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As a home baker running your own business, staying on top of customer orders, inquiries, and marketing emails can quickly become overwhelming. But what if you could automate some of those repetitive tasks and free up more time for baking? That’s where Gmail automations come in!
In this post, we’ll walk you through some simple steps to set up automations in Gmail that will help you streamline your workflow, keep your inbox organized, and allow you to focus more on doing what you love.
Why Automate Your Gmail Inbox?
Gmail automations allow you to:
Automatically label and organize incoming emails.
Filter emails to prioritize important ones.
Send out-of-office responses when you're busy baking.
Automatically delete or archive irrelevant emails.
Create templates for common responses to save time.
Now, let's break down how to set these automations up.
Use Labels and Filters to Automate Organization
Labels and filters are powerful tools in Gmail that help keep your inbox organized by automatically sorting incoming emails. Filters allow you to specify criteria that trigger specific actions, like applying labels, marking emails as read, archiving, or even deleting them. Labels then allow you to categorize emails, making it easy to find what you need quickly.
Here’s how to set up filters and labels to streamline your inbox:
Creating a Label
Labels act like folders to help you categorize emails. You can create as many labels as you need to keep your business communications organized.
Open Gmail and scroll down the left sidebar to find “Create new label.”
Click it, name your label (e.g., “Orders,” “Customer Inquiries,” “Invoices”), and hit “Create.”
The new label will now appear in your sidebar, ready for use.
Creating a Filter
Filters automate the process of categorizing incoming emails by applying specific actions based on criteria you set.
In Gmail, click on the search bar at the top.
Click the small sliding bar icon to open advanced search options.
Enter your criteria, such as a sender’s email, keywords, or subject line (e.g., “order,” “invoice,” or a client’s name).
Click “Create filter” at the bottom right.
Choose what you want Gmail to do when an email matches your criteria, like applying a label, marking it as read, archiving it, or forwarding it.
Click “Create filter” to activate.
Applying Labels with Filters
To maximize your organization, combine labels with filters. By setting up filters to automatically apply labels, you can categorize emails without manually sorting.
Label customer orders: Set a filter to label emails with words like “order” or “invoice” under “Orders.” This way, every incoming order is labeled and easy to locate.
Archive newsletters: Filter newsletters by the sender or specific keywords and set them to archive automatically under a “Newsletters” label, so they don’t clutter your inbox.
Flag important clients: Create a filter to star emails from priority clients or collaborators, making sure important messages are easy to find.
Managing Labels and Filters
After creating filters and labels, you can edit or delete them anytime. To do this:
Go to Gmail settings and click “Filters and Blocked Addresses” to manage filters.
Click “Edit” next to any filter to update it or “Delete” to remove it.
To manage labels, click “Manage labels” in the left sidebar, where you can rename, hide, or delete labels.
Additional Tips for Using Labels and Filters in Gmail
Archive and Label Emails to Keep Your Inbox Clear
Archiving emails is the only way to truly "clear" them from your inbox view. When an email is archived, it no longer appears in the main inbox but remains accessible under its assigned label. By setting up a filter that both labels and archives specific emails, you can keep your inbox clutter-free while ensuring the email is easy to find under the label in the left-hand panel.
Example: If you receive regular invoices, you can set up a filter to apply the label “Invoices” and archive these emails automatically. The email won’t clutter your inbox, but you can always find it in the “Invoices” folder in the left sidebar.
Choose “View” or “Hide” for Labels to Keep Your Subject Lines Visible
In Gmail’s settings, you can choose whether labels are “viewable” or “hidden” when looking at the subject line in the inbox. Too many viewable labels can make the subject line hard to read or hidden completely, especially if you receive emails with multiple labels applied.
Viewable Labels: When a label is set to “viewable,” it will appear next to the email subject line. This is helpful for labels you frequently need to see at a glance, like “Customer Inquiries” or “Orders.”
Hidden Labels: If a label is set to “hidden,” it won’t appear next to the subject line. For archived emails or labels you don’t need to monitor constantly (like “Newsletters” or “Invoices”).
Example: If you’ve created a filter that archives and labels all newsletter subscriptions under “Newsletters,” you don’t need to have that label set to viewable. It will be easy to find in the left-hand panel, but it won’t take up space in the subject line.
Use Sublabels to Organize Related Emails Even Further
Gmail allows you to create sublabels to make organization even more detailed. This feature is especially helpful if you have multiple related emails within a single category, such as different types of newsletters or customer inquiries.
To create a sublabel:
Go to your labels in the left sidebar and click “Manage labels.”
Select “Create new label” and check the option to “Nest label under” an existing label.
Choose the main label under which you’d like to nest this new sublabel.
Example: For a “Newsletters” label, you can create sublabels for each specific subscription. For instance, you could create a sublabel like “The Baker’s Business Lab” allowing you to find and read the specific newsletter without digging through a general folder.
The Icing On The Cake
Using Gmail’s labels, filters, and sublabels strategically can keep your inbox organized, helping you focus on what’s most important without losing track of important communications. The more you customize these settings, the more Gmail can work for you rather than against you!
Be sure to follow the blog as we post the rest of the Gmail Automation series with even more step-by-step instructions to save you time!
Gmail automations are a great start for managing day-to-day tasks and keeping your inbox organized. However, as your home baking business grows, Gmail alone won’t cut it for successful email marketing. It lacks key features like audience segmentation, automated campaigns, performance tracking, and professional templates—all of which are essential for growing your customer base and boosting sales.
That’s where email marketing platforms like Flodesk come in. These tools allow you to create targeted campaigns, automate emails, track performance, and send beautifully branded messages that engage your customers and drive sales.
To truly scale your business, an email marketing platform is key. It’s time to move beyond Gmail and take your email marketing to the next level!
Learn about the Email Marketing Lab, a course where I’ll set up your email marketing for success and make it work for your business.
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