As a business owner, manager, or head of IT department, chances are you’ve got to make some key decisions when it comes to business communication and technology. Naturally, many of us are familiar with Google’s Gmail services; therefore, it’s understandable that many people choose it for their business communication, given that many people are familiar and comfortable with the service’s user-friendly navigation.
However, when it comes to running a business, it’s best to drop your Gmail address and go with a professional business email address that contains your corporate domain. In many cases, you’ll find that hosts that offer domain email addresses are just as intuitive as platforms like Gmail. Here’s why you should make the transition:
Table of Contents
1. Ability to Scale
As your business grows, you want it to be easy for your company to scale. With personal email address, email management starts to get tricky and complex. For instance, you might want several emails for your company. In addition to emails for individual staff members, you might want a separate email for sales and public relations. Separating those email accounts makes it easier for your staff to have autonomy, and for incoming emails to get to the right person quicker.
In any business, how you handle your email requests can make a drastic difference in the way your business is perceived. For example, a mishandled email can go unanswered for lengthy periods of time, which can make your customer service take a hit. And take one look at some of the most recent customer service statistics and you’ll quickly see how important it is for every email to go to the right person right away. Because of this, you might create an account dedicated to customer service, which makes it easier to handle incoming questions and concerns.
2. Higher Level of Professionalism
Despite the fact that the majority of us use Google to host our personal email addresses, there’s no denying that we judge a business’s credibility on a variety of small factors that help create an overall perception. When you see a Gmail address for a professional business, it might raise some red flags.
You want your business to be perceived as a professional entity, and one of the easiest ways to achieve this is to have your domain attached to your contact email. When it comes to building trust, you need a professional domain. What seems more credible to you: [email protected], or [email protected]? When you skip out on using a domain name, it may make your business feel part-time, unprofessional, or even scammy.
3. Email Marketing
Your email marketing efforts can be lucrative for your business. When customers and subscribers receive promotional materials that come from a real domain name, it ends an air of legitimacy to the outreach. If the email comes from a Gmail address, chances are they won’t open it. And in some cases, marketing emails from personal domains might end up directly in the junk or spam box. Avoid wasting your marketing efforts by creating powerful campaigns that come directly from a branded company email address.
4. Build Branding
Ideally, you want each potential touch point between you and your customers to be branded. With so many Gmail addresses taken, you might have to settle for a variation of your business name, which detracts from the brand you’re trying to build and the image you’re trying to portray.
When you have a domain-based email address, that email address is on your business cards, website, social channels, and all email communication. The more places you can have your business name in its entirety, the better your brand building efforts will be.
5. Affordability
Some users choose to stay with Google because it’s a free service. However, in many cases, domain-powered email addresses are very affordable, and help prevent some of the complications that costs businesses in the long-run. For example, as previously mentioned, several managed emails make it easier to spearhead customer service. Bad customer service can costs businesses in the United States $62 billion every year. Therefore, it’s also important to consider the amount of money you save by being more efficient, presenting a professional image, and building a stronger brand across your marketing materials.
