Paperless Post: Classy emails for thank yous and invitations

In the year 2000, people sent about 12 million daily emails. In 2010, the number of emails per day is 247 billion — an increase of about 20,000%! If you want your email to be noticed in all that mess, you have to do something different.

Give Paperless Post a try. Sign up for an account and you get 25 free “stamps” that allow you to send a cool, attention-getting email as an invitation, announcement or thank you. Your recipient receives an elegant email with an envelope they click to open. The invitations themselves are fun to open, and they have tons of templates and realistic-looking textured papers that look as handsome as something you get in the mail.

Paperless Post is not free, and there are several things about the system and the pricing that have made me hesitate to recommend it for business use. First, it’s a clumsy way to manage contacts and responses. Second, all their little extras (like envelope liners and your logo) can really add up. But I just had a great response when I sent a promotion about my speaking services to my professional association contacts, so I thought I’d share.

Watch this quick video to see how it works:

Online Invitations, Stationery, Announcements, and Save the Dates by Paperless Post

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Doodle: Find a time to meet in a flash

For the commitment phobic, finding a time to meet with others just doesn’t get any easier. Just visit Doodle.com and click on “Schedule event.” Without having to register or give any personal information, you can quickly set up an event or meeting with alternative times. Then just send the link to members of your team, and each person (again, without registering), can indicate availability.

Here’s a little video about how to set it up:

Doodle’s best features are free, though you can sign up for a premium account with more features for less than $30 a year. Doodle also integrates with lots of other scheduling tools such as Google Calendar and now has an iPhone app.

Doodle: easy scheduling.

TypeWith.me: Easy Online Document Collaboration

One of the most popular categories of free and low-cost online tools is online document collaboration. TypeWith.me is one of the easiest, fastest solutions to share documents with colleagues. You simply visit their URL, click to create a new document, and you’re on a new site that you can share right away.

You can upload your own Word, text or HTML document to work on, or you can start with a blank document. When you invite collaborators, each reviewer has his own colors. I like that you can export straight to PDF or keep it in the original format. Another cool feature allows you to watch a quick movie of all the changes that were made and by whom.

TypeWith.me doesn’t require any type of registration, and it’s free, free, free.

NEW! The Cheapskate Freelancer is going multimedia. Watch this 61-second video for more details about TypeWith.me, and favorite the new Cheapskate Freelancer YouTube Channel for more videos (coming soon!):

TypeWith.me: Live Text Document Collaboration!

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