How To Boost Your Business With A Professional Email Address

Having your very own professional email address comes with a host of benefits for businesses, so every good business owner should consider owning one. When you get a professional email address, you can create an impactful image that can win over potential clients, colleagues, or employees, helping you ultimately boost your professional success. A professional email address helps you appear more credible and trustworthy than a regular email address.

This article will guide you through creating a professional email address. 

How do I create a professional email address?

Customers are more likely to choose a business that has a professional email address, so whenever you send an email using a custom domain-based email address, your chances of gaining new customers are high.

Here are some things to consider when choosing a professional email address that reflects your business and your brand:

• Avoid numbers and special characters. They visually confuse and look messy.
• Consistency is key, so choose a name and email address combination that’s consistent with your domain name and that reflects your brand.
• Keep it short and sweet.
• Choose an email domain that will remain relevant and will scale with business.

It also helps to choose an established and reputable email provider like Microsoft 365 with GoDaddy.

Here are some features to look out for when considering different email providers and plans:

• Robust security features such as data protection against spam/malware/phishing attempts.
• The option to create multiple email aliases.
• A lot of storage.
• Great customer support.

What are the parts of a professional email address?

Here are the essential elements of a professional email broken down:

• The username: The username outlines your identity and typically comes in the form of a name or a department.
• The @ symbol: This symbol separates the user name or identifier from the domain name.
• The domain: The domain is what sets you apart from the crowd, and is unique to your business.
• Top-level domain: Also known as a TLD, is your domain extension. This could be a .com, .net, .org, etc.

Tips to create a good business email address

Now that you know the key parts of a professional business email address, here are some tips to help you dig deeper before you create one. 

Keep it short

Just as you want to keep your marketing copy’s length short and sweet, so should your custom professional email address. Ideally, you’d want it to be no more than three words max, and your custom domain should be snappy, easy to remember, and related to your brand. You should generally aim to have your professional email address between 20-40 characters long.

Pro tip: Every element of your email address should be easy to spell. A difficult to spell email address will cause confusion and frustration which won’t be good for business.   

Use your name, initials, or both

Use different combinations of your first name, last name, and initials. This will help keep things personal and professional. While using your first name alone is personable and can work well for small businesses, you could run into inconsistencies or email duplication as you scale. Some examples include: first name, first and last name, first initial and last name, first name and last initial, and first and middle initials and last name. 

Use the department name

Using the department name will make your business look established and can improve the customer experience by telling them exactly where to aim their query, potentially helping business. Some examples are: [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected]. 

What to avoid with a business email address

Try and avoid numbers as they can look messy and cause visual confusion. Punctuation/symbols (i.e. periods, dashes, and underscores) can complicate typing out your email address. It also makes it more difficult for customers to remember the email. Avoid personal nicknames or inside jokes as they don’t benefit potential clients, customers, or colleagues. These types of emails look unprofessional and can damage your reputation and create a lack of trust. Lastly, avoid random combinations as they are confusing and difficult to remember. 

Free vs paid business email accounts

Here are the differences between free and paid business accounts.

Security and privacy 

In the digital age, cybercrime is at an all time high, and the need for security and privacy is as important as ever. Free email accounts are more susceptible for identity theft and phishing attacks because they tend to slip through the net easier. Without robust security and privacy features like end-to-end encryption and two-factor authentication, a free email account will make you more vulnerable to attacks. 

Professional paid accounts such as Microsoft 365 from GoDaddy usually comes with a mix of robust security features, including:

• Advanced security settings, including spam box management.
• Quarantined messages for suspicious emails or emails sent from outside the organization.
• URL and content scanning and verification.Strong encryption and malware protection.
• Excellent customer support and an emergency inbox you can use if a breach or an attack occurs.

Storage

Most free email providers will have limited storage options. Once you hit the provider’s content storage limit, you would have to start deleting emails or saving essential pieces of information elsewhere that usually lead to you paying fees for storage add-ons. This can be a stressful and time-consuming process, especially when you’re running a business. 

A paid business email account that suits your specific needs can get you between 10-50GBs of storage capacity. This is up to 5-10x more than what you’d get with a free account.

Collaboration tools 

Compared to paid professional email accounts, free email accounts may have collaboration and project management limitations. With a free account, you can send and receive multiple emails, send “out-of-office” messages, communicate with your calendar, and arrange your content into labeled folders, but that’s about it.

With a paid professional email account, you can do more and from one central hub. With GoDaddy and Microsoft 365, you can manage multiple user accounts, share files, set up devices, and use many collaborative Office tools from an easy-to-use dashboard. This makes team communication and project management a more seamless experience, and also makes managing your business email activities more time-effective and transparent.  

Branding opportunities 

A free email account can make your business look unprofessional and gives the impression that you’re not serious about your business.  A “Yahoo,” “Hotmail,” or “Gmail” domain at the end of your address does not cement brand awareness, and makes you look amateur. A professional email address will not only provide consistency with the rest of your branding, but will also build trust and make you stand out in your potential clients’ minds.  

Set up your business email today with GoDaddy

Setting up your Microsoft 365 with GoDaddy professional business email is both quick and easy. All you need to do is:

1. Log in to your GoDaddy account.
2. Go to Professional Email & Microsoft 365.
3. Select a plan.
4. Buy an email account.
5. Access your email product.
6. Enter your domain.
7. Fill out your email information.
8. Finish setting up.

If you have any questions along the way, GoDaddy has a support team ready to provide help and advice. Sounds good to you? Set up your business email up with our help.

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