Email Alias Mistakes

Are you making this same mistake that 100,000 or more businesses are doing?

I have had an email address of some kind for nearly a quarter of a century. In fact, I recently counted the -many- emails I have had over the years. Close to 100. Yes, that’s right, nearly 100 email addresses. Whether they were mine that I used to ‘seed’ email lists (exchange for product info), categorize interests by different emails (yes- I have different emails for different hobbies, different e-zines and different markets, etc)

I currently monitor about 10 active emails, from different websites I own, and most useful subscriptions.

But the ‘mistake’ I am talking about is the use (or lack thereof) of your business’s email to conduct business with.

What I mean is YourDomain.com versus a Yahoo, MSN, Gmail or some other account.

Here are a few advantages of using an email from your domain:

Free Publicity – every time you use it, you get one more bit of Free publicity to your business.

Branding – sure, that is a big word, for most of us that hardly have the budget to ‘brand’, but if I recollect, part of branding is consistency. The more your word goes out, the more it gets recognized.

Professionalism- At the core, it shows that you are a professional. It shows that you are proud of the company/products/services. Whether you are the owner, manager or employee- it shows professionalism.

Focus- finally, it will keep you focused. A business email is used for business. All (or mostly all) email should pertain directly to your business, nothing more. So when you open your business email, you conduct your business, and then move on to less trivial tasks.

Over the years I’ve had this argument with some of my clients and colleagues. I have heard of all kinds of excuses (yes, I did say excuses) why they don’t use a company email.

Here are a few:

“I really don’t want to get the spam like I do with my current email. If I am at business, I don’t have time for spam”

“I have been using this email my whole career – If I change it now, I would have to tell all my friends and family to update their contacts”

“The company policy frowns on getting personal email on a company address. I use mine because I don’t want to have 2 separate emails.”

“My hosting company won’t set up email accounts for me so I don’t have one”

But in real life, would you use the phone number at Joe’s Garage for your business? So why why would you use a different email?

Ok- I think I made my point. If you want to know what my answers for these excuses were, just send me an email to one of my 10 active email addresses. I have them listed around here some where. If you can’t find one of them, just leave a message at Joe’s Garage. They will get me the message – eventually.