I see it all the time. A new business owner spends considerable time, money, and effort forming a limited liability company (LLC) or trade name, purchasing a domain name, building a website, and creating a social media presence, only to use an email address such as [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected].
After all the work involved in building a brand, many business owners stop just short of creating a professional email address such as [email protected].
First Impressions Matter
A professional email address helps build trust and credibility. Customers often view a business with a matching domain name, website, and email address as being more established and organized.
Imagine two companies:
Both businesses may provide excellent service. However, the first email address immediately reinforces the company’s brand and creates a more professional appearance.
Whether fair or not, customers frequently make judgments based on small details. A custom domain email address demonstrates that a business has invested in building a professional presence and plans to be around for the long term.
Protecting Your Business
Using a domain-based email address is not just about appearance. It is also about maintaining control over business communications.
As a company grows and hires employees, questions begin to arise:
- What email address will employees use?
- Who owns customer communications?
- What happens when an employee leaves the company?
- How can management access important customer conversations if an employee is unavailable?
With a domain-based email system, the business maintains ownership of its email accounts, customer communications, and company data. If an employee leaves, the company retains control of the email account and its contents.
A properly planned email system helps protect the business, its customers, and its reputation.
Email Has Come a Long Way
At Win Information Technology, we’ve been involved with email since the 1990s.
Back then, email at Arizona State University was primarily text-based, and communication was limited to users within the university. The ability to exchange messages with students at other universities felt revolutionary.
Later, dial-up Internet providers such as AOL, Prodigy, EarthLink, CompuServe, MSN, NetZero, and Juno introduced email to millions of people. Suddenly, electronic communication became part of everyday life.
Then came Yahoo! Mail and Gmail. For the first time, users could keep the same email address even if they changed Internet providers. Email became portable, much like renting a post office box that remained the same regardless of where you lived.
The Rise of Business Email
As low-cost domain registration became widely available, small businesses gained the ability to compete with larger organizations online.
However, professional email remained expensive and complicated. Businesses often needed to install and manage their own Microsoft Exchange servers. That meant purchasing hardware, maintaining software, handling backups, and finding a reliable place to host everything.
Over time, hosted email solutions made professional email accessible to everyone.
Companies such as Intermedia provided Hosted Exchange services for small businesses. Providers such as 1&1 (now IONOS) offered domain-based email hosting. Google Apps, now known as Google Workspace, launched in 2006 and made business email even more accessible. Eventually, Microsoft-hosted Exchange services became widely available through providers such as GoDaddy.
Professional business email, once available only to larger organizations, became affordable for businesses of every size.
There Is Little Reason Not to Use Domain Email Today
Before starting Win Information Technology, I used hosted email services for my own business domains and helped friends and clients set up professional email systems.
Today, the cost of business email has dropped dramatically. Professional email solutions are affordable, reliable, and easier to manage than ever before.
A custom domain email address helps strengthen your brand, improves customer confidence, and keeps your business communications under your control.
Most importantly, your company email belongs to your company.
If an employee leaves, the email account stays with the business. If you change Internet providers, your email address stays the same. If your business grows, your email system can grow with it.
Professional businesses deserve professional email addresses.
About the Author
Duke Nguyen is the founder of Win Information Technology. He has worked with email systems, domain names, networking, and Internet technologies since the 1990s and helps businesses throughout the Phoenix metropolitan area build reliable technology solutions.