Professional Email Addresses Explained

Do not use free email addresses for business purposes.

No yahoo, no Hotmail, no Gmail, & etc. Why? Using a free email for business says that you will ask for other people's trust without standing up and investing in your own traceable presence.

Emails that can be had anonymously are red flags for:

• fly-by-night companies

• spammers

• credit card fraud

Businesses should not use email addresses from an ISP.

ISP means Internet Service Provider. No ISP email address means no AOL email, no Prodigy email, no emails through Earthlink or MSN, & etc. ISP email is fine and dandy for personal use, but it's not the same as having a business email. Why?

• Every time you change your ISP your email address will change, resulting in the loss of any possible sales leads who have been interested enough to hold on to an old business card.

• Every time you use a you@isp.com email, you promote the brand recognition of your ISP. Branding includes name recognition. To remember your brand or business name, people need to see it over and over again. Why give that advantage to your ISP?

Businesses should use professional email addresses.

These are two great advantages of professional email addresses:

• As long as you have your domain you can always have the same email address. I've seen this done with startup businesses on an absolute shoestring – no Internet access at home, emails answered daily at the local library through webmail, and professional business policies upheld very inexpensively through consistently professional habits.

• Any posts you make to public forums online are an opportunity to represent yourself and be known as a professional. I've seen Google pull up obscure forum pages in response to a search for an otherwise un-indexed domain name. More on this will be covered in later articles.

What is a professional email address?

you@yourdomain.com, pure and simple.

How do I get a me@mydomain email address?

First, are you ready? Make a commitment to check and answer email every day, at least five days a week. Slow response time signals lack of professionalism. Ignoring a business email will reduce the trust of even the most enthusiastic potential customer.

• The host I use offers domains for $6 a year. Add about $12 a year for email services and the total cost for a you@yourdomain.com email can be as low as $18 per year. Hosting a web site is usually a separate charge. Caution! Free automated "sitebuilder" websites can be had very inexpensively, but don't jump the gun. In most cases, sitebuilder's disadvantages outweigh their advantages. I'll write about professional-level starter websites soon.

• Make sure that the domain is registered in your own name. Some services register domains in the name of their own service. Whoever is listed as the owner has rights to the domain.

• Register under your real name and contact number, because visibility ads accountability. A Post Office Box is fine.

How should I choose a domain name?

In an ideal world, your domain name and business name would be the same, and your business name would contain a word that says specifically what you do. No “Jane Doe Products,” or “John Doe Enterprises.”

In actuality, you may have been “AAA Widget Enterprises of South Carolina” for years, and want the domain name www.aaawenterprisessc.com, which could very well be owned by another enterprising AAA. You may need to do some window shopping and creative thinking. Check for hyphenated versions. Test your ideas on friends. Be aware that some names will spell strange things when squished together - www.tombsgarage.com could be Tombs Garage or Tom B's Garage.

There are several ways to research domain name availability. When I want to see if a name is available I usually go to www.godaddy.com and use their handy search function. I register client domains through my website host because they're less expensive and I like having everything all in one place. My host gets a bulk rate from their domain name registrar and then passes some of the savings on to customers.

How should I choose my email address?

Are you a big company or a one-person shop? Jane Doe's ideal email address may be jane@janedoegifts.com in a small shop, but not for a large organization that could have more than one Jane. Other standards are janed@janedoegifts.com, jd@domain.com, jdoe@whateverdomain.com, or an address that is also a job description like buyer@janedoegifts.

Some professionals advise against predictable addresses like info@yourdomain.com, because spammers will send test emails to obvious addresses, once they see that the domain is registered. Some advise the opposite: include a predictable email so that a person who knows your domain but has forgotten your email address can easily get in touch. A good contact information page can give the best of both worlds.

My personal preferences is for emails that have a personal touch, such as a nickname or a personal name. This time around I've tried several predictable names like info@ablereach.com; they do seem to gather more spam.

How do I get the most from my professional email address?

Self-Promotion Counts!

• Put your professional email address on all your information: every flier, every email signature and every business card.
  
• If you have content on your domain, add your website address below your business name on every product label.
• Be consistent. Put your email address in the same place, in the same typeface, with the same information before and afterwards whenever possible. Consistency helps clients feel comfortable and informed.
  
• Consistent customer service includes concise, informative, prompt responses to all emails.
  
• Consistency helps your domain name be noticed at a glance.

The more often people see your professional email address, the more likely they are to remember your domain name. Use it, use it, use it.

Yes! Use that professional email address!

Use you@yourdomain.com when writing to anyone who is or could be a supplier, customer, networking contact or a provider of sales leads.

• Friends may be curious and proud and are therefore potential networkers or customers.

• An aunt who loves to tell the rest of the family what you're up to could be a networking contact or provider of sales leads.

• A chamber of commerce, a charity to which you may be donating, or a forum with any connection to your business or potential customers are examples of networking contacts.

Be Memorable! Use an email signature line.

• Use a signature line that declares who you are what you do.
• A “sig line” should be less than six, 60-character lines long.
• Some groups request that sigs be limited to two to four lines.
  
• Most people only scan the first two or three lines.
• Put who you are and what you do right up on top.

Before you have more than a placeholder site, try something like this:

Your Name or Business Name, possibly including your job title
Tagline that says what your business does and where it is
you@yourdomain.com

Add Information

Add to sparingly to your sig line when you get a website with content, a business phone number with a live body to pick up, or a physical storefront.

For someone with a brick-and-mortar storefront:

Jane Doe
Owner, Widget Collectibles
Showroom in East Gothum, Utah. Shipping Worldwide.
www.widget-collectibles.com
jdoe@widget-collectibles.com
(111) 222-3333, 10-6 Monday through Saturday

or

Jane Doe, President, Gothum Widget Museum
Featuring the Gothum Widget Museum Store
www.widgetmuseum.com
janed@widgetmuseum.com
(111) 222-3333, 10-6 Monday through Saturday
123 Super Street; Gothum, Utah 12345; USA

or

John Doe, Owner of The John Doe Artmobile
Bring Art to Children's Parties and Events in Western WA, USA
www.johndoe-artmobile.com
john@johndoe-artmobile.com
cell phone (111) 222-3333, answering service 1-800-000-0000

Professional Email Pointers

• Test all links. Add http:// before your www if needed.

• Be consistent, for both human memories and search engine indexing.

• Write your email address and domain name the same way every single time. The standard is all lower case: you@yourdomain.com for emails or www.yourdomain.com for a URL.

• Write your business name the same way every time, just as it would appear on letterhead. For example: Business Name, JCPenney or T.J. Maxx. Note the details of how Penney's and T.J. Maxx handle periods and spaces.

• Communicate, communicate, communicate. Be generous with information. Being a reliable, professional resource will bring in more referrals and business than a short term sales pitch.