With the rise of digital marketing, emails continue to gain weight in online business management. However, a huge number of SMBs continue to use free email accounts such as Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo!, without
considering the disadvantages that this implies for their business. Therefore, in this article, we will tell you why and how to have a professional email for your brand. Do not miss it!
Despite the advancement of social networks, email has not stopped growing, consolidating itself as a massive communication channel. According to Statista, 3.930 million people were email users in 2019, a figure that is expected to reach 4.371 million by 2023.
Also, according to a McKinsey report, email marketing campaigns are 40 times more effective than Facebook or Twitter in reaching a target audience. 86% of professionals choose to use email when communicating for business purposes and 73% of millennials prefer company messages to reach them via email. Do you have any doubts about its importance?
Why have a professional email?
If having Gmail is free and easy to use, why not enough? What is the big difference with a professional email?
To begin with, a professional email allows you to personalize your email account and use the name of your brand instead of the generic name of the platform you are using. So instead of name@gmail.com, you can create an email as name@yourbrand.com.
It seems like a very simple change (and it is!) but it is no less beneficial for your business strategy. Professional email provides added value and contributes to building a brand image, among many other benefits that I will discuss below.
Advantages of professional email
Brand identity
1) Provides seriousness and professionalism: A corporate email communicates "this is a serious and consolidated company". We must recognize that it is not the same to receive a message from jullieceramicos@gmail.com or from jullie.gonzalez.91@yahoo.com as one from consultas@jullieceramicos.com.
Creating a fake email for free is so easy that customers rarely trust company members who use generic email accounts.
2) Increases the confidence of potential customers: A professional email address legitimizes your company. Show that you have a real business that people can trust. According to Silverpop, 64% of users would open an email simply because they trust the brand that sends it. On the other hand, if the email does not have the name of the company, it increases the chances of being marked as spam or mistrusted.
3) Strengthens brand recognition and credibility: A corporate email account shows that you are invested in a brand's identity. It is a verified communication channel, with the same status as the website and official profiles on social networks .
Communication management
1) Provides the freedom to structure and choose users: This service allows you to create different accounts under the "@tumarca", giving you different possibilities for your email structure. You could organize the emails by area (ventas@tumarca.com, soporte@tumarca.com) or by the names of the team members (juanpablo@tumarca.com, ana@tumarca.com) .
By organizing emails with a clear and functional structure, a more efficient communication
management is achieved. On a free platform, this would be impossible. Imagine wanting to register at ana@gmail.com ! There is no chance that it will be available.
At the same time, the work team will have corporate support that will favor their work and strengthen their sense of belonging.
2) Allows you to manage all users from the same place: Hiring a personalized email service gives you the possibility of managing several addresses and mailboxes from the same point. In this way, you will have the most organized messages and you will better serve customers.
3) It is compatible with email and webmail programs: You can choose which tool you want to work with -for example, a webmail application like Roundcube or others- instead of being tied to the platform of the free provider.
cybersecurity
1) It's more secure: Free accounts are often a target for spam and hacker attacks. The private ones, on the other hand, provide greater security, since they include additional protection measures against possible viruses or computer attacks.
2) Protect your contact list: Offer a backup copy of all your emails.
3) Reduce the chances of your messages falling into the recipient's spam box: Any digital marketer knows how important this is to achieve successful communication with customers.
How to have a professional email?
If you have come this far, surely you are curious to know how to acquire your own professional email. Don't worry, it is a simple process that does not require any technical knowledge. We have summarized it for you in 4 simple steps :
1) Select and register a domain name
A fundamental fact to have a professional email is to have a registered domain. If you already have a website or online store, you probably have a domain, since it is the name by which your website can be found on the Internet (eg: www.jullieceramicos.com ).
If you already have a domain, you can skip stepping 2. If not, you'll need to choose a domain for your brand and register it. Ideally, this matches the name of your brand. Different services allow you to buy a domain: just write it, choose the extension (.com, .es, .mx, etc.), check that it is available, and claim it for yourself.
2. Choose an email hosting provider
Once you have the domain, the next step is to choose professional email hosting. This is the service that will allow you to have your personalized email accounts associated with the domain name with which you are registered.
PRO Tip: Although we present steps 1 and 2 separately, many brands offer both services, both domain registration, and professional email hosting. We recommend that you choose a company that offers you both alternatives, to carry out the entire process from the same place.
If you have registered your domain with a provider but it doesn't offer you email hosting, don't worry. You can transfer your domain from one provider to another without problems.
Review the different options on the market, as there are brands that offer free domains but paid professional emails, others that charge for the domain but not for email accounts, some that limit the number of emails you can create, and others that don't. Taking into account the objective of this article, we suggest those options that offer you unlimited email accounts.
3) Create your professional email address
Depending on the service you have chosen, the steps to set it up and create an email account may be slightly different.
However, most allow you to create your email from cPanel, a super intuitive platform where you can register your professional email in seconds. You must go to the "Email account" section, press the "+Create" button, fill in the fields indicated, and that's it! The account, as we mentioned before, will have the following structure: yourname@yourdomain.com.
If you chose a plan that offers many or unlimited accounts, you can also register the email structure that best suits your brand, assigning accounts by area or by each team member. With a defined and clear email structure, the flow of communication will be facilitated both with clients and within the company.
Whatever the case, make sure the username is simple, short, and sweet to your customers. Once you have created your email list with their respective passwords, you can start sending and receiving emails from your customers.
4. Set up your account(s)
We recommend customizing the accounts to further enhance their professional style.
The signature is a key point. You can set it to appear at the bottom of every email or reply you send. The place there not only the name of the area or person who will use the account but also the basic information of the company, such as some contact information, the logo, and the link to the website.
It may also interest you: 12 tips for writing a good business presentation email
Conclusion
Now you know that having a personalized email is very important and cannot be left out of your online marketing strategy.
I hope you leave with a very clear idea of why and how to have a professional email. As you may have noticed, it offers a large number of benefits, with a very low investment cost.
Start working with professional email and benefit your business!
