Why Your Email Address Might Be Costing You Clients
In the United States alone, 9.7 billion emails are sent daily. With this being the case, it’s no wonder that 59% of B2B marketers say email is their most effective channel for generating revenue. This opportunity simply cannot be overlooked for businesses.
Even if you spend hours crafting the perfect subject line and copy, potential clients may look elsewhere if you have an unprofessional email address.
In this article, we’ll discuss why your email address is so important and how it might put your business at risk.
- Professional email addresses enhance brand credibility and influence clients' first impressions.
- Email domains should match your website to prevent confusion and spam filters.
- Free email domains may appear unprofessional and undermine your business’s legitimacy.
- Consistent email formats across a team streamline communication and enhance professionalism.
Why Your Business Email Address Matters
When prospective clients get in touch for the first time, your email response significantly contributes to their first impression of your brand. If this email is sent from an unprofessional address lacking credibility, they may see red flags immediately.
In the same way you wouldn’t attend a meeting in your workout gear or make handwritten business cards, you should not be sending emails from your personal account. This takes a lot of legitimacy out of business communication and can instantly make you appear less reputable.
Receiving an email from a generic email can also leave recipients wondering if the email is part of a scam. If the business name is not included in the domain, it can appear as if it’s not part of a legitimate business and even risk being flagged as spam.
Since your email address acts as a part of your brand identity, it should clearly contain the name of your business to reinforce your professionalism and ensure every interaction keeps your brand in their memory.
4 Reasons Your Email Address Could Be Costing You Clients
Although something as small as an email domain may not seem like a significant concern from a business perspective, it can be enough to make potential clients think twice about going forward.
Here are four of the most common flaws among business email addresses:
1. Your email address doesn’t match your website
If you look through your inbox for emails a business sends, you will likely find that they all have an email address matching their website domain.
As you can see below, this email marketing campaign to advertise an upcoming webinar was sent by Ahrefs. The sender was from Andrei, the host of the webinar, and the email address (an********@****fs.com) maintains a tidy format that aligns with the website domain to create consistency.
Choosing to use an email address that doesn’t align with your website can create confusion and leave recipients wondering if the email is legitimate. This can leave them not wanting to reply if the message is not genuine, and it also risks them being flagged as spam.
2. The free domain looks unprofessional
Many of us have personal accounts with one of the leading email providers, Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo. Although these are perfectly respectable and convenient for individual accounts, they don’t have the same impact on business.
If you are communicating with a business and considering their services, imagine getting email responses from domains that look like this:
th*******@***il.com or co*********@********co.uk
You would instantly be left wondering if the business is as reputable as you were first led to think. It could make it appear like they are just starting or running the company on the side.
Having these doubts in the early stages of communication can be a massive deterrent for prospective clients and leave your business struggling to sign up new clients from the outset.
3. Your email address is hard to remember
Even if you have invested in a custom domain, you are not instantly clear about it. One thing to consider when choosing an email address is how easy it will be for clients to find you in their inbox.
Many businesses fall into the trap of wanting to cram as much information about their brand as possible into their domain to get their name out there. Having a lengthy email address is hard for people to remember, and your employees will definitely not thank you either!
Imagine you receive an email from the email address below. Even though it contains a branded domain name, the first part is messy and instantly looks unprofessional. Plus, if a client wants to send them an email down the line, how are they expected to find the email address when running a search in their inbox?
4. Every colleague has a different email address
Although this may sound like a given, bear with us!
Maintaining consistency among email addresses within a team helps create an organised and professional brand image. It also looks good and makes it easy for clients and colleagues to communicate with each other since they can follow the chosen email format.
For example, if three people within a business have the following email addresses, there are likely to be more mistakes made when people try to contact them, resulting in lost communication and frustration.
- ja******@**********me.com
- th****@**********me.com
- d.*****@**********me.com
If all employees have email addresses that follow the same pattern, everything becomes much more streamlined, and the risk of error is reduced significantly.
How to Set Up a Professional Email Address
If you are looking to improve your email strategy and create a custom email domain, here are some steps you should be taking to get it right the first time…
- Choose a domain name.
The first step is choosing the domain name you wish to use for your business. This will typically be the name of your company followed by a domain extension, such as .com, .net, .org, or .ai.
The different types of domains can help show what your business has to offer, for example:
- If you register a .ai domain, you’d typically be a tech company that utilises artificial intelligence.
- If you use a .org domain, you would primarily be a charity, non-profit organisation, or community project.
- Opting for a .com domain, the most popular choice, shows you are a commercial business or a general website.
When you have thought of some options, check online to ensure the domain name is available and doesn’t already exist.
- Register the domain
Once a free domain name has been decided on, it is time to register it. You can choose how long you own the domain for (typically between one and ten years) and then provide the contact information associated with the domain.
Sites like GoDaddy and Hostinger are popular providers that can help you purchase the domain quickly and easily.
- Choose an email hosting provider.
Now that a domain has been secured, an email hosting service must be chosen. This provider manages the server space responsible for sending, receiving, and storing emails. It is also responsible for protecting against viruses and spam.
Standard email hosting providers for businesses include Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.
- Create individual email addresses.
At this stage, you are ready to create a new account for each employee in the business. Use a consistent format across all accounts to maintain professionalism and avoid confusion.
Common formats to choose from are as follows:
- fi*******@**********me.com
- fi****************@**********me.com
- in**************@**********me.com
Generic business accounts and personal accounts should be created. Many businesses use hello@, sales@, and marketing@ addresses, which wider teams can access to manage general queries. These are also particularly useful when sending out general marketing campaigns.
Taking Your Email Strategy One Step Further
Now that your email accounts are ready, put them to good use by taking your email marketing campaigns to the next level.
