5 Gmail Labs Features I can’t live without – how are you living without them?

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God I love Gmail.  Here are my favorite lab features that I can’t live without.

1. Undo Send


Gmail will give you 3 seconds to undo an email.  A total life saver. I always catch myself sending emails without proofreading.

2. Don’t Forget Bob


Gmail will auto suggest people you might have left out in an email.  With one click you can insert them in.  This is awesome for group emails.

3. Canned Responses

If you send the same email replies over and over again.  You can save it the first time you write it and then send that same message over and over again in one click.  This is great for customer support, sending out driving instructions, entering in different footers, etc.

4. Forgotten Attachment Detector

Gmail will let you know if any form of the word “Attach” is in your email and nothing is attached.  I feel like a complete idiot when I write “checkout the attached document” in my email and then I forget to actually attach the document.

5. Sender Time Zone


This is awesome.  It tells you what time it currently is at the senders time zone.  Comes in handy when you are taking to people abroad.  You can estimate if you should expect a reply or not.

You can turn on these Gmail Lab features by clicking on “Settings” and then the “Labs” tab.

The Only Thing You Care About In A Shredder: Paper Jams

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What is the #1 thing you hate about your shredder?  The fact that it jams.

Fellowes gets that.  They make shredders that don’t jam.  They did a great job advertising that fact.  They even show you it in action.

I would love to see an advertisement where a man gets a paper jam and it throws off his entire day and makes him more irritable. The next scene would be his life with a Fellowes shredder.. he doesn’t get a paper jam (and therefore irritated) and has an amazing day (gets to lunch quickly allowing him to get the best seat in the house, no traffic on the roads, buys his wife flowers, etc.) This will show the viewer that Fellowes shredder not only prevents paper jams but makes you happier.

SAP’s entire marketing is customer testimonials

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Never underestimate the power of customer testimonials.

Yesterday I met this guy at the Sharks game and he told me he ran a Amazon Web Services competitor.  For about 10 minutes he went on and on about why they were better (I was super bored and stopped paying attention 8 minutes ago).  I then asked him who uses them.  And then he said something that instantly got my attention.  “Twitter is one of our clients.” BAM!  I wanted to hear more.

SAP does a great job showing off their customers all over the place.  Personally SAP isn’t the most exciting thing to talk about… but these ads make them sound like an amazing company.  It can only do great things for making potential customers confident in their product.

 

Another guy I met (Raj Singh) put his main client right on his business card.  It instantly builds trust (made me think “wow this guy is the real deal”), starts a more interesting conversation (wanted to ask how he scored a deal with such a high profile client), and makes you want to work with them (it was a fun conversation and made me want to work with him).  I thought it was pretty genius.

Status Messages – They Work!

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I just upgraded Skype on my Mac and learned about their “Mood Messages” feature. It is an easy way to post twitter/facebook/AIM like status updates.

This must work! Make people enter status messages. If you leave a status more people will instant message/reply back to you. When people message you back you feel great about yourself and you want to use the service more.

Lets take a look at all the different services and what they use to make you leave a status message:

Twitter:

AOL Instant Messenger (Old):

Facebook:

Skype:


GMail/Google Chat:

FriendFeed:

DailyBooth:

A simple “Set Status Here” works. I like Twitter and Facebook’s direct approach on asking a question for them to answer.

What I learned from Ike

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I’ve been in love with the sandwiches from Ike’s Place. I’m starting to fall even in more love with their business. Here is why:

  1. Located on a side st. Near the famous Castro St. resulting in lower rent.
  2. No table seating. Just enough room to make thousands of sandwiches daily. Resulting in lower rent + overhead (less waiters, no bathrooms, less utilities used, etc.). Customers pick up their sandwiches and eat at a nearby park.
  3. They have specific menus for vegetarians and vegans. As a vegetarian seeing a menu dedicated to you is an instant win and makes me want to tell people about it.
  4. The give you an awesome Carmel Apple candy to enjoy after your meal for free. Its like free desert. (Remember: Giving mints with the bill results in higher tips)
  5. Everyone in the shop acts like your friend. I like doing business with my friends.

In summary restaurants are the worst businesses to get into. BUT with Ike’s unique menu that caters to niche audiences and has very very little overhead it seems like an unlikely event 🙂 (Also their sandwiches are seriously amazing – get the Meatless Mike)

Ike’s Team:

If you decide to order a sandwich from Ike’s – call ahead. They usually have a 2 hour wait.

Jones Soda Totally Gets Their Customer

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Jones Soda gets it. Their customers are people who play Dungeons and Dragons. Amazing marketing directly to the people that drink Jones.

If any Jones marketing folks are reading this. I would love to talk to you.

Update: I just saw this at a used computer parts store in Berkeley, Ca.  They really love marketing to the niche.  I wonder if this gets Seahawk fans to try a new soda?

Examples around the web: Focusing on Benefits Not Features

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I always hear that you should focus on benefits and not features. I agree. It is easier to sell your product when the customer knows and understands how it will benefit them.

Here are some examples I found on the web focusing on benefits:

Crazy Egg focuses on how you can make more money.

Mintgives you ideas on what you should be saving for already. When I saw this I immediately thought “I really need to be saving more and creating a budget for grad school.”

Hotwireshows you how much money you can save. They don’t focus on all their cool travel tools they have – just a direct cash benefit.

oDesk’s tag line “Guaranteed Work. Guaranteed Payment.” does a good job telling employers will get their work done hassle free and freelancers will get paid. oDesk does a good job not putting all their time management tools first.

37 Signals’ Basecamp tag like “Get Projects Done” says it all. This is a direct benefit to project managers.

This is my favorite one. “Know where your business stands” and even better “Nearly 70% of users say QuickBooks helped them be more profitable.” They don’t focus on telling their customer all the reporting tools they have.

TurboTax: “Get Your Biggest Tax Refund” – pure benefit.

Facebook doesn’t talk about how you can share photos really easily or play games. They focus on connecting people in your life a direct benefit to me.

Special thanks to Ziad and JAW for proof reading this post.

Reminder: Twitter was started in 2006

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Reminder: Twitter was started in 2006 and didn’t really take off until 12 or so months ago. It must have been hard to stay motivated, keep investors happy, and innovate from 2006-2008ish.

People sometimes think things like twitter just take off overnight. Nope. It took them a few years to get real traction.

Keep at it if you are still in year 1 or 2 of your business. Give your business at least 3 years.

Read this book: Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive

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This book was awesome! Tons of great stories, facts, and ways to become a better sales person.

My favorite tips from the book:
– Mirror people. If they lean in, you lean in. Obviously don’t make it obvious but people like people that resemble them
– People are more likely to do the right thing in front of a mirror. (People don’t like seeing themselves do bad things)
– More hotel guests reused their towels when they were told a majority of the hotel guests reuse their towels. People like going with the popular.
– Smiley faces on brochures go a long way

I really loved this book. Thanks Ziad and Amit for the recommendation!