How To Use Gmail as your CRM

March 10 by Steve Dotto in Technology | 140 Shares

Last week on my radio show, I had a guest who told me that he was using Gmail for his entire CRM solution, I must admit I was somewhat taken aback. Gmail for CRM? I am always surprised when I find out people are using Gmail in the browser as their primary email client, so CRM seems to be a bit of a stretch.

It turns out that some people are indeed using Gmail as a CRM solution. With a few add-ons.

I decided to do bit of research and try these tools out for myself.

You too can see the results for yourself.

Three tools that have the potential to turn Gmail into a total CRM solution:

Boomerang

http://www.boomeranggmail.com/

Write Than Name

https://www.writethat.name/

ActiveInBox

http://www.activeinboxhq.com/

Check out Steve's weekly Podcast at www.dottotech.com Steve Dotto is one of Canada's most respected geeks. For over 15 years, as host and executive producer of Dotto Tech, a nationally syndicated TV show, Steve has entertained and educated millions of Canadians on all aspects of technology. Steve now hosts Dotto Tech as a weekly radio show and podcast. A very popular speaker, Steve is in demand addressing audiences on the changes technology is bringing to the workplace, and our society. Steve has one mission, to help us master our technology, at home, at school or at work, his message....we need to be in charge.

4 Responses to “How To Use Gmail as your CRM”

Gaston Ragnar Rippinger says:

March 10, 2013 at 4:11 pm

"Write Than Name" typo. Interesting video, as always :)

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Ben Taylor says:

March 11, 2013 at 8:46 am

I wholeheartedly endorse writethatname and boomerang – and will now look into active inbox. But you should take a look at http://www.toutapp.com which provides full email tracking, active drafts, evaluation of clicks and responses… (and also http://www.connecthq.com which does a nice job of linking contacts – and *of course* no gmail user should be without http://www.rapportive.com, much better than gmail's functionality). These tools (as well as inbox pause!) allow me to quite effectively manage two hundred emails per day :-)

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Brandon Bruce says:

March 12, 2013 at 10:12 am

These are great tools and we use all of them including Rapportive which Ben mentioned in comments. For those users and organizations that need the power of a platform such as Salesforce, we make an app called Cirrus Insight that integrates Gmail with Salesforce. http://www.cirrusinsight.com

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Renee Shupe says:

March 28, 2013 at 3:40 pm

I'm like Todd I use Gmail exclusively for my email and have used Active Inbox, but have now moved to a combination of Any.Do (for my tasks) and Streak (an add-on that is actually developed as a CRM but can be used for much more. It might be something you want to take a look at and share with your viewers.

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