One of the easiest ways to provide legitimacy to your business’ online presence is to have business email with a custom domain. Many small to medium-sized businesses make the mistake of using services like Gmail because they are quick, free, and non-intimidating to setup. But using a generic domain will make it harder for your prospects and clients to spot your emails at best and at worst might convince them your business is illegitimate or your employees are scammers.

Here’s why your business NEEDS business email with its own domain and how you can get your own business email.

You’re Not a Scammer – So Don’t Look Like One!

Have you ever received an unsolicited email from someone using Gmail or another personal address asking to do business? If you are like most people your guard likely went way up and you assumed it was a scam.

Scammers use generic emails like @gmail, yandex, yahoo, hotmail, etc because they take minutes to create and there is nothing to lose if they end up on a blacklist. On the other hand, a custom domain address implies someone went through the effort of setting up an organization, purchasing email hosting, and configuring the email. People see this as taking more effort and the entity having more to lose if it ends up on a blacklist. For this reason, people’s guard goes up when they see a personal email from someone they don’t know. They automatically assume its a scam, especially if there is a business offer attached.

To demonstrate this, think to yourself, if you receive a message offering accounting services from JoseSmith@gmail.com vs the same email from Jsmith@apexaccounting.com, which would you trust more? Likely the latter.

You Will Look Like Your Have More Pride in Your Organization

Though purchasing a domain and email hosting isn’t expensive, it does take time to configure properly. A business that uses its own name as the email domain shows greater confidence in it’s brand by putting it front and center when interacting with prospects and clients. Also, anyone that uses that email domain will be speaking as the organization, not the individual. Only business owners that take pride in their company will do this.

Look at Email as Marketing

Email is a part of your marketing. When you interact with others using a business email with a custom domain they see your business every time they look at their email. And with prospects having to see a brand over 7 times before being ready to buy, a business domain is an excellent way to get your message across repeatedly as you check in on them.

It’s About Your Company, Not You

A successful business will likely outgrow the stage where a single individual is running it. And instead, communications with prospects and customers will need to be delegated. For example, you might have a sales person to interact with prospects, a customer service representative to interact with customers, and yourself to interact with partners.

Using a business email with a custom domain allows those interacting with your employees to know they represent the company. In comparison, delegating responsibilities and still having your customers and prospects trust you is much more challenging if your employees are using their personal addresses. At best, your employees will need to spend time building a trusting relationship with each of your clients. And at worst, your customers and prospects may assume your employees are scammers.

How to get Started with Business Email

Getting a custom domain and email is quick, and simple. Here’s how.

Buy a Domain

The first step is to get your own domain. You can purchase a domain here by looking up a name and clicking “Buy”. Yes - it’s that easy.

Buy Hosting

You will want to buy hosting (if you haven’t already for your business site). You can purchase hosting here - the smallest plan will be enough for one business site.

These plans come with cPanel which will provide access to business email using your domain. But you may want to go with another option.

Decide on a Business Email Service

You have 2 options for email. Go with the control panel email included with your website hosting or choose a dedicated business email service.

For control panel email (cPanel or Plesk), go to the “Email” section and create an inbox. There you will have the option to create an address using the same domain as your site. For example you can create sales@yourcompany.com. This email can then be accessed either through the control panel or via a service like Outlook or Thunderbird.

Your other option is to use a dedicated service like Zebra Cloud Mail which provides a host of features like greater storage capacity, Anti-spam, domain aliases, and active directory. The greatest advantage of using a dedicated business email service compared to control panel email is that your site and email are hosted separately. Meaning if your website goes down, customers can still contact you via email.

Summary

To conclude, you need to be using a business email with a custom domain rather than a personal email. The most important reasons include presenting legitimacy, strong brand affiliation, easy marketing, and effective communication delegation.

Getting started with business email might seem intimidating at first, but using a cloud provider like ZebraHost that has every service you need all in one place streamlines the process. Email purchased through ZebraHost includes 24/7 support over the phone and email. If there’s anything else we can answer for you, you can contact us here!