Are you having a professional email address or you’re missing out

Having a professional email address says more than you might think, and it often doesn’t say what you’d like. Your email address identifies you, just like your web address, and whether it identifies you as a serious business interlocutor or not – depends on who owns it. Probably your reaction is ‘Well, I’m the owner!’ But is that really so? Why is it important to create a professional email address?

Having a professional email address defines the matter of ownership

Let’s explain what having a professional email address really means, through things that surely each of you already knows, but we’ll do it to let you know when you are really owning a professional email address and when you don’t. 

An email address consists of a username (on the left from the ‘@’ sign) and the name of the Internet domain on which the email is located (on the right from the ‘@’ sign). 

In general, the name of the Internet domain that identifies the email address can be the name of Yahoo, Google, your Internet Service Provider, or – your company. So, only in the latter case, you’re truly the owner of your email address. In all other cases, the owner is someone else because it owns the domain name that identifies it.

In short, there’s no free email address. Even if you don’t pay to use ‘your’ email address, someone pays it because it’s on someone’s domain name. The one who pays for that domain name is the owner of ‘your’ email address. And that information says a lot about the one who uses it, that is, about you.

The question of credibility

Another reason why is it important to create a professional email address is the impression you leave in the communication is also influenced by what’s written in the email address. In addition to the web address, it’s also very important for building the credibility of the company. Thats why its important to follow a email formating guide that can help you with making your professional email.

Since you will surely use email marketing, think about who will a potential partner or customer trust more? Someone who makes contact from a ‘free’ address, which anyone can have, or someone who is having a professional email address that includes the name of a company, which only a very limited number of people can have?

Also, if you already have your website – the answer to a question of how to start making and then increasing the list of email addresses to which you can send your offers lies in services such as Benchmark, who will set up your contact lists and employ them – on your domain name, why not have your email on that same domain name?

If you have your own domain name but don’t use it in an email address, you leave the impression of someone who, to put it simply, has a mailbox in one of the many outlets in the shopping mall instead of on the wall of the office or store. 

If you already have your office/store, or your website at your web address, then you should tell everyone through your email address. So, you make it clear that you’re on your own, that you’re a serious enough company that it’s neither a financial nor a technical problem for you to have your own unique email address, and not to blend in with the crowd. Standing out from the crowd greatly increases your credibility.

A question of functionality

Gmail and Yahoo emails also have functionality issues. The reason is very simple – to have your email on one of these free services, you have to put the name of your company to the left of the ‘@’ sign, and if you do so – how will you define email addresses for all people working in your company? 

Putting the name of the company and the names and last names of all employees on that left side or having only one address is not a great option. Even though the latter is simpler and is encountered in practice on a daily basis, think about who’ll communicate through it? The communication through such an address certainly doesn’t speak in favor of seriousness, i.e. the credibility of that firm.

On the other hand, if you’re having a professional email address, you can put the names and last names of all employees on the left side of the ‘@’ sign and enable them all to communicate with the whole world, according to their job descriptions.

Such a solution is more functional, more serious, and instills more confidence in the online communication of your company, especially now when the COVID-19 pandemic escalated and workers mostly complete their tasks from home.

The question of (self) control

Using someone else’s domain name for your email address also carries certain risks. What if the owner of the domain to which you linked your email address ceases to exist?

It’s hard to imagine it can happen to Google, but a much more realistic scenario can happen. For example, the service provider can change the rules of use and make some provisions that don’t suit you at all, and you won’t be able to continue to use ’your’ email.

The following can also happen: the provider changes the domain name on which it gives its users free email addresses. The provider is the same but the domain name isn’t, and your email addresses on the old domain name no longer exist (such a case can absolutely happen to ISPs, especially in underdeveloped countries).

The point is, you simply have no influence on what someone else is doing with your domain name and it’s very ungrateful to tie all your communication, and thus your business, to something unpredictable, i.e. something that isn’t up to you at all. It’s much better (as with the website) to be on your own and have an e-mail address that contains your company’s name, or to have an email address on your domain name.

The issue of promotion

An email address that contains the name of your business is an advertisement that spreads brand awareness for your business. And, completely free advertising. Why advertise Google, Yahoo, or your provider in everyday communication, through each of your emails, when you can advertise your company?

Every time someone receives an email from you, they will see the name of your company and there’s a greater chance that it will remain in their memory. Why not take such a chance?

And then, put your web and email address on the company’s social networks, business cards, on all business papers and promotional materials, print them on vehicles, work uniforms, and on all promotional means at fairs, presentations, points of sale, etc.

Also, mention them on the radio, write them in newspaper ads and on billboards. Simply, wherever your contact information is, there’s a place for the address of your website and your e-mail.

Although we’re speaking about the presence in the digital world, we shouldn’t forget the other, parallel, ‘analog’ world, in which all your potential associates and customers live and work.

Conclusion

A distinction should be made between emails that you need to log in to various web services or that you use for private communication purposes and emails that you use for business communication. 

It’s good for the first ones to be, for example, on the Google domain (gmail.com), but for the second ones, it makes a lot of difference whether you’re having a professional email address or not.

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