We should all do our part to protect the valuable information on our websites and personal computers.  The more importance we allocate to technology in our daily lives the more it will be exploited by shady characters.  Are you doing enough to keep your information secure?

Take a look at this checklist on the Gmail site to help you keep your email and computer secure.

This post serves as a reference for how to set up your email on several different devices and email programs wether your website is hosted on Media Temple or with Creation-1.

Set Your Email up With:

• Outlook 2007

• Windows Live Mail

• Apple Mail

• Iphone Mail

• Blackberry

• Entourage

You will often find yourself needing to check your email but for whatever reason you do not have access to your computer.  This is where the beauty of webmail comes in!  Just open up your browser and you can read your most current emails online.

Creation-1 Hosting Clients:

1.  Open up your browser.

2. Type in webmail.yourdomain.com

3. Your username is your email address.

4.  Your password is the same password you used to set up your email account.

5.  Press the “Log In” button

6. Check your email

Genus Customers:

1.  Open up your browser.

2. Type in mail.yourdomain.com

3. Your username is your email address.

4.  Your password is the same password you used to set up your email account.

5.  Press the “Login” button

6. Check your email

Notes:

Your default email program is what decides how early emails are deleted from the server.  Emails that are not on the server are likely archived on your computer.  These settings can be adjusted on your personal computer.  Also, Please use Firefox and save yourself a headache.

We are always asked by clients about what applications we recommend to use for email marketing and sending bulk newsletters.  We broke down our three favorites and discussed some of the pros and cons.  Overall, Genus is the most affordable, comprehensive and feature rich application because it is fully integrated with your website.  So here is the Comparison of Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact vs. Genus:

MailChimp [http://mailchimp.com]

Pros:
Subscriber based system allows for unlimited emails to be sent.
Free account: limits 100 subscribers, 6 mail-outs each month, branded with MailChimp badge.
Good for high volume/frequency marketing campaigns.

Cons:
Subscriber based system ultimately limits target specific marketing capabilities.  In reality, you will not be sending marketing campaigns to all of your subscribers each month.  You will be conducting a much more targeted campaign that will utilize only a portion of your total subscribers.
More work to integrate customer database into marketing campaign.  With Genus, you are able to easily segment your customers by creating reports based on products purchased, total purchase amount, etc. Otherwise, you will have to export all of your order information, segment it manually via Excel and then import into MailChimp.
Customers must Opt-In which requires customers to re-subscribe to a newsletter they have already subscribed to.  This is especially important when importing existing databases.

Summary:
MailChimp is a superior marketing service if the client needs more than 10,000 emails each month; however, this service can get quite expensive depending on the number of new subscribers each month.  Unlimited emails is appealing but for smaller companies who do not require high volume marketing campaigns Genus is a much more cost effective service that will cover the majority of their marketing needs: templates, database segmentation, reports, etc.  The integration with existing and new customer database and the ability to segment that information based on specific customer interactions makes Genus a much more viable marketing service.

Constant Contact [http://constantcontact.com]

Pros:
Unlimited emails to a selected number of subscribers.
Online survey functionality for an additional fee.
The same overall features as Genus

Cons:
Not integrated with your website like genus is.
Expensive.
You will have re- import your subscriber list from your website into constant contact and vice versa.

Summary:
Constant Contact is recommended for clients who wish to distribute surveys and receive in depth analytics regarding the results.  The email marketing service offered by Mailchimp is better; if not the same as Constant Contact.  With genus, the email marketing is included in your package as long as you have under 10,000 emails a month.

Genus [http://TryGenus.com]

Pros:
Unlimited Subscribers.
Fully Integrated with your Website.
No opt in required for your primary list upload.
10,000 emails a month FREE.
Setup loyalty campaigns ex. Send birthday messages with coupons etc.
Create email lists based on your eCommerce sales. ex: A list of all people who spent x amount of money or bought x product.

Cons:
Additional fee for over 10,000 emails per month ($0.01/email, charged in 1,000 increments)— This is unlikely for most businesses.

Summary:
Genus is ideal for the business who is looking for a fully integrated solution.  With Genus you wont have to navigate through multiple websites and applications to send newsletters or campaigns.  There are over 200 templates that you can customize with your logo, company name and color scheme.  Once you are setup there is no migrating between different programs.  Everything you need to manage your online business is inside Genus.  Each of the 6 aspects of Genus are able to communicate with each other and read information from the other.  No other email marketing system can create a list based on customer actions such as store sales or specific product purchases without the knowledge of code.

• Your domain name -example.com
• Your Email address username@example.com
• Your email password.

Here’s What To Do:

1. Open Apple Mail.
2. From the Mail menu, choose Preferences.

3. Click the Accounts button and click on + button at the bottom.

4. Perform the following steps:

• Select POP3 the Account Type drop down.
• Enter Account Description as you want it to appear.
• Enter your Full Name as you want it to appear.
• Enter your full email address username@mt-example.com in the Email address: field.
• Click on Continue

5. Fill in the following fields:

• Enter mail.mt-example.com in the Incoming mail (POP3) server: field.
• Enter your full email address username@mt-example.com in the User Name field.
• Enter your email password in the Password: field
• Click on Continue

6. For Authentication drop down choose Password and click on Continue

7. Perform the following steps:

• Select mail.mt-example.com in the Outgoing mail server: field.
• Make sure to check mark the Use Authentication check box.
• Enter your full email address username@mt-example.com in the User Name field.
• Enter your email password in the Password: field
• Click on the Continue button.

NOTE: Keep in mind that many Internet service providers force you to use their Outgoing mail server.  if mail.your-domain.com is ineffective,  Contact your internet service provider or search online to find out what the Outgoing mail server address is.

8. Close the Accounts window, and click the Save button.
Congratulations, you have finished setting up your email account!