Intro
Today we will be talking about something closely related to last weeks subject. Owning a personalised email address as apposed to using a free service like Gmail or Outlook. This is something you may not have even put much thought into or just assumed since Gmail is so popular that it would work for your company, but this week we will discuss the reasons why you should consider getting yourself a personalised email address based on your domain name.
What is the difference
If you don’t quite know what I’m meaning yet then lets elaborate more on the difference between the two types email addresses we are talking about. The best way to explain this is with an example so lets look at the same ficticious company we talked about last week, Relay. Now we’ve got them a Domain name https://relayclothingman.com and they’ve got a website setup to sell their branded clothing. How are they going to email their customers. They’ve got two options, they could either go to Gmail and create an account under the name contact-relayclothingman@gmail.com or they could look into getting a personalised one under their domain name contact@relayclothingman.com. These are the two options we will be discussing today as I know Gmail is one of the most popular email providers.
Professionalism
This is one of the main reasons you should consider using a personalised email address as it is the biggest factor when people see the email address. Seeing a personalised email address such as contact@amias.dev or support@relayclothingman.com can instill trust in your company. Your clients are way more likely to feel confident that you can do what you do if they see a professional email address. Seeing something like contact-relayclothingman@gmail.com can make the company seem small and inexperienced in your field. This might entice your potential customers to find another company elsewhere. This doesn’t just limit itsself to customers. If you’re hoping to be able to collaborate with other companies on future projects then you’ll need to look more professional when you’re introduced to them. This isn’t only your reputation on the line; it’s theirs too.
Length
Sure we settled on a Domain name for our company last week which was a little longer than we would’ve liked but the length is still a good length. This is a good example of why the length of the email address is important. Lets remind ourselves of the two options for our company email address:
| Personalised | Not Personalised |
|---|---|
| support@relayclothingman.com | support-relayclothingman@gmail.com |
As we look at these we can see a clear difference. Let’s talk about what you’ll need to show on your email address so your customers know they’re speaking to you. The first thing you’ll need is most likely going to be the service they’re emailing, such as contact or support or your-name, and following this you’ll need to identify the company because then they know they’re contacting you. These two factors are what keep the personalised one so short because if you’ve found yourself a good domain name the business part of the email address will be sorted automatically.
Authenticity
The authenticity of your company is the final reason I will mention about on this subject. Why authenticity? Well let’s look a few examples I’ve had recently, a company I’ve worked quite closely hasn’t yet found themselves any personalised email addresses so their newsletter email address is under the gmail url. Because it’s their newsletter email account this means I’ve never interacted with them so my email account assumed they were fraudulent and redirected them to the spam folder. Their attempt at keeping in constant contact with their customers and keeping fresh in peoples mind was spoiled by their email authenticity. An email from their own domain name would of course have better authority because it’s come from a website with the secure protocol.
No on the other side of the coin. A scammer trying to impersonate a big company such as bankofamericanyc101@gmail.com which I’ve found on a database of fraudulent email addresses. This sort of email address is the reason your spam filter will send your emails straight into spam. Even though this email address is very obviously a scam email, it does holiste highlight how you can be lost in a sea of instant treatments and free iPhones very quickly. With the lack of a unique domain name and an account name which makes sense your customers might never see your amazing offer.
Summary
Now I’d like to point out that these issues don’t end with gmail as you can get email addresses from multiple places such as Yahoo and Outlook but then again it’s not a reason to not use it. If you’ve got a personal email address on one of the services then don’t feel like you have to change it. There are more things at play than a badly typed email address so your personal one will be safe for you to use. I am going to post a blog post on how to avoid the spam filter soon so you’ll be able to master the art of marketing emails but for now let’s go over the reasons to get a personalised email address:
- When a client or potential business partner gets an email from you it will look more professional
- If you’re trying to get all your details onto a free email account the address will be longer and harder to remember
- An email account might misinterpret you as a scammer and your customers will never see your email
Bibliography
- Scam email address from Scam Email Police
Excellent write up! Very interesting reading. I’ll have a look at a different email address 🙂