A professional email address is one that uses your brand and increases your customer’s trust to use your business. For example john@mybusinessname.com.au will get a professional impression with your customers, whereas john.mybusinessname@gmail.com and john1982@hotmail.com is not a professional email address.
Use your own domain name
The most basic step for a professional email address is to have your own domain name. The reasons to use your own domain name is not just for impressions, there are a number of benefits.
Remember my email address
It is easier for your customers to remember john@mybusinessname.com.au, whether they are new customers or existing. Trying to remember john1982@optusnet.com or john1200@yahoo.com isn’t as memorable.
Choose your name
john@hotmail.com is not likely to be available. This is why there are so many email addresses using ISP and mail service domain names often have birth years or some other name or numbers appended, as it is the only way to find an email address that isn’t taken. When you have your own domain name, you can choose the name you use for your email address.
Change your internet service provider
If your email address is based on your internet service provider (ISP), what happens if you need to change to another ISP? Some allow you to keep your email address, though this may be for a limited time or have additional charges to keep it working. With your own domain name, your email address is not related to your ISP. If you change your ISP, your email addresses are not affected.
Purposeful email addresses
You can create generic email addresses for special functions of your business. For example, you can display info@mybusinessname.com.au on your website, and have accounts@mybusinessname.com.au for sending and receiving invoices. There could be others that make sense for your business, such as support, and sales.
Security
Your customers may not see your email using john1982@gmail.com if their spam filter doesn’t think it is legitimate. The email address isn’t the only reason your email will be caught in spam filters, but it may help if you are not using an email address that appears to have a number of random digits in it.
Email with your domain name affordability
There are many businesses with a website and still use their gmail email address instead of their domain name. This may be because they perceive it is too expensive or too difficult to setup. The benefits are too great to ignore, especially if you already have a domain name, and there are a number of options to use, some are free.
Office 365
Office 365 is a vast product offering, depending on the subscription includes hosted email. Office 365 is not the cheapest option for your email hosting, however you get a lot of features and benefits. The subscription can come with a number of Microsoft Office applications, including Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. You will need an account for each user, however you can use different types of subscriptions so if one user needs the Office applications and the other doesn’t, you can use the appropriate license for each.
G Suite
The email offering in G Suite is the business version of Gmail. G Suite is a paid solution with a subscription per user. The subscription comes with additional features and benefits, including access to Google Docs, Drive and Calendar for business.
Zoho Mail
Zoho has a variety of plans that will fit most budgets. Their paid plans start from a couple of dollars per user, and include Zoho Docs for online document editing. If this is still too steep for your budget, a free option is available, and still lets you use your own domain name. The free option is limited to 25 users, but this will suit many small businesses.
Host email with your website
If you have a cPanel hosted website, you more than likely have access to free mail hosting. The limit on users and storage space is only to the limitation of your hosting plan. The downside is you will need to look after it yourself, and if you have a problem with your server your email is offline too.
By using email services such as Office 365, G Suite or Zoho Mail, your email is serviced by multiple servers with high availability, which means you can ensure your email is always available.
Need a domain name?
If you don’t have your own domain name, see our domain name registration offerings. Start searching for a domain name.
If you have your own domain name, you have already taken the most important step. Have a look at the options above and work out which is the best fit for you. You may choose based on price, familiarity with what you already use, or to fit in with the business’ plans.