Stop using hotmail.com, gmail.com, aol.com, yahoo.com, outlook.com, or any other .com or random TLD for your small business email addresses. Use the DOMAIN NAME of your website instead (i.e. mydomain.com).

One of the most common mistakes small business owners make is to use a general, free email address to communicate with their partners, vendors, employees, and customers. Using a “personal” email address for business class email is problematic for several reasons, and they are:

🔐 Security: Today, nefarious actors employ free personal email to commit fraud and extract revenue from unsuspecting customers. A scammer could register an email address matching the name of your business. For example, my agency is “digitalstrategyworks.com.” The scammer would open an email account: “[email protected]” then reach out to my customers using that false address. The customer may not realize it’s not me and disregard safety, but if they are aware your email comes from your domain, it’s more likely to reach them. Additionally, when you use business email, protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are applied, confirming you are who you say you are.

✅ Branding: When I send an email from my domain, “i.e. (me)@digitalstrategyworks.com,” my brand is impressed upon the recipient that I’m a trusted contact. Trust is critical. And, the recipient is more likely to open it.

📩 Deliverability: Today, all major providers of email, whether that be Google or your hosting company, utilize a “white list” and “black list.” As emails are delivered, the email address itself and the content of the emails are ranked for the likelihood of spam or scams, and they end up in your customers’ spam folders. Using a business email address through a service like Google Workspace “whitelists” your email address as it originates from your domain. Additionally, providers of free personal email also don’t like it when you use a free, personal email address to send hundreds or thousands of emails to customers. Your account is at risk and could be shut down at any time. You’d lose all your contacts and access to emails in your inbox.

These are just a few good reasons to use business-class email on your domain. Unsure how to set up a business-class email address, please do reach out to me, and I can set it up for you. I use Google Workspace, which comes with mail, docs, sheets (like Excel), calendar, and more. Reach out to me and we’ll set up a call to get you started with your proper business email address.