The purpose of a professional email is to, well, look more professional. While this isn’t an absolute necessity when just starting a business, it’s something just about every organization—no matter how small—should consider for the long term. But even individuals should consider the benefits of having a dedicated professional email, as it can make you look more appealing on job applications as well. 

A professional email address adds a level of legitimacy to you or your company that just can’t be captured by a generic, free option. When people see you’ve taken the time to create your own professional email, it conveys that you’re serious about your work. Furthermore, a company that has a generic email might be seen as potentially untrustworthy in the eyes of some people. For these reasons, opting for a professional email address is generally the best option for anyone building a business. 

Know Where to Go for Professional Email Services

Now that you understand why you should consider creating a professional email address, it’s time to start thinking about the logistics of it. The first step is simply knowing what options are available to you. 

There are two main ways people typically set up a professional email address for their business. The first is to decide on an email provider (typically one of the larger, well-known companies), and create a professional email address that relates to your company. It’s sometimes possible to bundle professional email services with other online necessities, such as domain and web hosting, or marketing tools. Looking for deals like this can help businesses save some capital when they need to create a professional email address. 

The clear benefit to setting up your professional email address through a web host or related service is you’ll have better integrations, along with stronger pricing options. One downside, however, is you might not be able to get the absolute best services for each of these individual areas when you’re getting them all from the same place. This is just something you’ll have to consider in terms of pros and cons when looking around at options. 

Decide on a Naming Mechanism

Once you’ve determined the service you want to use for your professional email address, it’s time to actually get down to creating it. There are two elements to this. First, you’ll want to decide the actual email domain that comes after the @ symbol. Often, it makes most sense to just use the name of your business, or the organization you’re doing business as. If your company is called Best Email Marketing Inc., it might look something like yourname@bestemailmarketing.com. There’s some room to play around with this, especially if you’re operating an organization that leans to the creative side of things. Recognizable slogans or catch phrases can also be used in your email domain. 

Once you’ve determined your email domain, it’s time to think of how you want to organize the various accounts associated with the domain. You might want to have dedicated accounts for specific tasks, such as accounting@yourprofessionaldomain.com, or contact@yourprofessionaldomain.com. Doing this can make it easier for people to reach out to you in an efficient manner. If you’re going to use your actual name, or have several employees, you’ll want to come up with a system creating email addresses. The most obvious is to just do firstnamelastname@yourprofessionaldomain.com. 

Keeping things consistent makes it easier for you and others to send emails without having to search for an address. Furthermore, standardization can help you spot malicious phishing emails, which are an extreme danger for businesses. It’s a known fact phishing emails account for the mass majority of malware delivery, at over 90 percent of all instances. When looking for a professional email provider, you’ll also want to consider what kind of services they offer to protect your business from these kinds of attacks. 

Getting a professional email address is an important step for increasing the legitimacy of any organization. Knowing the best way to go about this can help you find the best option for your needs.

This is a Sponsored Feature