Why Google's Gmail is able to overcome data and privacy concerns, to become the darling of the email world (and what we can learn from them)

Yesterday I migrated my personal email account to Gmail. I set myself up with Google Apps, so instead of having an @gmail.com address, I can continue to use my own domain name but have all the email managed through Gmail. (It's really a very good solution -- I'd encourage anyone who owns their own domain to look into it...whether you're a small business, an organization, or just someone who likes their own domain name for your email, like me.)

But when I was reading through documentation, blog posts, forum posts, etc. about setting up Gmail within Google Apps, I uncovered a major drawback to any person taking the Gmail plunge and storing all their email with Google:

There doesn't seem to be an easy way to migrate all your messages away from Gmail, should you decide one day that you don't want to use Gmail anymore. That's a pretty high "switching cost"...way worse than just having to tell all your contacts that you have a new email address. On top of that, Google has lost some users' mail, according to many reports.

But I still did it. I still decided to use Gmail. Why? Because Google has created a user experience that is vastly better than anything anyone else is offering. And this is where marketers can learn from Google.

A little history first: Previously I had been handling my mail through GoDaddy with a simple POP mailbox, and it did a nice job. I never had any problems, they had a webmail interface (although I tended to use Mail2Web instead), and I used Outlook Express at home to download and store all my email on my hard drive.

But the experience Google promised through Gmail was superior, and that's why I switched. Gmail's threaded conversations and tags make mail so much easier to manage. Its spam filter is so good that I've seen plenty of people who forward their POP email to a Gmail account just for the spam filtering. Now with Google Apps, you can get the Gmail interface but with your own domains and integration with Google calendaring, spreadsheets, etc. And Gmail also supports POP and IMAP, so they let their users check email in whatever way they feel is most convenient. (Although Gmail's interface is so good, I've been using the web version.)

So back to my "no way out of Gmail" concern. I did lots of searches yesterday and found plenty of people talking about migrating their messages out of Hotmail or Yahoo into Gmail, but I never found anyone trying to move away from Gmail. (Probably because Gmail is in style now, but I'm still a little surprised I didn't find anyone talking about going the other direction, from Gmail to another system.) There are all sorts of scripts and programs and techniques for getting your old stored mail into Gmail, but none for getting it out. Interesting, and a little scary.

I always liked knowing that I could export old mail out of Outlook Express, or Outlook, or Netscape Mail, or the various email clients I've used over the years. After all, when 2010 or 2011 rolls around and the next big thing in email arrives, maybe I'll want to make a switch. (And by then, hopefully someone will have figured out a way to easily get stored messages out of Gmail and into the next big thing.)

But look at the beauty of Google's underlying business philosophy here:

• We'll build a better email system, changing the paradigm for how people interact with their email. We'll make it so good you can't help but sign up.
• We'll serve ads alongside it...which is how we'll make our money.
• To expand our footprint and challenge the well-established Hotmail and Yahoo Mail brands, we'll extend our support to corporate users too.
• We won't make it easy for you to leave.

For most businesses, this final point could be a huge obstacle. Customers usually don't like being locked in like this. But why can Google get away with it? I think it's because what they're offering -- the vastly better email experience -- is so good that people don't mind giving up some flexibility. (Quick plug for one of my favorite blogs: If you're interested in the topic of how companies can create a better experience for their customers, check out Good Experience by Mark Hurst.)

So the lesson for all the marketers who want fiercely loyal customers (the kinds of people who will, for example, entrust years' worth of old email to Google without any way to easily get it out), the key is creating a customer experience that is vastly superior to what others can provide. Innovate to deliver a vastly better product at a significantly better value (which may or may not always mean a better price) than what your competitors are doing. If you can do this, you might have the next Gmail.