Last year, Google reported that the number of Gmail users reached 1.5 billion since the day it was launched back in April 2004. Huge! Gmail now holds 20% of the global email market (Source: Marketing Charts) and accounts for 27% of all email opens (Source: Litmus).
It is heavily used not only for personal email correspondence, but quite often for business purposes too. According to Customer Stories, Gmail is the primary email client for 92% of US startups and 60% of mid-sized US companies. And the key to user personal productivity often directly depends on automation, as well as keeping emails, contacts, and other Gmail data organized.
In this article, we’ll explore the most effective ways to manage Contacts – one of the key components when it comes to doing business in Gmail.

Why do you need contact management in Gmail?

Gmail is not only about email correspondence, but also about the data that you use to communicate effectively. And Contacts is probably the most important part of your Gmail life that is being neglected far too often.

That’s a shame, really, as a good and efficient contact management tool helps you keep your contacts organized at all times, add as many details (fields) to them as you need, access them wherever you are, and use them for emailing. More advanced tools also let you use your contacts for more sophisticated sales and marketing activities. Think of it as of an address book with power-ups.

Google Contacts

As a part of G Suite family, Google Contacts will be your first, and most obvious choice for handling your contacts data. The tool is tightly integrated with Gmail, has Android and iOS mobile app, and is perfect for working with contacts the go.

On top of that, you can always import your contacts from other third-party applications and connect your data with the tools you’re using every day — like NetHunt CRM. Getting organized does feel great, and Google offers you the tool to make it happen.

Contact management features in Gmail

Google Contacts is an address book system. Once available only within Gmail, it is now a separate application in the G Suite family that you can use to add, edit, delete, merge, and categorize your contacts. Here’re the features available in Google Contacts:

  • Access and view contacts.
  • Add new contacts.
  • Update or edit contacts.
  • Group contacts.
  • Email from Contacts and email from Gmail.
  • Search through contacts.
  • Merge contacts if there are duplicates.
  • Delete and restore contacts or groups.

Google Contacts, however, is still far from being a perfect contact management tool, that is why there are multiple add-ons and extensions available to help users manage their contacts in Gmail more effectively.
NetHunt CRM in Gmail is one of the tools that provide extended set of features helping users not only work with their contacts in Gmail, but also engage these contacts in a number of sales and marketing processes. All these capabilities combined form a simple, yet powerful CRM available right in Gmail.

How to start working with Google Contacts

To access Google Contacts and start managing your contacts in this application, you need to create a G Suite account first. Once registered with Google, you can start adding, organizing, updating, and merging your contacts.

The updated design for Google Contacts looks very much like Google Docs — all down the main column you’ll find default Contacts listed with their full name, email address, phone number, and other details. To open up a more detailed view, click on any user row and you’ll find the contact’s name, profile photo, job title, company, along with the groups you have them in.

You can update your contacts at any time, but if there are multiple contacts that you need to update, it is easier to use the Export feature and download them in the .CSV, open up in Excel, and edit them in a usual table format. Do not forget to Import the updated file back again once you’re done.

NetHunt CRM: advanced contact management in Gmail

NetHunt is a simple, yet powerful CRM system built right in Gmail. It integrates with Google Contacts and automatically brings your contacts to the CRM so that you were able to work with them further. Imported contacts are added to a special folder within NetHunt called Contacts and tagged respectively. Here’s how you can use your contact further in NetHunt CRM.

Automatically link emails, chats, and calendar events to your contacts.
  1. Add more fields and details to them.
  2. Share contacts with your colleagues and team.
  3. Create and link deals and opportunities related to your contacts.
  4. Filter and segment your contacts based on your needs.
  5. Send bulk mailing campaigns.
  6. View full contact details right near the email conversation that you’re having.
  7. Bulk edit, merge, re-assign your contacts in an easy and convenient way.

If you need help setting up your NetHunt CRM — email us at support@nethunt.com, we’ll be happy to help!

To summarize, an effective contact management tool for Gmail should be easy to use and have a full set of features to help you organize your contact list, edit it, and access anytime.

A perfect contact management tool, however, should also integrate with all the G Suite apps that you’re using and give you an opportunity to use these contacts in your sales and marketing campaigns. Not to mention a free trial and affordable pricing plans :)

NetHunt CRM for G Suite offers you all of these features and much more!

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