How to Choose an E-Mail Address that is Business Friendly

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Whether you are an individual or a business, it’s important to have an e-mail address that can be used for more “formal’ business communication.

Individual or Personal e-mail Accounts

Personalizing your e-mail is a beneficial thing, but there are some e-mail names that don’t tend to reveal you in your best light, when it comes to business communications. Let’s say you originally set up an e-mail account via a web-mail provider like Hotmail or Yahoo. You may have come up with a clever or fun e-mail name like “PokerFan9000@xxx’. Very clever if you’re hanging out in online poker chats, or just e-mailing your family and friends. But, consider what a prospective employer might think if they saw your clever e-mail address at the top of your resume. Not so clever now. It’s a good thought to create a secondary e-mail epic for all things business, whether that be resume submissions, or even contacting a government official. For these types of correspondence, it’s best to use something relatively simple and related to your name (for example: john.smith@yahoo.xxx).

Self-Employed or Small Business Owners

Many of us are self-employed and work from home, but that shouldn’t stop us from gaining respect in the business world. It’s possible that when you were setting up your home office internet service with your local cable or phone company, you opted for an e-mail address like “johnsmith@sbcglobal.xxx”. It’s not that there is anything snide with this example, it’s just that it isn’t the best for marketing in a virtual world. Consumers and other businesses may assume you are “small” and less experienced than your competitors. Your e-mail address is as much a “calling card” as are the printed business cards you hand out to clients, vendors, and other businesses.

If you don’t already have a website or web hosting, I strongly recommend getting one. Most web hosting companies offer relatively inexpensive web hosting packages that include e-mail accounts available for your domain name (from 5-1000 unique email accounts). It’s a good notion to take advantage of that option, and create a few different basic e-mail accounts for your business such as “info@yourcompany.com” or “sales@yourcompany.com”. Creating e-mail addresses based on general business categories or functionality, allows you some level of anonymity; allows expansion or change in personnel without changing an account name; and provides less assumption from consumers or the general public as to your company size or net worth. You can still add more personalized chronicle names like “john@yourcompany.com”, and can even forward the general “info” and “sales” e-mails to a designated person.

At the very least, if you choose not to have a website (or don’t have the budget for it), reflect creating an email account with a web-based mail provider such as Yahoo or Gmail. Create an email address that reflects on your job or experience. For instance, if you are a home-based Realtor, instead of using the example above (johnsmith@sbcglobal.xxx), create an email address like “realtor4you@Yahoo or @Gmail.

As a rule of thumb, before you set up an e-mail address – ask yourself “What does this say about me? “