Is Your Email Address Part of Your Brand?

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When you send emails for your business, do you use an email address that includes your domain name? If not, you’re missing a branding opportunity.

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Is Your Email Part of Your Brand?
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Have you ever received an email from a business and noticed that it came from a personal email account? You know the ones that I’m talking about. Maybe it’s your local handyman or your nail salon. You’re expecting to see their business name but if they’re using a Gmail or an AOL account, what are they branding? Themselves? Google? AOL? Recently, I received an email from a new restaurant. I had subscribed to a newsletter that they had posted on their website – which means they have a website. So why was their email from an AOL account?

An Opportunity to Promote your Website

OK. Missed opportunity… but to make matters worse, there was absolutely no way to access their website from within their email. Nothing. No links on their images. No links in their text. That image of the pitchers of Sangria and Margaritas advertising their “Cinco de Mayo” celebration was particularly enticing but – no link. Even their signature line in the footer of their message only had a link to send then an email at AOL. Their website address was nowhere to be found.

So, even though they got this partly right by asking for my email address, they’re missing an opportunity to make it easy for me to visit their website and they’re missing an opportunity to build their brand. On the other hand, once again the big-boys (Google & AOL) are right up front in my mind thanks to (and at the expense of) the restaurant.

Free Advertising

Moral of the story is… don’t miss an opportunity to build your brand. Get your business name out there every chance you can. If you have a website, you’re paying to host it somewhere and you should have access to unlimited & free email accounts. – Accounts that will clearly and loudly advertise your domain name. AOL does it. Every time you get an email from an AOL (or Yahoo or Gmail/Google) user, they’re reinforcing their brand. So, follow the lead of the big guys and start promoting your “dot com” when you send emails out. It will help you build a professional image and brand awareness.

Set up a few email accounts for your website. So what if you’re the only employee? You can make your business look bigger than it is. Try setting up an email for customer service and maybe another for sales. You could also set one up for a specific promotion to track your results.

Fending off the Spambots

One thing to keep in mind about email addresses is that you want to protect them as much as possible from spam. Unscrupulous spammers often send “email spambots” (automated programs) crawling through the Internet to “harvest” email addresses. (There are actually businesses that sell software to do this. UGH!) The easiest way to avoid having your email addresses harvested is to use a contact form on your website. For those people who really want to email you, you can add text such as “send an email to Sherryl [at] keepupwiththeweb [dot] com” on your website. This will keep those nasty spambots from recognizing and collecting your email addresses.

But whatever you do, if you are sending business email, promote yourself and not the other guy.

What are your thoughts?  While we’re on the subject of emails, what do you use for your email client? I’ve been using Microsoft Outlook for years but I’ve been reading articles where people advocate Gmail. What do you use?

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Author: Sherryl Perry

Welcome! If you're looking for help building an Internet presence that fits your needs and works for you, you're in the right place. I blog common sense articles about WordPress, social media and SEO. My goal is to help small business owners and entrepreneurs understand their core business. Together, we can develop and implement business strategies that make sense to you.

101 thoughts on “Is Your Email Address Part of Your Brand?”

  1. This is just so true. I cringe at the missed opportunity and the unprofessional appearance of these generic email addresses used by a business who have clearly gone to the trouble of buying a domain name. The only reason I can think of for this is because they don’t know how to integrate the management of the email account into their current practices. I appreciate this can be tricky but there’s plenty of help about and it’s easiest for those who use Gmail.
    Garry Kelsall recently posted..21 new TLD domain names available nowMy Profile

  3. Branding is such a vital factor in all businesses! It’s like the clothes we wear. It’s the first impression that we create. Come to think of it, our email addresses are front-liners in our branding, the wrapper of the gift! Advertising really begins with the email address! I will share this with my partners so that we may get on it right away! Thank you, Ms Perry!

  4. There is so much truth to this article and I thank you for sharing it! Email addresses are the first thing we see when it comes to transacting for a business. Yes, it helps in advertising and giving the business or brand a boost! Thank you for this reminder! Time to get me my own address that showcases my brand! 🙂

  5. Even my High School emails always kept some sort of professionalism to them, I think. They always contained my name and it is just a trend that I’ve kept going along throughout the years. Now, I run a site so I naturally have the whole @mysite.com extension but my personal email still outlines my name and what I do for a living.

    I think your email MUST be a part of your brand. If you’re searching for any kind of success or to obtain any respect hunkylover99 @ hotmail.com isn’t likely to impress too many people, dare I suggest – right Sherryl? 😛

    ADam

  7. Firstly Sherryl, I want to say that the manner in which you write is quite effective, the entire theme of the post becomes crystal clear. The email address is in one manner the identity of the online business. It does help in promoting the website to a large number if audience. Thanks for sharing this valuable post.

    1. Hi Aayna, Thanks so much for the feedback. I really appreciate it. I definitely agree that your email address is a part of your “identity”. Hopefully, we’ve been able to convince some people who are reading this. It’s free and relatively easy to implement at the same time!
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..How to Grow Your Google+ FollowersMy Profile

  8. Using a free service like AOL or Google for business purposes comes across very bush league, I agree. If you can’t bring yourself to use a “real” branded address, you can at least make on up and use it as “sender name”. It doesn’t even have to exist. People will click “reply” anyway and it will automatically come through to your Gmail/AOL account.

      1. Hi Sherryl,

        I was thinking of “yourname@youraddress.com” even though that particular account does not exist and you’re actually mailing from “yourname@aol.com”. Sorry for being confusing!:)

  9. It took me years to convince one of my long term clients to get off aol and start using an email on her domain. This is such an easy thing to do, but yet a lot folks still use aol, gmail, yahoo etc for business email. Apart from branding, it also adds a lot of credibility. I am always skeptical (perhaps unfairly so) when I receive emails from companies that use a free email address. You don’t even need to have a website or hosting account. All you need is a domain which will cost you $10/year and setup Google Apps for Business which is free.
    Lashan W recently posted..Small Business Social Media Marketing TipsMy Profile

    1. Hi Lashan,
      Adding credibility is a great point. I’m skeptical of emails from free accounts too. One of the things that I look at when I’m trying to decide whether or not a comment is spam, is the email address that it’s being sent from. If they obviously have a website I’m very suspicious if their email is from hotmail. That one factor alone can be what makes me determine that they’re a spammer.

      Thanks for the reminder that you don’t need to have a website to have a branded domain name. Some people may not realize that.
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..Content Writing: The Most Formidable Online Marketing StrategyMy Profile

  10. Wow! never gave this a thought! What an inspirational posts like all the others which i have followed closely. Thanks for writing simple ye effective tips every single time!

  11. Branding is the heart and soul of any business and provides the mileage needed to keep it afloat. Acquiring a personalized email address is a wise investment since it establishes the credibility and professionalism of a business. Thanks for enlightening us all.

    1. Hi Joy,
      Thanks for letting me know that you liked my article and that you agree about branding yourself with your domain name. Since all website hosting vendors nowadays include free email accounts, it’s basically free to brand yourself with your email. (If anyone is hosting with a vendor that doesn’t include free email accounts, please let us know who it is. Thanks.)
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..Top 8 White Hat SEO Tips for E-Commerce WebsitesMy Profile

  12. If you want to advertise your brand then the best thing is that you must have the part of your brand linked to email. So in this way you will get the easy process to advertise your brand easily and effectively and you do not have to pay for the advertisement.

  13. Hey Sheryll
    This is an important topic you have touched upon. I have my domain name on my professional mail id and it does help in promoting my website. Also it gives a sense that you are professional enough to pay attention to this aspect. Thanks for this great post.

  15. Sweet, thanks so much for using one of my images in this blog post 🙂 It’s an oldie, I think I made that email image back when I first started in microstock about 7 years ago.

      1. Thanks for using it 🙂 I’ve been selling stock images through bigstock for years, I think they were the first agency I ever really started with back in the day. Now Shutterstock owns them, which is also a great company to work with in the microstock industry.

  16. My gmail address matches up with my web address and twitter handle. I thought about setting up the email account included with my website hosting, but would have been jeriwb [at] jeriwb.com. That just seemed like overkill and one more hassle, but now that I think about it, it does makes complete branding sense to go with having your domain name as your email.

  17. I agree. The email address is one of the ways I track back to the business sending it. If I do it, so do others. 🙂
    Geek Girl recently posted..Daily RoutinesMy Profile

  18. Great post. Yes, using a business email has definite advantage over a personal email address. I used to check the sender email address and if it’s one associated with a particular domain name, it feels like a genuine one. I have configured my Outlook Express client for accessing all those emails as it is very easy to manage. I’ve problem with this commentluv plugin throwing JSON request error. Please check.

    1. Hi George,
      I’m glad you enjoyed my post. Sounds like you have control of your email addresses. That’s great.

      Thanks for letting me know about the CommentLuv error that you’re getting. I’m not getting any errors from it. So, I’m not sure exactly how to correct it. I did delete the cache on the server. If you continue to encounter an error, t’s possible that deleting the cache on your computer could possibly help too. If you continue to get it, would you please let me know and tell me what you’re using for an Internet browser too? Thanks.
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..The 2012 Reader’s Choice Award for Best Marketing Strategy BlogMy Profile

  19. This is very good info. My only comment would be that your email address is in-fact part of your branding and should be thought of as such. Your email address should coordinate with your website and company name otherwise it will indicate to confusion. Many times people see your website and just assume your email address is @companyname.com. If you are using free mail like Gmail, Yahoo Mail then certainly it will give a bad effect to the readers. It also can create a perception of being unprofessional if you have an email address that doesn’t match your business. As much as you hope people don’t do it.

  20. So true and it’s so easy to make your email come from your own dot com. Godaddy and other webhosts have it within their services. The main domain on your account has an email box attached to it for free. I noticed that when I started sending out emails from this address I would get so many more replies to my questions to different companies. When I sent emails from my student’s account they wouldn’t even give me quotes for services that I wanted to buy!

    1. Thanks for sharing your experience with emails Evy. I’m surprised that a company would dismiss your requests for quotes from your student account. That doesn’t make sense from a business point of view.

      I don’t know of any website host that doesn’t offer free email accounts with hosting. I do chuckle when I see “unlimited” or 100+ email accounts. Who could possibly manage that many other than a company with 50+ employees. In that case, they would most likely have their own email servers.
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..Tips to Organize & Manage Your Documents and EmailMy Profile

  21. Pretty nice list of guides. This will really help about how my email marketing acheived success, thanks for sharing around.

    The good part should you have a brand in your email is any time you do an email campaign it can be most trusted than various other free email accounts. We’ve done this before and I managed to get more replies in our email brand.

  22. Have a good word to start the email address in the domain, whether admin @, support @, info @, this is a common and people can figure it out for the wrong use. that’s why I do not want to use it.

    1. Coleman, I like to use my name in my email address because it makes it personal but I also don’t mind having email addresses like support. I’ve never heard before that using an email address with one of those terms would make it easier to compromise it.
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..The Powerful WordPress Text WidgetMy Profile

  23. A very informative article and lots of really honest and forthright comments made! This certainly got me thinking a lot about this issue so thanks a lot for posting!

  24. I used to be good about using an email at my domain. I just got tired of logging into my hosting control panel and webmail checker. I know you can set them up in an email client or other, but I forget to switch it to my domain name. So I end up sending with a personal address by accident. I use a support ticket system for a lot of my email, which sends as my domain name. I still can’t kick the habit of using my personal email though. I do know a few professionals or semi-professionals that I correspond with by personal email though.
    Ray recently posted..YouTube Videos are They Worth the EffortMy Profile

    1. Hi Ray,
      I understand what you mean about accidentally using a personal email address instead of your business address but it does become a habit. 🙂 I have more than one business email which makes it even more confusing. Sometimes, I’ll forget which email address a client is used to seeing. Since all of my emails are organized in separate folders for each client, I often will open an email that they’ve sent to me and hit the reply button. That way, their address populates and it defaults to the proper account. It also helps because I can see the style that I use when I write to them. (With some clients, I’m very casual and with others, I always include my signature line.)
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..Commenting On Blogs – What Strategy Works for You?My Profile

  25. I agree. I have my logo, website, Tweeter ID and Facebook page on my email signature. It is a small billboard for my website and it costs nothing to do. Any time you can send, communicate or make an impression it increases your visibility and brand awareness. I currently use Google but I will soon move over to my email address attached to my domain name.
    Susan Cooper recently posted..Lesson From My Roses: by Cheryl TherrienMy Profile

  26. Very interesting article, i really enjoyed reading all about it and learning more about what i should do, thank you for sharing this information.

  27. Interesting and well-written post. I am very much amazed by the effects of email addresses. Before I thought about these addresses as any other email accounts and sometimes I was even annoyed because I have to keep adding accounts in order to log in and check various emails I received from different companies and organizations. I never knew email addresses could be use as a way to brand a company, and it’s completely free! This post offers some really helpful tips, especially since I want to open up my company someday. One quick question though, what do you exactly mean by harvesting emails? What can people get from spamming? I just think they are annoying but do your personal information get released if others keep spamming you?

    1. Hi Carrie,
      There are companies that use software to crawl the web looking for email accounts. (That’s referred to as harvesting.) In turn, they sell the email addresses to businesses that use them to spam people. In some cases, the company that uses the software uses the email addresses themselves. It can be annoying or it can be a major issue resulting in lost productivity.

      One of my email addresses was recently compromised and on an average business day, I was dealing with close to 1,000 spam emails to that account. For business reasons, I chose to not delete that account. Instead, I replaced my anti-virus software with one that had better spam controls. Still, it is costing me time to manage the spam folder and as someone else here mentioned, there’s always the risk of a legitimate email from a potential client getting caught. Harvesting emails must be profitable in itself.
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..Is Your Email Address Part of Your Brand?My Profile

      1. Thank you for your reply and your informative explanation. It’s been very helpful and greatly appreciated!
        I agree that spamming must be profitable in some ways, otherwise companies won’t do it at all. I am guessting that maybe some companies believe that sending emails to a vast majority of people help to promote their businesses. But people don’t generally read spam do they? And I think that people get quite annoyed when they get spammed. Wouldn’t that create a negative impact on the companies themselves and deviate them from their original intent of sending spam emails? Furthermore, whatever websites or tools or softwares these spammers use, isn’t it technically illegal to obtain other people’s personal information without their knowing or their consent?

        1. Carrie,
          I certainly agree with you. You got me wondering how profitable it still is (not as much according to several articles) and which countries harbor the most spammers. The answer to the last one surprised me. I know the U.S. has very weak laws in affect but I was surprised to find that we’re in the #1 spot for “The 10 Worst Spam Countries”. Anyone who is interested can check out the list here: http://www.spamhaus.org/statistics/countries/

          1. Hi Sherryl,
            I’m certainly not surprised that U.S., China, Russia, and UK are on the list, since these countries have a pretty large population of web-surfers. I was a bit surprised by Brazil, Ukraine, and Turkey since I don’t really hear about them in the news. Moreover, these three countries actually have a greater number of spammers than developed countries such as Japan and Germany, that’s where it shocked me. I guess you can’t really judge a country, or anything in general by their outer appearance. Thank you for the link. I guess you learn something new everyday!

  28. I agree it, it can make a brand ‘cheaper’ if I can see that they have only free email addresses like yahoo and aol mails. It looks much more professional, if they have their domain name in their email addresses integrated. I really like your point on this free way of advertising, I just cannot understand why people don’t use this nice and easy opportunity to promote their brand/website.

    1. Hi Tatjana,
      I totally agree with you. It does look more professional. I think sometimes people aren’t looking at the total picture from a branding perspective. Hopefully, anyone who is reading this thread will be convinced by the sheer number of people who believe that it’s an important part of your brand/image.

      Thanks for taking the time to join the conversation!
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..4 Simple Steps to Building Your Brand OnlineMy Profile

  29. Hi Sherryl,

    Great post! The importance of having your brand (especially when your brand is one of your keywords you are trying to rate for) name or personal persona in your email address is very important in creating authoritative image around the name. When receiving a mail from easily recognizable email address then it’s that much easier putting authority (once you have it) as to get a higher or quicker attention from the user.

    And yes – By all means. The spam bots using your email and putting it on lists sold to dodgy marketers are a real pain to receive – especially when you don’t have time to browse through a junk mail folder containing hundreds of emails. As you are sure to know – every now and then an email lands in your junk mail folder and can mean a lost in Business or a unhappy customer.

    1. Hi Anton,
      Thanks so much for mentioning the word “authoritative”. There is so much competition these days that building trust and the image of being the go-to person for a product or service is an integral part of being successful. Having your domain name as part of your email address may seem trivial to some but it is definitely part of the bigger picture.

      Spam is such a time waster. I’m pretty happy with the spam filter that I’m using now but you never know, I could have missed working with a potential customer because of it. I once found an email in my junk folder to an email address that I had not used actively for a couple of years. Although I was not longer marketing what that person was inquiring about, I was able to help them in another way and he has been a client of mine now for over two years. You never know when an opportunity is going to present itself.
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..Is Your Email Address Part of Your Brand?My Profile

  31. Pretty nice set of guides. This will really help on how my email marketing become successful, thanks for sharing over.

    The good part if you have a brand in your email is that when you do an email campaign it is most trusted than other free email accounts. I have done this before and I got more replies in my email brand.

  32. This is such as hugely important point. It’s the worst when you see a car / van with a free (gmail / yahoo) email address plastered across the side. It would look so much better if they invested $10 in a domain! Really feeling you here

    As for email client, I use Gmail. It’s fast, easily syncs with iPhone and has you can add on a whole load of apps through Gmail labs (canned responses is awesome). I found outlook a little less user-friendly

    1. Wow! I’m not sure I’ve noticed that scenario before. That’s really unfortunate. Hopefully, people will start to become more aware of the branding opportunity of their email address. We need to get the word out!

      Gmail certainly does have their fan base. One of my clients has an email address for her domain but every time she travels abroad to places with limited Internet access, she forwards it to her Gmail account.

      As for me, I’ve been using Outlook for probably close to 20 years. It’s second nature to me. I really would miss a lot of the functionality of it if I moved to another client and couldn’t accomplish the same things.
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..Is Your Twitter User ID Part of Your Brand?My Profile

    1. That’s smart. I have it the other way around. My Gmail address goes to my personally branded email. And I can manage everything from there. Spam really is a pain though, in the last two years I have changed my primary email 3 times.

      1. I was chatting with Meghan about using folders in Gmail. Do either of you know if that’s possible? In Outlook, I’m managing multiple accounts and I have more email folders set up than you probably would imagine.

        Spam got so bad for me, I seriouslyconsidered changing my primary account for this blog. After switching to BitDefender anti-spam software, it’s under control. I still get some spam but it’s automatically diverted to my spam folder. The filters are really good on this software. So, for now, I probably should be fairly content with my email client. I need to think on this one.
        Sherryl Perry recently posted..Tips to Organize & Manage Your Documents and EmailMy Profile

        1. Hello Sheryl. Google uses Labels. I don’t want to spam (just for information), here is Google’s own guide:

          http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=10708

          I personally wouldn’t use any spam filter, because it’s likened to Akismet, which sometimes let’s good stuff through. I want to see the latest offers and affiliate promotions. It’s the ‘your paypal account has been limited’ and ‘Your inheritance form Barrister so-and-so’ that I don’t want. I think you can nuke them by email and topic? Not sure 🙂

          1. Hi Ivin,
            Labels? I didn’t know that and would never have associated labels with folders. Thanks for the info and the link!

            This is a great discussion and should help other people as well as me. (So far, I’m leaning towards sticking with Outlook because I’m so familiar with it.)

  34. One challenge sometimes is when you run more than one website. Which email do you use. And that is one advantage of using a mail program like MailChimp and Aweber etc. It can send very professionally from your allocated url website.
    And I have friends who use google with their domain in the address rather than just google. It is about being creative

    1. That’s a great point Roberta. At one point, I was managing about 40 different email addresses in Outlook. I’m probably down to actively using about 10 now. As long as I’m replying, it’s really easy to manage them. It’s when I’m creating a new email that I need to conscious of which account I want to send it from. Choosing a good mail program is so important.
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..Do you Brand Yourself, Your Company, or Your Product on Social Media Sites?My Profile

  35. Hi Sherryl,

    I am surprised that people still use a gmail account for emails. I include my domain, twitter and LinkedIn but only as linked text. The main reason is I have found Outlook sometimes blocks images and means you can’t see the images.
    Susan Oakes recently posted..What Is Your Style?My Profile

    1. Hi Susan,
      It is surprising but there still are quite a few people who do this. I think part of the problem is that some people are leery that it’s going to take a lot of time to manage multiple email accounts or they simple don’t want to have to log onto a second place. They may not realize that with the proper email client, it’s relatively easy to manage multiple email accounts.

  36. Sherryl — thanks for starting this discussion. It does surprise me when I see a business use AOL or gmail for email instead of their own domain name. Keyuri, thanks for the video which was very instructive. I’m use an iMac and use the Mail program. I will hop on these tips to see how I can enhance my email signature. Thanks, everyone, for all the good ideas!
    Jeannette Paladino blogging, branding recently posted..Stuck Trying to Learn WordPress? WPBeginner Offers Tutorials and TipsMy Profile

  37. The spambots are a step ahead – they’ve figured out how to read those [at] email addresses!

    1. That is true Dave. I originally posted this article in 2010. (I thought I had added that in the post but obviously I didn’t.) Since it’s the 4th of July “weekend” for me, I decided to brush this post off, update it (a little) and use it again. As I got up this morning, it occurred to me that I should have changed that paragraph. Thanks for keeping me on my toes! 🙂
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..Is Your Email Address Part of Your Brand?My Profile

  38. Agree with you completely Sherryl. When a company use gmail or something similar I get the feeling something’s wrong with it. Honestly if it’s not a restaurant I know or something similar I would just delete the email. It gives the impression they are not serious. Unfortunately there are a lot of dodgy people out there wanting to get money for nothing. They usually use gmail:-)

    If I used my blog for business I would have done all you are suggesting.

    Checked with my host and yes I have free email for catarinasworld.com – just not sure what I should do with it? Any ideas?
    Catarina recently posted..How hackers swipe your Linkedin passwordMy Profile

    1. Catarina,
      That’s an interesting question. You say that you don’t use your blog for your business. Are you building a brand for your business or are you the brand? If that’s the case, you may want to consider reserving your name (as a dot com) and setting up an email address there. You wouldn’t have to build a website for that domain. You could simply set up a 301 redirect to your CatarinasWorld.com website. Then, you could use your CatarinaAlexon.com email address for your professional emails. (Personally, I would add the CatarinasWorld.com URL in the signature line for that email account.).

      Your blog represents you well as “an International Businesswoman and Writer”. In addition to being a portfolio of sorts for your writing skills, it could also result in driving more traffic to your blog.
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..Do you Brand Yourself, Your Company, or Your Product on Social Media Sites?My Profile

      1. My blog is just personal branding. The photo from Riyadh to show how international I am and so forth.

        Maybe I should try using the catarinasworld.com email address for fun:-) Could install it in Windows mail, couldn’t I? If nothing else I could use it for my blog.

        To use my name as an email address is far too pretentious for Sweden, unfortunately. But it’s a good idea for the rest of the world.
        Catarina recently posted..How hackers swipe your Linkedin passwordMy Profile

        1. Hi Catarina,
          I think setting up and using that email for your blog would be a good idea. That’s interesting that using your name would be looked upon as pretentious in Sweden. Here in the U.S., it’s fairly common and expected to brand ourselves. I even include my name in the title of my blog to help with SEO. I have yet to create the website for the dot com I own for my name though and that is simply because I have not made it the priority that it deserves. Some day soon, I will get to it.

  39. Amen. I have converted many people through the use of my essenceofbeing.me email address. It isn’t related to my website, but a remnant of one of my former blogs. I’ve kept it for its uniqueness. It really gets people interested in learning more about me. Great for reaching out to potential clients.

  40. This is such a simple yet powerful idea. Every single business email should have links. Here is one of my favorite videos on how to add link icons to your email signature (for outlook) youtube.com/watch?v=hz4EBW8H-cU

    1. That is a great video tutorial Keyuri! Thanks so much for sharing. I love Naoma’s signature line with the social media buttons that are linked to her profiles. That is a great idea. Including her photo is a nice touch too. Viewing that makes me realize that I really need to spiff my signature line up!

      Even though Naoma is using Outlook in her example, what she has done can be recreated using other email clients as well. I endorse Keyuri’s recommendation to watch this.
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..Utilizing Social Media to Build Brand Awareness and AuthorityMy Profile

  41. The good thing w/a google email is that IF you have your own domain name and you use gmail you can set up gmail to filter ALL of your mail to go DIRECTLY into gmail and you can send right from gmail w/out leaving using your domain credentials. That’s what I do
    —
    Chris
    Chris Jennings recently posted..Where Do You WriteMy Profile

    1. Thanks for the info about Gmail Chris. Now, I remember that was one of the pros that I heard about using it. I just replied to Meghan that I probably should stick with Outlook. I really like the folders to organize my email. I can probably do that with Gmail too. I have email addresses for multiple domains. I should probably experiment with one or two to try it out.
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..Do you Brand Yourself, Your Company, or Your Product on Social Media Sites?My Profile

  42. I love personalizing my email signature! Not only do I get to promote my company’s website and blog, but I get to let people know that I’m not a random person–I’m a young professional making a difference in the world. I also include my company phone number in my signature because I know some people prefer verbal communication, especially if there’s a timely issue.

    We use Microsoft Office in my office and I really like it. You can use shortcuts (Ctrl + N for a new email, or Delete to delete an email), and I don’t think you can with Gmail. I can also schedule meetings and reminders with co-workers and have pop-ups to remind me.

    1. Hi Meghan,
      Thanks for the tips about email signatures! I hadn’t even mentioned those. I include my tag-line and my Twitter ID too. It is definitely. (Maybe you and some others can help me convince a few people that it’s a great opportunity to brand yourself.)

      I think I would be lost without MS Office. Now that I’m thinking more seriously about it, what would I do with all my folders? I really depend upon Outlook and may be a little addicted to it. 🙂
      Sherryl Perry recently posted..Will Documenting Something Now Save You Time Later?My Profile

      1. Oh boy, I didn’t even think about the folders! I have a personal Gmail account and haven’t found a way to filter incoming emails into folders like I do with MS Outlook. And I’m right there with you when it comes to being addicted–I make folders for everything!

  43. Funny, I was just thinking about this. I see sites all of the time where they have branding everywhere, a professional logo, full domain — and the contact us email points to Yahoo Mail. Doh! Something that is so simple to setup can portray such little professionalism… Thanks for the reminder, I’m going to go bug some clients about this!

    1. Good luck bugging them Ryan. It really is for their own good. (I have a feeling that a client or two of mine may change their mind too after reading this post.) I have one client who is a commercial fisherman. (He farms Taylor Bay scallops which are a sort of a delicacy.) He at least has moved from an AOL account to Gmail but in his eyes, he’s making huge technological strides by having a website (which a family member convinced him of) and answering any emails at all. 🙂
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