May 30, 2011 Jason

Whose Business are You Promoting – Yours or Your Internet Provider?

Do you have the same respect for a business that has an email address that ends in gmail.com as you might for one that ends in mybusinessname.com?  Sure, setting up your email with gmail, Shaw, or Telus is easy (and free), but what is this telling your future customers about the longevity of your business?  It’s giving them a message, but it’s not the one you want to give them.

Whether it’s a conscious decision or not, your customers aren’t going to think of you as a professional if your business card or print collateral has the name of another business on it.  You paid good money for your domain, in some cases – very good money, and one of the hardest things to do is to get people to visit your website.  Adding the domain of another company to your business cards and office stationery is not going to help you build your brand.  The dentist I just switched to is a perfect example of this, with two different email options between the website and their business cards (Dr.Smile@telus.net and Dr.Smile@shaw.ca – the names been changed to protect the not-so-innocent)

3 reasons to have your own domain

  1. If you choose to change from one internet provider to another, you will either need to recycle all of your business cards/print materials, or you can be extra-classy and scratch out the old address and handwrite in the new one.
  2. You can create a “catch-all” email address – so no matter what your customers put in front of the @ – as long as they get the domain name right, their email to you will be delivered.
  3. If your internet provider or web hosting service fails/changes their name/claims that you owe them thou$ands – you can switch to something else within a few hours – without changing your email address

So does this mean you can’t use gmail or your current provider for your email service?  Nope.  It’s too easy to setup an email account with the folks that host your website, and have that email address forwarded to wherever you want it to go, and it’s more than likely included in the price you’re paying them.

Aside from creating the new address and forwarding it to wherever you want it to go, your email life really won’t be that different.  If you’re using gmail, you can configure it to respond “on behalf of” your professional email address (if you want to know how to remove that, ask me in the comments below).  If you’re using another email client (outlook, outlook express, Eudora, macmail, etc ) you can configure it to use a different “reply to” address on your outbound emails.  Your clients won’t see a difference other than your new and improved professional looking business.  And that’s a pretty good change for pretty much free.

If you’ve got any email tips/suggestions/questions – please let me know in the comments (or email me  – Jason@brandscaping.ca)

 

 

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