4 Ways to Take Control of Your Outlook Inbox with Zapier

Does your Outlook inbox feel out of control? Do you struggle to keep up with important emails and action items? You‘re not alone.

As a business professional, an overwhelmed inbox means missed opportunities, frustrated colleagues trying to reach you, and lots of wasted time trying to separate the signal from the noise.

The good news is that with Zapier, you can easily automate many of the tedious Outlook tasks that bog you down each day. Zapier is a workflow automation tool that connects your favorite apps and services.

In this guide, we‘ll cover 4 key ways to streamline your Outlook email using Zaps—Zapier‘s pre-built workflows:

1. Create to-do lists from emails
2. Cultivate leads automatically
3. Use AI to email leads at scale
4. Keep your team updated

Implementing just one or two Zaps can save you hours each week, letting you focus on big-picture priorities rather than manual inbox maintenance.

Let‘s dive in!

1. Create To-Do Lists from Microsoft Outlook Emails

Do you constantly worry about dropping the ball on important action items and requests that come through Outlook? Do you rely on your memory or endless follow-up emails to ensure nothing falls through the cracks?

There‘s a better way.

With Zapier, you can automatically turn Outlook emails into organized to-do lists in your favorite task app. As soon as an actionable email comes in, Zapier will create a task with all key details—no manual data entry required.

Some popular ways to build task lists from Outlook include:

• Microsoft To Do
• Asana
• Trello
• ClickUp

Let‘s walk through setting up a Zap to create Microsoft To Do tasks from Outlook emails.

First, you‘ll need accounts in both Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft To Do.

Next, in Zapier, click "Make a Zap" and select Microsoft Outlook as the trigger app. Choose "New Email" as the trigger event whenever you receive a new email.

As a filter, you can choose specific folders or senders to monitor for task-worthy emails.

Then, add Microsoft To Do as the action app. Select "Create Task" as the action.

In mapping, you can pull in key details from the Outlook email like Subject, Body, and Sender Name to populate the new task. Add a project or list for context.

That‘s it! Now each time you get an email requesting an action item—whether it‘s sending a document, providing feedback, or adding an event to your calendar—Zapier automatically tracks it as a task in To Do. No more worrying about dropped balls or endless inbox scrolling to find next steps.

You‘ll stay effortlessly organized, deliver faster follow-up, and keep projects moving forward based just on the emails you receive.

Pro Tip: Create Tags for Faster Task Prioritization

For extra efficiency, you can add Microsoft Outlook categories or flags to emails, then map those to task tags or labels in To Do.

For example, tag all "High Priority" emails to auto-create tasks marked "Urgent." Or tag different projects like "Website Redesign" and "Customer Research" so the resulting tasks group under those project names for better context.

This helps you instantly spot and handle crucial action items when you flip over to your task list.

2. Cultivate Leads Automatically

Email is the #1 channel to engage new prospects and nurture leads. But crafting customized, personal emails to every potential customer inquiry is extremely time-consuming.

This is where Zapier‘s automation really shines.

You can create Zaps that trigger automated, personalized emails to new Outlook contacts based on tags, content, or other criteria. It makes starting meaningful conversations easy, without the copy-paste drudgery.

Some popular ways to auto-nurture leads from Outlook include:

• Trigger welcome emails to new contacts
• Send info brochures when relevant keywords are mentioned
• Follow up on bookings or inquiries based on email content
• Connect with leads instantly by integrating Outlook with your CRM or marketing platform like Mailchimp

Let‘s see this in action…

Imagine you offer web design services. When potential customers email inquiring about a new website, you want to respond promptly with helpful information about your services and pricing.

Here‘s how to automate that entire flow in Outlook with Zapier:

First, connect Outlook to Zapier using "New Email" as the trigger once again. But this time, add a filter so it only catches emails:

• From new contacts (avoid spamming existing ones)
• With keywords like "new site" or "redesign"

Next, build an action to send the welcome/info email. You can create an email template in Outlook and set up a zap with Outlook as both the trigger and action app.

Or better yet, integrate your CRM or email platform as the action app to access templates and automation powered by that tool. For example, Mailchimp lets you auto-add new contacts to certain groups or journeys to receive sequenced emails.

Either way, use dynamic fields in your email template so each one includes personalized details pulled from the initial trigger email, like the person‘s name and company.

Now whenever someone reaches out for the first time inquiring about your web services, Zapier will fire off a prompt personal reply with additional info. No copy-pasting required!

Over time as more contacts inquire, this can generate dozens of promising new leads—without you lifting a finger after the initial Zap setup.

You can expand this even further by adding follow-ups based on whether someone replies or clicks links in your first email. The options are endless.

But at its core, leveraging automation through Zaps frees up your time to have deeper, more meaningful conversations with leads once the initial contact is made. You skip the tedious parts and focus on building relationships.

Pro Tip: Track Opens and Clicks

When connecting your email service like Mailchimp as the action app, you can view handy analytics on open & click rates for your automated emails. This helps you identify which messages and lead magnets resonate best with potential customers.

You‘ll growth-hack your sales pipeline in no time with data-driven automation!

3. Use AI to Email Leads at Scale

Connecting with 10, 20, or even 50 new leads per week via personalized email is great. But what if you could email 500+ leads each week, scaling your sales conversations with custom messages tailored to each person‘s needs?

That kind of volume and personalization is challenging even for large marketing teams. Yet with Zapier‘s Code by Zapier and AI tools like GPT-3, it‘s now possible to automate intelligent conversations that sound human-written.

Let‘s explore how:

The setup is similar to our previous example. When you receive Outlook emails from new leads matching certain criteria, use that as the trigger.

This time, however, instead of sending a pre-written static email, we‘ll generate a custom response dynamically using AI:

• Add Code by Zapier as the action app after Outlook. Choose "Run JavaScript" to activate a code script.

• Within the script, leverage OpenAI‘s GPT-3 to analyze the initial email content. Identify the prospect‘s questions, pain points, and background from contextual cues.

• Generate a thoughtful reply by sending the prospect info through GPT-3, tailoring it to what we learned from their initial email. The AI handles phrasing responses appropriately.

• Send the dynamically generated email directly from the same Code by Zapier step.

And that‘s it! Now rather than relying solely on email templates, Zapier taps advanced AI to craft unique messages aligned to each contact‘s specific interests within seconds.

The tooling makes it simple to integrate Code + AI without needing to be a developer. You get instantly personalized conversations at any scale.

As just one person, you could outreach 10x or 100x more leads with thoughtful, value-driven responses in the same amount of time. And your prospects feel like they‘re getting 1-to-1 human attention tailored to their needs when it‘s really AI magic. Pretty powerful stuff!

Pro Tip: Keep Responses Consistent with Guidelines

When leveraging AI for customer conversations, provide clear guidelines upfront on the tone, personality, and policies of your company. The AI will follow established rules to keep all responses on-brand while still feeling personalized.

Monitor the first few weeks of autogenerated emails, and further tweak the Code script as needed to align the content with your business.

4. Keep Your Team Updated

Email overload doesn‘t just crush individuals. It hinders entire teams trying to stay coordinated on projects and priorities.

Without clear systems, you end up with things falling through cracks as people either duplicate efforts or assume "someone else is handling this."

That wastes time and causes frustration on both ends.

Luckily, Zapier again can automatically keep teams connected based on Outlook activity. Some examples:

• Get notifications in project management tools like Asana or Trello when new emails relate to tasks
• Create calendar events for meetings booked over email
• Sync email file attachments to cloud folders to keep everyone up to date

Let‘s walk through a sample setup…

Imagine your marketing team uses Trello to track campaigns in progress across different stages like Ideation, Copywriting, Design, Dev, etc. Historically it‘s been tough to keep the board updated because conversations happen asynchronously via email.

With Zapier, you can automatically add Trello cards based on emails from within Outlook itself.

• Set up a trigger for new Outlook emails. Filter by sender if needed, like your copywriter or web dev agency.

• Add Trello as the action to create a new card. Map details from the email like Subject, Sender, and Attachments to the card title, description, members, labels, etc.

Now whenever progress happens over email, whether it‘s receiving a draft blog post or signed-off wireframes for a campaign, the relevant Trello card will automatically reflect the update. No more manual duplication of efforts!

The same concept applies to keeping teams synced via other tools like Asana, Basecamp, monday.com, Dropbox Paper, and more.

With each member connected to shared inboxes and leveraging automation, you gain more transparency on who is doing what and when. Miscommunication causing blockers, mistakes, or duplication gets minimized.

Make your team‘s life easier by setting up Systems to stay organized based on existing email workflows. The hours saved each week quickly adds up, leading to more harmony and better results.

Go Forth and Automate

And there you have it—4 solid ways to eliminate email chaos and take back control of your Microsoft Outlook inbox using the magic of Zapier!

Start with just one automation that solves your biggest Outlook pain point. Once you see the results, you’ll be hungry to streamline more mundane tasks with Zaps.

Remember, the key is to make your life easier, not just more complicated with unnecessary workflows. Pick high-impact areas where automation can remove hours of repetitive work each week.

Feel free to tweak the examples provided to best suit your unique needs. Zapier connects thousands of apps and services, so the possibilities are truly endless.

Here are a few parting reminders as you being mastering Outlook automation:

• Monitor new Zaps closely the first 1-2 weeks to ensure they work as intended. This “training period” helps inflation-proof your system.
• Come back periodically to see if there are new apps or features that could save you even more time.
• Check usage stats on your Zaps Dashboard to identify which automations provide the biggest benefits.
• Turn to the Zapier community forums if you ever get stuck.

Now, seriously, go enjoy your newfound freedom. Your Outlook inbox is under control and your team is up to speed. Well done!

Let us know how automation transforms your Outlook experience or if you have any other questions. Our support team is always happy to help fellow workflow enthusiasts!