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Your Small Business is Worth More than a Free Email Address

May 10, 2007 By Joe Rawlinson

Your company must make a professional first impression with potential customers. Don’t set yourself up for failure by being cheap.

I drove behind an electrical contractor’s truck this week. This small business owner had big magnets on the sides of his truck with his company name and email address. It read something like this:

Jenkins Electrical
[email protected]

There was no phone number or website address. Just a cryptic Yahoo email address.

Here are the top 5 questions you must ask yourself if you use a free email address for your business:

1. How are potential customers suppose to remember a random sequence of letters for an email address? (Especially if they are driving down the street)

2. What does a free @yahoo.com email address say about your business? Hint: It says cheap.

3. Are you missing an opportunity to build your brand presence online? That email address could just as easily have been a memorable and relevant domain name like JenkinsElectrical.com.

4. What happens if your free email host disappears? Poof! There go all your business emails.

5. What does a free email address say about your professionalism? Please do your business a favor and buy a relevant domain name. Think of this from the customer’s perspective. A free email address could mean you are only a temporary business that may not be there to support the customer post-sale.

Solution: Buy a domain name and set up a website. Get custom [email protected] email addresses and put up that professional online presence your potential customers will trust.

This post is part of Problogger’s Top 5 Group Writing Project.

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