6 Ways to Manage Over 100 Emails in 1 Day – How Would You Do It?

As this blog has been expanding in popularity over the past couple of months, one thing that I’ve noticed is the increasing number of emails from readers. Readers will contact me for a variety of reasons, including to ask questions about Internet marketing strategies in general, to promote some of their own products and services, to reply to a question that I presented in a previous post or contest, to inquire about advertising fees, or to simply compliment me on what I’ve been doing. I do appreciate all feedback that I receive and want to pay attention to my readers and cater to their needs as much as possible. However, at a certain point, email itself can become an overwhelming full-time job. How do you handle this?

Lately, I’ve been spending a number of hours per day simply replying to readers on Winning the Web. Although, I think it’s extremely important to keep in touch with the community, I can foresee this strategy becoming infeasible once Winning the Web grows significantly larger in readership. Right now, I carefully respond to each and every email sent to me but that could change in the future as I strive to strike the right balance between being efficient with my time and connecting with readers.

Below is a list of strategies a popular site owner can utilize to manage over 100 emails per day. Which method do you currently use? Be sure to vote in the poll.

• Carefully reply to each email
  This is by far the most time-consuming option that can easily burn out any webmaster. Although the rewards of personally corresponding with every reader are great, replying to every email is simply infeasible and inefficient.
• Filter by level of importance
  With the sheer number of emails received, sometimes it’s necessary to filter emails by the level of importance. Clearly an email inquiring about advertising sales is more pressing than a nice thank you note. By categorizing emails in this manner, you will be able to take care of important website matters while saving precious time and effort. However, the drawback with this strategy is that some readers may feel isolated by your lack of response.
• Use an auto-responder
  A compromise between replying to all emails and filtering by email is to use an auto-responder. Although it’s far from personalized, everyone will at least get something so they may not feel as isolated than if you just ignored their messages. If you go this route, be sure to cover as many email topics in your message as possible. Explain that you are unable to respond to everyone because of the large amount of emails. Then list answers to some frequently asked questions and redirect your readers to popular areas of your site.
• Mass replies
  If you want to use more personalization than an auto-responder, another option to look at is the use of mass replies. You can either send out mass emails to multiple people or write a message on your blog or website highlighting some of the frequently asked questions. This is a great approach to take if you are considered an authority in any given field.
• Disable email altogether
  Email is a key component of communication online and disabling the feature would be a huge mistake. However, people who frequently receive hate mail, threatening messages, or other nonsense might want to consider this option.
• Hire someone
  If you can afford it, hiring an assistant to sift through your emails, respond where appropriate, and tag the ones that need your attention would do wonders for your free time. Of course, this is a best case scenario but most people either cannot afford such services or feel uncomfortable having a 3rd party read their business emails.

So which strategy do you most use to manage all of your emails? Vote now.

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