Many businesses, clients and customers communicate primarily by email and as you know it provides a fantastic ROI – unless you’re using a free email address (like Hotmail, Gmail or one provided by your ISP (internet provider)). If you are still using a free email address you are most likely losing business each and every day.

The downsides of using a free email address are:

An unprofessional look: Imagine if your bank used a free email account – you’d never feel comfortable giving them your personal details let alone your money. How people perceive your business is what can make or break a business. Without a professional touch you will appear as a fly-by-night enterprise. It puts your credibility into question and sends the message that you’re not serious about doing business – or worse – that you are prepared to cut corners and take the cheap option.

It erases your experience: A new or fledgling business often starts out with a free email account. This clearly communicates that they are new, have little experience and are perhaps testing the waters in a new direction. They’re not even remotely proven yet and are firmly within the hobby-zone. Continuing to use the free address once your business moves into the professional arena means you will struggle to build momentum and any experience you have earned will be negated.

It’s forgettable or inappropriate: Your business success hinges on being memorable enough to gain repeat custom and referrals from advertising. Unfortunately free email addresses are filled with hard to remember clutter, for example – fr*****************@ho*****.com or bo************@gm***.com.

Neither of these roll off the tongue, are appropriate for business, or can be remembered without a high likelihood of typos and bounce backs. Branded email addresses such as fr***@fr************.com make running a profitable and scalable business much easier.

The email address Is not permanent or safe: When you have a free email address you are at the mercy of the provider. They may cancel your account for any reason or even cease operations. These free accounts are also often hacked and their passwords leaked on a global scale. You get stuck using the same provider (and can’t take advantage of any better deals) as you need to use the old email address because it is on your marketing materials (printed on your business cards, car lettering, flyers etc).

With your own domain name and subsequently your own email address you own it and can move it to a new business-grade email service easily. You also have complete control over the domain and can reset passwords and create and close accounts at will.

Give us a call at 08 8326 4364 to set up your branded business email.