How to Create a Free Email Account
We are starting with email basics because we are to assume that you don't know anything about Internet marketing, or how to create an email account. If you already know how to set up a free account with Yahoo! or Google, then you can skip this lesson and take the assessment test for this lesson. We would caution you against doing so, because you may miss vital tips on marketing your horse related business if you choose to do so.
By the way, these types of email accounts are called throw-away accounts because if you no longer want to use them, then you can just forget about them. They are provided by various search engines for free in order to entice you back to using the same search engines over an over again. However, don't lose the email addresses of your clients from these accounts! You need to save those because your list is pure gold!
Once you start making money with your business, you can start using a reputable company for your email services, but when you are in the early stages of building your email list, you can use these free accounts and they will work just fine.
The Tools You Will Need
In this section, we are going to show you how to set up an email account. In the next module, we will show you how to implement an opt-in box and an auto-responder to start legitimately setting up an email list. (If you can't remember how to legitimately send people email, please refer to module 1.1 the section on Spamming)
After you have completed this portion of your activities for this module, you should be able to easily contact anyone for free using these services. As you become familiar with the interface of the email service you will be able to see how to collect and save email addresses of your clients and we will show you how to create an email newsletter that you can send to this group again and again.
As of this writing, Google's email service, which we are going to show you how to set up, allows you a whopping 7620 megabytes to store all of your email. That's a lot! You can probably collect years and years worth of email messages without deleting them and still have plenty of space.
How to Set Up a Gmail Account
To access Google's email accounts also called "Gmail", go to www.google.com. At the very top of your screen you will see a menu that looks like this:
You will want to click on the link that says, "Gmail".
This will immediately take you to Google's Gmail intro page. On the Gmail intro page, on the right hand side is a box (sometimes called an opt-in box, very similar to the one we will introduce you to later.) which will look like this:
Click on the "Sign Up for Gmail" link, since we are creating a new email account with Google.
This will now take you to a page where you will start the process of setting up your own email (or Gmail) account. Once you complete this process, you should be able to go to just about any search engine like Yahoo! or Lycos or any of the other search engines that offer free email services, because the set up is pretty much the same.
On the top part of the Google set up page, you will see the first fields of information that you will have to fill out. It should look something like this:
You should see a place to put your first and last name, however, you can use a fake name if you so desire. We would strongly recommend that you not do this, because when you are sending out your email to your customers, it may confuse them. The will see an incoming message from an unrecognizable name and probably delete it or send it into their bulk email file.
The next piece of information is your desired login name. You want to make this name very unique while making it something that you can easily remember.
If your name is "John" and you try to use that as your login name, chances are that it was probably taken the day Google went online. However, John40517 (Your name, plus your zip code with no spaces between them) may not have been taken. Google will tell you if your login name is already taken or not. Many people use combinations of names and birth dates, nicknames or anything that is memorable yet unique to them for a log in name. The same can be said for the next spaces on the page, the "Password" box.
You will need to come up with a password that you can remember. We have seen case after case of people that can't remember their login names or passwords. Whatever you do after you get rolling along, don't lose both! Try to keep a file on your computer or a small address book in your home (the best idea since your computer can get a virus or can have your hard drive get fried in an electrical storm.) for these addresses and pass words. Once you begin online marketing, you will probably be using all sorts of accounts and services that will have your own unique login and password names and you will need to keep a hard copy in an actual file cabinet in your home.
If You Lose Your Password, Don't Panic!
After you have entered your password, Gmail will ask you to reenter it again. This is to make sure that you know exactly what you are putting in or a password. If you lose your password, then you can have it sent to you by Google if you can remember your login name. If you lose your login name and password then you may not be able to get Google to send you your account information. So as a precautionary note, don't lose your login name. Keep it in a file off of your computer.
The next section is pretty self explanatory. The security question is a drop down menu that gives you a choice of questions such as "Your favorite pet's name." Just pick which question and answer that you want to use and then in the "Answer" field, fill in your answer.
Near the bottom, you will see a group of letters bunched together. These are in place to help Google keep out people that would create tons of email addresses quickly and use them to spam people. Just put the letters into the box.
At the bottom of this page, there will be a terms of agreement from Google concerning the use of their email system, that you should scan. The bottom line with using these email systems is common sense. If you think you are doing something wrong, then don't do it. Check Google's rules otherwise they might ban you from use and take your email account away fro you.
At the very bottom of the screen you will see a button that says "I accept and activate account" click on that and you are in business! You have just created your Google email account.
