

Follow up emails work - rishi
http://www.gettingmoreawesome.com/2011/08/24/followup/

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2arrs2ells
While I'm sure the various "follow up" services are great (I'm a pretty big
Boomerang Gmail fan myself), it's also incredibly easy to roll your own
solution to this problem using gmail filters.

When sending a message that needs a followup, BCC yourself - something like
myname+followup@gmail.com. Then setup a filter that labels/stars/etc all
messages to myname+followup, and you'll have a nice queue of messages that
need to be checked for responses.

Once I started tracking this, I was absolutely blown away by the percent of
emails I send that get ignored. I'm not selling anything, but still get <50%
response rate.

~~~
rpedroso
Simpler solution (which GTD practitioners already know): keep a Waiting On
list. Put due dates on it. Follow up when you hit the due date.

I use Todoist, but this will work with many todo systems, including pen &
paper ones. When populating a project with items, like "Email Greg with
questions from the RFP", I also add an item, like "Get RFP questions from
Greg" and tag it with @waiting. I will also give the latter item a due date
(e.g. 24 hours). If I want to see everything I'm waiting on, I can just look
at the @waiting tag, but it's going to pop up when it's due anyways.

This is a much better solution if you already have todo lists, since you don't
have to train yourself to perform a different activity, or keep track of yet
another list of things in another program. Plus, it separates todo list
maintenance activities from your email inbox. That kind of mental separation
makes me way more productive by reducing the complexity of the given activity
(i.e. sending an email).

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alabut
So far, I don't see anyone suggesting an IMAP-based solution. Good! Because
that's what we interviewed at the last YC for. What's cool about that is then
you can use any client, browser, email provider, whatever.

Time for a plug - <http://stacyplease.com> \- it's still in active development
and we took in PG's feedback from the rejection letter. In fact, it's one of
three things we're going to roll out and apply for in the next week.

Sign up and stay in touch!

~~~
pclark
I signed up:

> Sorry to be so mysterious about what Stacy is, it's not on purpose! The
> site's barely a few days old because we just landed an interview with the
> Ycombinator startup incubator for their summer 2011 session.

This doesn't inspire confidence that you are going to launch any time soon

~~~
alabut
Thanks for catching that text!

Funny story - we've been focused on other related projects this summer because
we launched part of the underlying tech as an API (called EmailYak) just to
get it out of the way so we could start prepping for the YC interview.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to us, it was getting paid customers and we probably
interviewed for the wrong thing! It's even had an acquisition offer.
Craziness.

Now we're circling back around to building several apps on top of the API
(including Stacy) to show what it can really do. Here's a few sneak previews:

* GitDash - instant mailing lists for GitHub collaborators - <http://alabut.com/projects/gitdash/>

* Messagify - it's like a private Disqus. Or something. More like Facebook Messages or Twitter DMs, actually. <http://messagify.com>

The new EmailYak site will also have a bunch more documentation and blog posts
describing all kinds of use cases for receiving email:

<http://alabut.com/projects/emailyak/home.png>

Sorry for all the plugging, we're just pumped about turning in our YC
applications in a few days.

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RossM
I love the idea (and simplicity of it) but isn't this basically forwarding
each scheduled message to follow up service? Seems like a little too much
trust involved for me.

~~~
sourc3
I totally agree with you. As a small business I would not want to share those
types of messages with a third party especially when they have no monetization
strategy defined on their web site. I don't want my customers ending up with
better "offers" from my competitors in the next 6 months. Maybe I am too
cautious and paranoid, but to me using a local system seems the only sane way
to address the follow up reminder need.

~~~
baydinalex
If security is a big concern and you like the MSDOS-in-the-cc-field interface
for this sort of thing (I like a menu, datepicker, and natural language input,
but I'm obviously biased!), check out <http://www.bumper.cc>. It's an open-
source replacement for FollowUpThen, FollowUpCC, NudgeMail, Laytr, HitMeLater,
etc.

The developer claims that it takes only 5 minutes to set up, and you can get a
micro AWS instance for free. Then you control all the data, and you don't have
to pay.

~~~
beezee
The developer would be me, thanks for the shout Alex! :)

Quick shameless plug, this was a weekend project and it's up on Github, just
PHP and MySQL, so if anyone wants to contribute it is more than welcome.

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russjhammond
A non-technical trick I learned was to try to send emails 10am local time of
the recipient, Tuesday thru Thursday. I found this was the time I was most
likely to get a response because most people don't like responding on the
weekends to non-personal messages. On Monday they are digging out from the
pile of messages from the weekend, on Friday they just want to get thru the
day.

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aculver
I love this new class of services that integrates into email workflow
unobtrusively. No additional software, can use it from your cell phone, etc.
One thing I've done is add the addresses to my address book with a easy-to-
remember "names". That way I can just type "next week" into my BCC field and
it auto-completes for me.

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scottru
I've been using followup.cc for this purpose (among others) for the past few
months and am a complete fanboy - it's a great tool for inbox-obsessed task
managers like me.

~~~
rishi
One of the founders of FollowUp.cc left a comment on the blog post explaining
the service a little better to me.

Here are the major benefits of FollowUp.cc in my eyes: 1\. Multiple Email
accounts all in one account 2\. Calendar View of reminders 3\. Response
Detection (cancels a follow up if a response has been sent)

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bane
We've gotten some great responses from users that use Momentomail for exactly
this kind of thing. One user also sends their "thanks for the great meeting"
followup messages before their meetings even happen, and another send a series
of emails at stages before the completion date of a project, "just a reminder,
the paperwork for xyz project needs to be filed in 5 days", "...in 3 days",
"...today", but she schedules these all months in advance.

Email is such a great scaffolding for all kinds of wonderful services, but
because it's old, nobody seems to see it as the modern social app that it
really is.

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zrail
I've been working on a simple service that does a similar thing, but for phone
calls.

<http://www.remindlyo.com>

You put who you want to call and when into the system and sometime during the
day we call you and connect you to them. They see your caller id and
everything. Right now all you can do is take it for a spin with the free
trial, but soon I'll have the full product up and running.

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joelhaus
The Gmail Snooze Google Apps Script is another _semi-solution_ ; rather than
BCC, it will make a message reappear in your inbox in X days. The difference
is that you add a label to any sent mail that you want to follow-up on.

Here's the tutorial: [http://googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.com/2011/07/gmail-
snooze...](http://googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.com/2011/07/gmail-snooze-with-
apps-script.html)

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Vincentmb
Definitely, an interesting idea. I do a ton of follow-up emailing and it's
crucial because because the first email often falls through the cracks. Plus,
dealing with several different follow-up tabs on my gmail isn't nearly as
efficient and Followupthen. My only concern is that it wouldn't be as easy for
me to get an overview of my current email situation if I didn't have
everything tabbed.

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drpancake
I'd much rather use a browser plugin, a la Rapportive. Anyone know of such a
service?

~~~
2arrs2ells
Boomerang Gmail for Google Chrome/Gmail is great (but a bit pricey).

~~~
reemrevnivek
Pricey? It's $5 for gmail.com, $15 for Google Apps. If it generates one extra
sale, it's paid for itself.

I do understand that if you're using this for personal communications, that
might feel pricey.

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pclark
What solutions exist for mail.app?

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ahmetalpbalkan
How does it stop following up? After being triggered once?

