6 Reasons Business Email Addresses Should Use Business Domains

It’s amazing how many business-related emails are sent by business owners using their AOL, Gmail or Yahoo accounts. The convenience and comfort of using these free web-based accounts compel people to stick with them. But seriously, it just looks better when your business emails com from a business domain. Your email address would look something like this: you@YourBusinessWebsiteAddress.com.

Using an email address that includes your business domain says more about you and your business than you may realize:

1. It Just Looks More Professional

It shows you are serious about your business. You’ve taken the time to set up shop and you use the the tools of your business to communicate.

2. It Brands Your Company Name — not Google’s, AOL’s or Yahoo’s

There’s a reason companies like Google, AOL and Yahoo offer services for free. They give their companies millions of opportunities for visibility every time someone sends an email using one of their accounts. Consider the number of emails you send on a daily basis. Which business name do you want to advertise, yours or theirs?

3. It Includes Your Web Site Address with Every Email

This one should be pretty obvious. If you set up email accounts using your domain name, immediately people know where to find more information about your business. Before I deal with new clients or vendors, I like to learn more about their businesses. It’s a dead end if they’ve used a Yahoo or Gmail account, especially since people using these free accounts don’t often bother to set up email signatures with business information, usually because they also send and receive personal emails from these accounts.

4. It Says You’ve Invested in Your Business and Therefore Others Should Too

There’s at least some bit of trust, a small leap of faith, that transpires between a new client and a new hire. It’s much harder for someone to trust and hire a business owner who doesn’t look like one. An email with your business web domain looks like you have enough faith in your business to invest time in creating a separate business email account.

5. It Suggests You and Your Business Will Be Around for a While

Free email accounts look temporary. Sometimes they also look like a scam because they can be set up anonymously. A business email has more roots and a sense of permanence.

6. It Separates Business Emails from Personal Communications

One of the first and most important guidelines for new business owners is understanding the need to keep business and personal communications separate. There are a number of legal, ethical and financial reasons for doing so. For businesses offering professional services, especially for our law firm clients, it’s essential.

Currently, we provide web design and management for a few homeowners associations. By nature, these HOAs are made up of volunteer homeowners who don’t always think of the HOA board as part of a business entity, albeit non-profit. As a result, they often handle board business through their personal emails. According to legal professionals, when individuals acting on behalf of a company or organization erode the line between personal and professional, they can, in certain unique and specific circumstances, risk exposing themselves to personal liability and losing the protection of their business liability coverage.

Business Email Accounts are Simple to Set Up and Manage

Setting up email accounts using your own domain is neither difficult nor costly. Many web hosts include a generous number of email accounts with the hosting plan, often at no added cost. These often unused email accounts usually include all the necessary features: spam filtering, auto responses and email forwards.

For people needing a bit more flexibility, security and more robust spam filtering, there are also business email providers like AppRiver, one of our partners. These business email providers offer more spam management, email backup, virus protection and more complex office features like hosted exchange that can add calendar management for tasks and events.

Consider how you currently manage your business emails. Does it convey your professionalism as well as it could?