How many of you still use hotmail or yahoo mail and how many of you have migrated to gmail as your primary.
If you recollect hotmail used to be the default email program during the dot.com boom (Thanks to Sabeer Bhatia who timed his exit strategy really well).
However gmail is a great case study, as to how to get it right.
Beta Program:- Gmail opened up as a beta program and continued in beta mode for quite some time. What helped was that while they continued development on the platform, users started using it which is ideal to get a user base. One advantage for a beta launch is that people forgive your mistakes and are generous as it's not an official product release
Viral Marketing strategy- The initial program was based on existing users inviting other users. So their is no marketing cost to promote the program
Customized Offers- Google scans your emails and then provides you very targeted offers. They know so much about you, this is concerning as a user but at the same time great from them.
No Size limits- Most often than not the initial challenges was that you have to archive or delete your emails to free up space. Gmail never asks you to delete anything they welcome you with more data, Google was ahead of the curve in terms of removing any space restrictions on your account
Spam Filtering:- How many spam emails do you get in your mailbox and how many of them get filtered. Gmail does an excellent job. Compare this with a yahoo and you know what I am talking about
Keep it Simple- Gmail has kept the UI very simple, while working on the UI, they gave a choice the users to move to the new design once the users got familiar with the platform. Their overall strategy was to keep it text based and keep it simple
Device Detection- Extremely smart with detecting where and when you used your gmail from. Very good security feature.