Email, we know it is a necessary evil for your business, and heck, even for personal use. I mean, you sign up for lists, opt ins, you have to have email to do just about anything online, to include dang near all social media because THEY want to spam you. I don’t think I have met ANYONE who doesn’t have an email. I mean, there are only a small handful of folks that don’t have a least one social media account and that’s great for them, to each’s own, right?
Business email necessity
So, my point, we know we need email for business, whether it’s to get a business social media, to set up services or products, to get orders, to email our list, whatever, you have to have it. But what type of email you choose to use, is up to you. But one thing I want you to consider, is what email you use, tells more about you and your business than you think. Let’s take a look
What your email says about you
First, let’s talk about the free emails versus paid emails… and all of this will make so much more sense.
Free email
You get what you pay for, right? So, when you deal with a business that uses a free email (more on that), what do you think about them? You know what I think about them? Two things: Cheap and/or Lazy!
Remember I said you get what you pay for, well if someone has a free email, to me they are saying that they don’t want to invest in themselves. That they don’t want to pay for email. For the love! Email must be super expensive these days, right? Must be $1,000 per year or like $100/month, right? NOPE!!! We will talk about this in a second.
But now I want to talk about those free email addresses. Who has an AOL account? If you never heard of AOL then you are likely a millennial and that’s fine, but my point, you are using a free email address you created like 40+ years ago to solicit your business. I mean, for the love, at least create a gmail or yahoo email that has your business name or your full name in it like yourbusinessname@gmail or something. At least when you are being cheap, you don’t look ridiculous too with your kristen4893@aol email address, cuz THAT looks professional!! NOT!
By the way, aol is so 80s, yahoo is a little more typical and maybe even a hotmail. But having a gmail account just makes sense as you would need that for your Google My Business, for your Google Analytics set up and for Google Ads/Adwords should you run ads.
Paid email
Invest in your own dang business people, we aren’t talking about throwing buckets of cash out the window but providing a VALUE proposition to your customers. “Hey, I think my business is valuable, I am valuable, my products/services are valuable and I can afford to pay for it, so you should too” So let’s get back to the cost.
If you are hosting with a company like GoDaddy (don’t forget my Website 101 & Hosting Tips), they charge you $5/month/email. You are getting Office 365 as well for that one email. So, we are talking $60/year + tax for your info@yourdomain or yourname@yourdomain .com email address. Wow, talk about cheap! Seriously, how cheap are you?
Plus, you are investing in yourself, in your business, you can write it off and how do you think that looks to your customer? Like you care about your business, like you are sticking around, like you see value in your business, to name a few things.
AND.. which looks more professional to you: kristen@avisualbusiness or Kristen_1234@yahoo ?
Of course the first one does and the latter is made up, by the way.
Let me also mention that when you have the right hosting, email comes FREE, unlimited emails, with your domain hosting. So be sure to check out Siteground as I work with them for myself, my clients and any/all websites that I build.
It just makes sense, Siteground has it all:
- great customer service
- transparent pricing with introductory specials
- FULL daily back ups (not just database backups like Network Solutions (GAG))
- free SSL certificate (not an additional $80-100 like GoDaddy)
- free emails, unlimited (not like GoDaddy who charges $5/email/month – sure you get Office 365, but what if you don’t want it and it sux?)
- emails via webmail (so any web browser can be used, anywhere) or set up in your mail service (Outlook or Mac Mail or app) or just forward it to another email
- and an affiliate program, to help repay those who refer to them, like my link
Email marketing
One last thing I should mention, is if you are doing any kind of email marketing – which is sending out mass emails to your list, using a free email will land you in spam folders a lot faster. Heck, even autoresponders like MailChimp highly DISCOURAGE using free email addresses like yahoo and gmail as the from and reply-to emails. They also encourage paid emails – yourname@yourdomain so take notice.
So, if you are still on the fence about getting a professional email for your business to show that you are serious about your business, I’d love to hear why in the comments below.
If you are ready to pull the trigger and not very techy and need some help, please contact me to see how I can help you. I will need to know where your domain is purchased as well as your hosting so be sure you look that up and let me know so we can make the best plan of attack for your business.
~Kristen
It’s the small details that often make a big difference, right? I agree with your take on the professional email versus the free email. I’ve never understood why more business owners don’t take advantage of the free email that usually comes with hosting. Branding is important and you’re definitely going to be taken more seriously if you come across as professional. Hopefully, more businesses will take your advice!
Well.. not all emails with hosting are free. GoDaddy, for example is one that nickles and dimes you for everything. Another reason I love SiteGround, they don’t charge extra for one or many emails. Neither does Host Gator, but GoDaddy charges for everything.. and upcharges for every thing too. Sadly, we need to make more folks aware, just like in so many other things in this world that folks have the wool pulled over their head about.