In today’s digitally driven world, an email for your business is no less a requirement than a phone number. Many small and mid-size businesses in an effort to limit outgoing expenses will choose the free email service from Hotmail or Gmail to create a business email but will not realize the professional mistake they are making. Having an email address with the business domain will establish a professional connection with peers, customers, and clients and will keep data private while legitimizing the business.
“Communication from a domain email will come across as qualified and professional.”
A web domain for a business is the first impression of the online world. It legitimizes the business identity, allows people to find it, and can continue to help build a professional image every day by being used at the end of an official email address. In many ways, the email address is the first impression when it comes to creating a dialogue with consumers and is part of the branding tool kit.
PURCHASE A DOMAIN EMAIL
With a domain name purchase for a website, users will have the option to include (an) email address(es) as part of the domain hosting package. Even without a website, businesses can purchase an email domain for just a few dollars a month from providers like G-Suite. An email domain purchase will include managing and storing emails and G-Suite a long list of advantages including administrative control, shared access, file storage, and customer support. This is a worthwhile and minimal investment when weighed with the numerous advantages of having a domain-based email.
Branded emails help build professionalism, credibility, and trust with customers
Domains Imply Professionalism
A domain email address shows that the business is established, experienced, professional, and can be taken seriously. Small to mid-size businesses with a domain email will take on a bigger corporate image. Let’s do a little experiment in trust. Which email would be more trustworthy as a financial planner? RichonPlanning@gmail.com or Amber@richonplanning.com? Which email will make people feel more comfortable handing over their savings for investment purposes? A personal email looks like a side hustle at best and an illicit scam at worst. Emails can often be the first point of contact between a business and a potential customer. A domain email will give the best first impression.
Email Security. Credibility, Trust:
The population in general is skeptical when it comes to emails in their inbox. With an influx of security breaches and phishing scams that put identities at risk, most people are hyper-aware of security issues and not likely to open emails that don’t appear legitimate. Gmail, Hotmail, and AOL emails are particularly easy for hackers to use to find their way into your inbox because they are free to create.
Additionally, customers have a reasonable expectation that their email and information will remain secure. This is a hard sell with free email providers who are often a target for hackers. Web hosting providers' servers alleviate much of this hassle by hosting business email accounts. Unlike a free email provider, a web host will have priority on the security and availability of data because that is part of the contract of paid services.
For instance: A free Gmail: Google can read and store information from every email you write and receive, including in the spam, draft, and trash folders; however, a paid G-Suite does not collect, scan or use data in Google Workspace Core Services for advertising purposes.
Great Chance to Avoiding The Email Spam Box
As a general rule, people will not trust that a business is credible if it does not use a domain or branded email address. Even worse, these emails are more likely to be marked as junk or filtered to a spam folder and never seen or opened regardless of the brilliance of the email campaign. If a business utilizes an email address for sending large quantities of email, and even a small number of recipients mark the email as junk or spam, the email can be ‘blacklisted.” This basically means that no recipients will receive your emails because your IP address has now been marked as likely a distributor of junk or spam email. Even sending invoices to known customers from an unbranded domain email can be touch and go as they may be routed to spam and not paid.
Accessibility
Many business owners use multiple devices to keep tabs on their email. They need to be able to access incoming emails on their phones so that they can stay in touch with customers wherever they are. Businesses want the ability to toggle between their phone and a desktop application that can be used to manage mailing lists and other administrative tasks. Using a generic business email account to keep track of business communication can be time-consuming. A free email service like Gmail for personal and business correspondence runs the risk of messages getting mixed up and getting misplaced. As a result, it will be easier to distinguish between personal Gmail and work-related communication with a business domain email.
Portability
Those that decide to use a free email account with AOL, Yahoo, or Hotmail for example, and later find the need to switch to a paid service will have to change the entire email address and hope that nothing is missed when letting customers and followers know about the email address change. As careful as the business owner might be, some will not catch the new email address and will lose customers because they weren’t aware of the change. A business domain email is portable. A business is free to switch to another web host provider and can take the domain email with them because they own the domain name.
Brand Awareness With Free Marketing
An added benefit of a domain email address is the free marketing and brand awareness that happens every time an email is sent. Small to midsize businesses don’t initially have the luxury of a red dot-like Target to immediately invoke name recognition. The name itself becomes its own brand and the business name is in the eyesight of potential, current, or recurring customers every time they open the business's domain email. The more a company's name is in eyesight, the more the population will recognize its name, products, services, and mission. It's free marketing with every email. A domain business email will further establish the brand.
Custom Emails
Another bonus that comes with domain email addresses is the ability to generate emails for different employees and different departments of the business. With systematic and standardized email addresses for the businesses, there is the impression of professionalism and establishes credibility. The standardized emails help with organization as information goes in and out through email. Many businesses make sure to implement the same naming convention for each new email assigned and this is also beneficial for helping customers locate the right person to email.
Small to mid-size businesses might only be a 1 man operation or a 3 to 5-man operation, but with standardized department alias emails like sales@companyname.com, info@companyname.com, or marketing@companyname.com a small operation implies a larger size and shows professionalism that isn’t possible with the free email service providers. In G-Suite this means that you can pay for one account and assign multiple different aliases that will be able to be checked from the same email account.
Efficiency: It is efficient to have separate emails in place for the different departments.
Additionally, as a small to midsize business expands, it may need to hire for a sales position or marketing position (department-focused emails already established). The department emails can be assigned to the employees that are hired.
Standardized emails that belong to the business: If a business uses free email services, there is no way to retain ownership if an employee resigned from the company. If the sales manager used divinecookiesales@gmail.com and leaves for another position, the email and access to it will go with the former employee. With a domain email, the business retains ownership of the employee emails if they leave the position allowing the business to maintain control of information and the emails.
How To Establish A Professional Naming Convention:
Take time to think through how the business will scale and grow.
Create a standard and easy-to-repeat naming convention that is scalable.
Keep the formula for assigning and creating emails consistently but consider how likely it is to hire someone with the same first name or overlapping conventions.
Some common naming conventions that work with most businesses are:
firstname@companyname.com
firstintitial.lastname@companyname.com
firstnamewithdepartment@companyname.com
There is never a second chance to make a first impression. How potential and current clients view a business will determine the success of the business. A domain email address sets the tone for the professional and trustworthy first impression that will remain consistent and true to the brand. A free email provider versus a domain email can be the difference between the email disappearing to the spam folder or being opened.
With a domain email address, a business will outshine and overshadow competitors who use the free email providers. Coupled with the benefits of projecting professionalism, establishing credibility, and developing trust, a domain email for a business will allow for privacy, portability, and security. The only conclusion is that setting up a domain email account is a calculated and strategic move to generate success and revenue for a business.
Ready to create a professional domain email?
There are several steps to register the domain name and to connect it to a Google Workspace (why this is used-why we recommend it)
At K. Cradley and Company, we can help to establish your email through domain registration, create your domain branded Google Workspace account, add Google Workspace users, and activate Gmail for your Workspace.
Reach out to us today to schedule a free 15-minute consultation to start the process of building your professionalism, credibility, and trust through a domain email address.