It always surprises me how many businesses have a professional website address, yet fail to have a consistent email address. If you own the domain name, you generally get at least 5 email addresses that go with it. This means you can have both personal names and general contact email addresses that match your domain name. For example, I own www.janebrocklebank.com and as part of that I have up to 10 email addresses which means that I can have jane@janebrocklebank.com, sales@janebrocklebank.com, contact@janebrocklebank.com etc.
Why does it matter?
Nothing says “I’m not serious about my business” more than a mismatched collection of contact details. If you want to appear polished and professional, the following should match up:
- Your company name
- Your website address
- Your email address(es)
If they don’t, people will get confused and wonder if they are dealing with the same company, or even worse, wonder if they are dealing with a dodgy company.
If you have a mobile telephone number and a ‘generic’ email address (such as btinternet, gmail or Hotmail) it can make you seem less than professional. There’s nothing wrong with working from your garden shed, but surely you don’t want to give that impression to the world, especially if you’re dealing with online sales or selling high value, bespoke items.
How do you make it work?
If you don’t know how to do it, get some help. Not everyone has the technical know-how to sort out their email addresses (I might include myself here!) but there are plenty of people out there that do – it’s well worth making the investment in some expert help for the sake of your company image.
If you’re running a professional business, make sure your image matches up to the service you are providing. Attention to detail reflects on you and your product.