What does your email address say about you and your business? Maybe you’ve been doing business, getting by with the personal email address you created in 2003 (I’m looking at you, banjoguy04@hotmail.com). If that’s the case and your business is successful, good for you!
Maybe your business is growing. You’re in the process of rebranding, creating a fresh, more professional statement. You’re hiring more employees and investing in advertising too. As you think about the new look and tone of your business, consider setting up business email addresses. Your business email will help promote your brand to your customers. It also reminds them where to go to reach your website. These two things alone help a lot with credibility.
A business email address replaces @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, or whatever else you’re using, with your very own domain name. So, if you own the site coolestbusinessever.com, your business address could be hello@coolestbusinessever.com.
There are several ways to set up your email, but I prefer to use Google.
Google provides a great tool called GSuite. This gives you a custom business email with all the benefits of Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Drive, and plenty of storage. At only $5 per account, it's a great deal. It's also fairly easy to set up.
If you're working on a tight budget, there's another option: Create an email account with your domain provider and connect it to your personal Gmail through POP and SMTP. This allows you to send and receive emails in your Gmail inbox using your business address. The biggest drawback to this method is that your incoming emails are not updated in real time. They are “fetched” periodically: every five minutes to two hours, depending on how often your use your business email. This option can be tricky to set up if you haven't done it before.
Below are a couple of links that can help you set your business email up in either of these two ways:
https://gsuite.google.com/setup https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-collect-mail-from-other-pop-accounts-in-gmail-1172076
For those running small businesses, you may do just fine using a personal address or Gmail.com address. However, for large or growing businesses, business email addresses will help you gain credibility with your customers. Contact your IT guy or website manager to get started setting up professional email addresses for your business.