When it comes to your business website design, entrepreneurs and business owners are much more discerning than individual (non-business) users. That’s because individuals don’t have as much vested in their personal websites. For a business, web designing concerns rank high, because the image and success of a business depends on it.
One crucial component of a commercial entities online branding has to do with the use of appropriate email addresses. If you're thinking of using a free email account or accounts – like Hotmail, Gmail or Eircom – for your business, it’s time to say: NO. Read on to see why.
FREE Email Can Cost You – A Lot
While using email addresses like Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo or Eircom might be good for communicating with friends and families, when you decide to adopt a free email account for your business, you need to take a minute to think about that and see how that is not in your interest.
Here Are 9 Reasons Why:
1) Trust Factor: Imagine if you got an email from Bank Of Ireland, welcoming you to your new account…and it came from “BankOfIreland@hotmail.com” - how much trust would you put in your Bank? The answer – none. Surely they should have their own website name and matching email addresses e.g. info@bankofireland.ie . Similarly, you should have your own website name and corresponding email address(es).
2) Professionalism: Using “free” email accounts for business has a hint of 'small time' about it. There are exceptions of course, but they don't make the solid rules. To look professional, your web design team should integrate a personalised email account/domain into your site design and set you up with those accounts so you are sending our and receiving professional business titled emails e.g. james@ranelaghengineers.ie .
3) Branding: Clients who deal with a company using a specific website (for example www.galwayengineers.ie), are more likely to associate its brand with an email like
john@galwayengineers.ie, as opposed to something like john@gmail.com . And if you send an email to your client from john@galwayengineers.ie then they know who that emails is from and they can quickly go to www.galwayengineers.ie and get your phone number to call you or go to your website to look through your other website details.
4) Interruptions: Having a personalized email address integrated with your web site design will result in less communication interruptions. That’s because emails from servers like Hotmail, Gmail etc. are more prone to be blocked by email/spam filters put into place by the recipient or their ISP (Internet Service Provider) e.g. Eircom .
5) Credibility: While - you can't work to maintain the credibility of your galwayengineers@gmail.com, because neither you nor your web design agency has control over it (it's one of the hundreds of millions of @gmail.com accounts), you can do everything possible to ensure the credibility of your personalised email address - e.g.john@galwayengineers.ie . There are very specific and dependable steps you can take to protect your domain from being marked as spam, and this is something you can check often – or your website support team can do that for you.
6) Winning New Clients: While older clients, who have been communicating with john@gmail.com, may be fine with continuing their relationship over free email, it will be harder to convert newer clients, especially for bigger-ticket items to work with you. Winning new clients will be much easier with a personalised and professional email address, like john@galwayengineers.ie, right at the start of a business relationship .
7) Business Continuity: Free email addresses, like john@gmail.com or john@hotmail.com, are often suspended if the administrators (in this case Google or Microsoft) suspect they are “spammers” - and in some cases this could be in error. You might not be the cause of a spamming initiative, but once your email address comes on the Google or Microsoft blacklist, it will lead to massive business disruption. With a personalised business email address like john@galwayengineers.ie, no one – except you and your web design team, can terminate or interrupt your business email services.
8) Building Equity/Goodwill In Your Business: - If you were to ever sell your business, the new owners would be more interested in the business moving in tandem with a standalone website name and email accounts. As a result, you will have built more worth into your business by having your own website name and matching email addresses setup early on.
9) Support: Have you ever tried to call Google or Hotmail to find out why you aren’t getting your emails delivered to certain addresses? Or how about calling them up to find out why your email is so slow? Good luck with that. Since these are “free” services, support is nearly non-existent. You’re on your own. With a personalised email address like john@galwayengineers.ie, any calls for assistance can be directed straight to your website design agency and they’ll resolve the issue promptly…or risk losing your business. You just have complete control of all the factors when you have your own personalised email addresses.
And, The TRUE Cost Of FREE Email To Your Business Is?
Lack of trust. Brand degradation. Erosion of client confidence. Unprofessional image. Risk to business continuity. Lack of Security. Unsupported email services…and the list goes on, and on, and on.
Businesses can’t afford to deal with these risks, and a myriad of other challenges that “free” email addresses bring with them. Though they may be advertised as “no cost” ways to communicate with clients, you actually pay a lot if you look at the details and the lost business. If you value your business, brand and business image, then work with your website design agency to get your personalised email accounts setup and that will help your business to grow.
If You Have Any Questions On The Above Drop Us An Email On info@myit.ie Or Call Us On 01-6216866.
