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Action: Set Up Your Email Support System. 1) Download Eudora 2) Install and Configure the Software. 3) Check out the Advanced Settings and Customize Eudora to Work the Way You Want It To. 4) Spend Some Time Familiarizing Yourself With How Eudora Works. 5) Add Any Extra Email Accounts (Personalities) That You Want To Use. |
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Action: Set up Your Email Support System To respond to customer inquiries, receive copies of your orders and stay in contact with your vendors you're going to need a robust and reliable email program. I don't recommend you try to use hotmail or yahoo web based email for this because they have a message storage limit and if their servers are down, you can't check your email. It's best to use an email program like Eudora Pro or the free version of Eudora if you're on a budget.
To download and try out Eudora, go to http://www.eudora.com/download/ Choose the version that's right for you. If you want the Spam Watch option you need to order the pro version for $39.95. If you don't care about that or plan to use MailWasher.net to combat your spam you can get by with the light version or the sponsored mode which is ad supported.
After downloading, close all open Windows programs then install your new Eudora software. It's a quick install. When it's done you're going to need to find your email account information (this is the information your host gave you after you signed up for the hosting account.) and create a new "Personality". Here's how: A) Click "TOOLS", then choose "PERSONALITIES" B) Right click in the "PERSONALITY" window and choose "NEW"
C) In the new window that appears, choose either "Create a Brand New Email Account", "Import Settings From An Existing Email Account" or "Skip Directly to Advanced Account Setup". If you're faily tech savvy, you can skip to advanced settings. If you have your account settings in another program like Outlook Express or Outlook, Eudora can import that information for you. The easiest way if you're just starting out is to choose the first option, to create a brand new email account using the wizard. We'll walk through that step by step so you can see just how simple it is to set up: Select "Create a Brand New Email Account", then click the "NEXT" button:
You need to enter in the "Personality Name". This is displayed in your version of Eudora only so you can enter whatever you like in this area. The recipient of your email does not see this name. Then click "NEXT"
In the next form field you enter the name you want displayed when you send an email to someone. This shows up as "From: Your Name" when they receive your message so enter your first and last name here or your company name. Then click "NEXT".
Your host will have provided you with a basic email address for your account, like support@yourdomain.com or info@yourdomain.com. Refer to the "Welcome" email they sent you after you signed up for hosting to get this email address. Using the host email account information will allow you to send and receive email through your website address domain, like support@yourdomain.com instead of having to use your personal email address like you@aol.com or whichever ISP you use. It's more professional to send/receive email through your website email address, rather than your personal email account so enter your email address and click "NEXT".
In the "Welcome" email from your host, you'll have received an email account "username" and "password". You need to get the username and enter that below:
Next step is to enter your "Incoming Email Server" information. Again, refer to the "Welcome" email from your host. More than likely this information will be mail.yourdomain.com (replacing yourdomain.com with your actual website address, of course) so look for that and when you find it, type it or copy/paste it into this spot, then click NEXT.
This next step is similar, but here you enter the outgoing email server information. Grab this from your Welcome email. It's probably right next to the incoming mail server settings. Click "NEXT" when you're done and you'll be finished!
Now you're set up to send and receive email through your new account.
Eudora provides you with quite a few advanced settings. To access the options, go to "TOOLS > OPTIONS" and the options window will appear. It looks like this:
This area is loaded with advanced, fully customizable options. Just click the words on the left to go to each section like "checking email", for example. In this area you can set your email program to check mail every 5 or 15 minutes, automatically. You can choose whether to send plain or styled text, change the layout of the message window, apply colored text labels to your email messages, set your "reply to email" settings so it quotes back the original message, includes your signature automatically and so forth. Spend a few minutes poking around in that area and customize Eudora the way you want.
Once you've customized Eudora the way you want it to run, go to your inbox and send yourself a test email to make sure you've got it set up right. Then spend some time familiarizing yourself with how it all works. Here is a screen capture of what the inbox looks like, with a few messages in it:
If you want to create a new email message, just click the "CREATE NEW EMAIL" icon from the top navigation bar. Here's an example of what a new email message looks like when it's ready to send:
If you've signed up for more than one hosting account (ie: you have multiple website addresses for different products) or want to set up different email departments, just go back to the "PERSONALITY" window, choose "NEW" again and create your additional email accounts. You can set up an account used specifically for "SUPPORT" and one for "SALES". Eudora allows you to use one mail program for different domains and multiple email accounts.
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