free email addresses as part of its offering.

2. There are several companies that offer you free use of their email facilities – including Microsoft, Google and Yahoo.

The second group are competing strongly with each other and some currently offer you enough online storage to keep all the emails you’re going to send and receive for several years.

For details on setting up an internet connection go to the Getting your business online Guide.

More advanced email setup

Some small businesses may decide to run a specialised email server inside their office or organisation. This requires considerable setup and management, out of the scope of most non-technical people.

It is possible to configure a more advanced email setup using products such as Microsoft Outlook. This enables you to use a “proper” Microsoft Windows based program to access and manage your email rather than a web browser. Once configured, a program such as Microsoft Outlook will be able to collect your emails from a server on the internet and down load them to your desktop. You can then manage them appropriately, with responses being sent back to the internet based server.

Many small businesses will use a combination of web based email for use when they are out and about a program such as Microsoft Outlook when they are in the office. Take a look at the Accessing Email Remotely Guide which talks more about using other ways to collect your email.

Email suppliers

If you are uncertain as to the type of email services you need it is probably better that you visit some of the web sites belonging to some suppliers and gauge the level of services and support available to you.

The following companies offer a range of services to help set up an email system and would be a good starting point:

Commercial suppliers

We do not recommend specific products or suppliers; instead we provide you with a representative sample which covers the range of suppliers/products available. You may choose to look at these suppliers or products but this is entirely at your discretion.

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