Today’s internet is clear that Google plays an important role in developing some of the best software out there. Google continues to distinguish itself as a software innovator. If you’re looking to do a personal productivity task, chances are Google has or is working on a solution. The growth of email over the years has brought out the good and the bad of the features we like to see when we use our email. Google GMail is a prime example of leading the way and being the best option for many users today. Google’s GMail has taken a very mature technology in our email and made us look at how we process, manage and retrieve our electronic communications.

Taking a closer look at one key feature that GMail has potentially addressed is its versatility in creating custom mailing strategies or query processing. This flexibility is what makes GMail an ideal platform to use as a personal contact management system or as a simple CRM.

GMail has a contact management?

Contact management is essentially a system that helps a salesperson quickly identify new leads, make contact, and manage follow-up.

You inherently get the communication tool, email. By leveraging the power of Google search, tagging, and filters, you gain management of those communications. It is very likely that you are using a CRM, such as ACT! or Goldmine, you are using a lot of features similar to email, but you still have to leave that app to use email as well.

Time is money, so you don’t want to waste time bouncing between multiple apps. So why not stay in your email app?

Contact import and management

One of the fundamental roles of your CRM is to capture and manage your contacts. Your sales system needs to easily onboard your leads and customers into the system, refer them quickly, and manage updates efficiently.

GMail does each of these tasks exceptionally well. Whether you’re exporting contacts from Outlook, Apple Mail, or uploading a contact spreadsheet from GMail, it makes it easy. If you already have your contacts in a web-based mail or social networking system like Yahoo! Mail or LinkedIn is even easier just log in and click.

Creation of a sales prospecting system

Now that you have all your contacts in GMail, Google search becomes a powerful prospecting tool. Are you looking for a person in a particular company? Do you need the entire SVP or senior marketing executives? Do you need everyone in the healthcare sector? All of these types of prospecting questions are easily answered and your database is segmented with GMail.

Most importantly, using GMail as a contact management system puts all of these leads at your fingertips and ready to contact.

Real-time internet lead generation management

GMail also has great features for managing internet lead generation in real time. By combining the power of filters, tags, and actions, you can immediately prioritize and queue leads however you see fit.

Filters allow you to create complex rule sets for specific types of emails. This can allow you to:

* Highlight (i.e. highlight) emails coming from lead sources
* Tag different sources of leads
* Filter them into specific groups for tracking

You can take this contact management and prioritization system a step further by using GMail’s latest multiple inboxes to create sales lines and queues.

Prioritize with the new GMail task list

Of course, no sales management system would be complete without a task list. GMail has a simple yet elegant task list. Not only can you create your TODO schedule and you can turn emails and correspondence into follow-up tasks and reminders.

Also, don’t forget to use Google Calendar to schedule and keep track of appointments.

Integration of social media tools

Finally, sales have to do with commitment to people. Few technological concepts have helped sales engage customers as directly as social media.

With Google’s robust GoogleTalk, built into GMail, you can incorporate all your social media streams as well as your email conversations. Again, turning all of this communication into a searchable prospecting database.

There is no doubt that GMail features for users to use is much more than just an email application. GMail can be your personal Google contact management or CRM software.