Emails have become one of the most prominent and preferred means of communication on the internet. As of 2020, there were 4 billion email users worldwide and this number is slated to grow to 4.6 billion by 2025.
It’s no surprise that businesses most often use emails to communicate with their customers. It’s a win-win for both parties as businesses find their way into their customers’ most accessible mailboxes.
Customers, on the other hand, can check the communication how and when they want to, as opposed to a phone call that needs to be attended to at the time it’s made.
However, there’s more to emails than just being a mode of easy communication.
In the age of email marketing, your domain name and email address form an integral part of your online identity.
A professional, branded email address can work wonders for creating the right image for your small business, one that exudes legitimacy and reliability. With a generic email address, on the other hand, you simply blend in the background. When establishing your small business, it is important that you think about the domain name and email address you want to be associated with it. Both should incorporate your brand name as well as relevant keywords that communicate something about your business, especially if you’re new.
An easy and cost-effective way to do that is to use new domain extensions that are industry specific. For instance, if you own an online store, your domain name can be <companyname>.store, and your email address can be info@companyname.store.
Read on to learn about 5 ways in which a custom email address can boost your small business’s authority.
1. A custom email address makes you more professional
When you’re just starting out, it is difficult to find customers and clients. You need to go out of your way to convince clients and customers that you mean business and that you’re in it for the long haul.
This is something a custom email address can help with. It shows that you have put in the effort and the money to invest in an online identity that is true to your business and, thus, makes you look professional.
On the other hand, an email address that includes a service provider’s name might give people the impression that your business lacks a sense of permanence and professionalism, even though the opposite may be true.
Another advantage of a custom email address is that all of your team members can have customized and professional email addresses too. You don’t have to worry about employees using personal email addresses for business, which may be off brand.
2. A custom email address improves your credibility
Imagine this: you’re looking for an interior decorator to update the decor of the house you just bought. You come across two promising solopreneurs and decide to reach out to them. One’s email address is jane@design20.online, while the other is john.interior_designer@yahoo.com. Which one would you be more inclined to hire?
You would most likely go for the former because it seems more legitimate. The latter, on the other hand, seems like a less established person who may lack the experience and professionalism to do a good job.
The Internet is full of skeptics, and rightly so. People receive thousands of unsolicited emails from companies and, often, they fall prey to cybercrime. A custom email address will help you circumvent that suspicion to a great degree. You will come across as a real and credible business that is able to perform its professional role and also protect the sensitive personal and financial information of its customers.
3. A custom email address helps build your brand
Small businesses don’t have thousands of dollars to invest in marketing. This could be seen as detrimental in those crucial first days when businesses need to really get out there and stand out in order to get noticed.
Fortunately, thanks to digital marketing, there are several cost-effective ways in which small businesses with bootstrapped marketing budgets can build their brand. Among them is choosing the right domain name and creating a custom email address that uses that domain name.
When a customer sees an email in their inbox that has your company name in it, they will recognize it as yours. This increases your open and click rate and decreases your chances of getting deleted or landing up in the spam folder.
Apart from brand recognition, a custom email address also helps reinforce your brand. Every time a person sees an email from you in their inbox, they will also see your company’s name. It’s like paid digital banner ads, but less intrusive.
Another advantage is the consistency a custom email address brings to your branding. As a small business, it’s important that you keep your branding uniform to increase your brand’s recall value. This means having an email address, a domain name, and social media handles that use the same company name and keywords as much as possible.
For instance, your domain name might az.tech. In that case, your email address could be info@az.tech, and your Instagram and Twitter handles could then be @az.tech.
4. A custom email address helps you get organized
As your small business grows, you will have more verticals and departments to deal with. You can create custom email addresses for each of these departments to make you and your customers’ lives a whole lot easier.
For instance, instead of receiving all emails in one mailbox, you can create a separate email address for business inquiries (info@abc.store), for media inquiries (press@abc.store), customer support (support@abc.store), and job applications (hr@abc.store). This will ensure that the right email goes to the right department and doesn’t get lost in endless forwarding.
For your customers, it means faster and more pertinent responses. Moreover, when customers see that you have dedicated departments for each of your business’s functions, they will think that you are a well-established company with experienced teams handling the various tasks, even if it’s just you who is responding to all the emails.
5. A custom email address makes your online identity future-proof
Service providers are businesses just like you, and the world of business is unpredictable. It may be that tomorrow, your service provider closes down its operations or rebrands itself. This can have serious repercussions for you if your email address reflects your service provider’s name. You will have to change all your email addresses, which doesn’t bode well for your own branding.
With a custom email address, though, you don’t have to worry about this. No matter who your service provider is, your email addresses and domain names can stay the same. You don’t have to deal with sending out numerous email blasts and make social posts about changes to your email addresses, which can save you a lot of time, effort, and money.
In this sense, a custom email address is a long-term investment in your branding and communications, making them future-proof.
Conclusion
A custom email address for your small business is the first and the easiest step towards creating the right first impression, attracting clients, and setting yourself up for success.
A custom email address service is a critical tool for your online presence. You shouldn’t opt for a generic email address in a rush to establish yourself.
Spend some time researching various domain names and email addresses to find one that best suits your brand and one that you can stick to in the foreseeable future.
At Gandi, 2 email addresses with 3 GB each come free with each domain name, an ideal solution to start you off on the right foot. And feel free to review this step by step guide for creating your own custom email addresses at Gandi.
And to go further, here are Gandi’s 5 tips for getting your small business online.
Read more about Gandi’s small and medium sized business solutions.
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