Is Your Email Address Getting Through?

Many entrepreneurs, sole proprietor and small business owners share a similar challenge with establishing legitimacy as they court the attention of investors, vendors and consumers. Having a professional email address is often the simple solution to ensuring you are not overlooked or end up in the junk folder.

Besides building credibility, a professional email helps to elevate and market your brand regardless of whether you have a website or not. In fact, 75% of customers say that a professional business email addresses is key to building trust and loyalty. No matter the nature of your business, the impact of the email address you communicate with truly "sends a message."

How do you set up a professional email?

This is the simple part. If you already have a website you can talk to your IT department about using that domain name to set up email addresses for you and your employees.

If you don’t currently have a website, or don’t use a website in your line of business, all you need is a domain name to get started. Domain names are easily registered online with domain registrars like PrideLife where you can select a name and domain extension that fits your business and purpose. Domains range in price, but generally for less than $50/year you’ll be able to secure your own.

If you are not comfortable in the IT area, once you have your domain name there are plenty of service providers that can assist with setting up and supporting your new email addresses in email platforms like G Suite.

A small investment in a professional email can make a world of difference in creating the right impression as you grow your business, expand your audience and build credibility.

Here are a few other reasons for setting up a professional email that we’ve compiled for your consideration:

Brand Name

Your brand name is reflected in the communications that you send to customers. If you plan on sending any type of promotions, then you want to avoid the spam filter and create a professional business email address where your brand will be recognized. You will need a customer email address to use email service providers like MailChimp or Constant Contact in order to send out marketing pieces and customer communications.

Customer Service

Your customer service email address will become the most popular as soon as you launch your website. People naturally have questions, problems, or just want help. You can make it so simple by having a customerservice@mybusiness.lgbt or help@mybusiness.gay to ensure that these customers are serviced quickly and understand they are talking to someone at your company with the right email address domain.

Professional Response

When you reply to customer inquiries and clients, you should have a custom domain that shows you are part of a real business and offer legitimate services. People may use the email address to go to your website, but overall, it sends the right impression when you are able to reply with a professional business email.

Sales

There is nothing worse than receiving an email from Jimbo833@yahoo.com who wants to do business with you. It says nothing about the product or brand, other than James has too much time on his hands and is cold emailing everyone he can today. Once you have a custom domain, you can set up sales email addresses that will help your sales team to work those leads and send out inquiries to help grow your business.

Security

Business email accounts often come with additional security options, like filtering out and blocking dangerous hacking and phishing attempts of your email. This is important for businesses as a data breach can kill off your web traffic in an instant.

Spam Quality

Once you start sending communications from your business email, you will start to get flagged for spam, especially if you have a suspicious email address that does not relate to a verified domain name. Customers may flag your email for spam even if it is a legitimate communication just because they do not recognize the brand name. To avoid this, just use a custom domain name that matches your website, social profiles, products, and storefront.