Six Reasons You Need A Branded Email Address For Your Small Business

You’re in business to make money. Getting people to spend their money even for something really cool isn’t easy, though.

It’s especially difficult to do when you present yourself more like a person trying to con someone out of their money rather than provide excellent service.

Branded email is a great way to reduce doubts that your small business is legitimate and will provide a quality service. If you spent the time to build your small business online presence with a branded email, you must be more legitimate.

Would you trust a business with an email address that ends in @gmail.com?

Get a professionally branded email and turn every email you send into a trust and brand awareness campaign.

If you’re not clear on what a branded email address is yet, it’s time to get clear on that before we continue.

What Is Branded Email?

A branded email address is one that ends in @businessname.xyz instead of @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, or any other ending from a free email provider.

As you can see above, the version on the left is a generic email address from a free email address (from Gmail). The version on the right is a branded email address. Branded email addresses are a bit more complex to set up, but they’re worth it. With the right setup, you’ll get more than just a branded email address. We’ll get into that later.

Now that you know what a branded email address is, let’s get into the reasons why it will benefit your small business.

Six Reasons

Make sure you seriously consider these six reasons you need a branded email address for your small business.

1. It’s More Professional

Your business is serious and it should be taken seriously. Sending an email from a free email account with the ending of @gmail.com or something likewise isn’t a good look for professionalism.

A business that wants to be taken seriously should act like they do. You’ll be taken more seriously with a branded email address. You’ll appear more established, trustworthy, professional, serious, and together.

You won’t appear to be a fly-by-night business who’s looking to take advantage of customers. Unprofessional isn’t a good look for a small business especially when you’re trying to get established.

A branded email can make the difference between your small business succeeding and floundering trying to gain trust with customer’s who are hesitant to do business with you.

2. Promote Your Brand

Every time you send an email, your brand name is not only seen in the body of the email but the email address. Many people will see your small business has a website and you take it seriously.

A consistent and complete brand will not only show that extra level of professionalism, it’ll expand your name further. Your email address is seen in a lot of places, not just those you send email to. If you comment on a blog or add your email to a directory site your email address will be visible.

This is one more opportunity for you to brand your business, look professional, and have people see your brand. You probably put your email address on your business card that you hand out. It doesn’t help promote your brand when you have an @gmail.com email address.

Gmail is awesome but a business with an @gmail.com email address doesn’t work to build trust very well.

3. Keep Work Separate

Keeping work separate from personal email is helpful in many different ways. even if you don’t want to keep it separate, you should funnel everything through a more professional account rather than lack the professionalism.

You can keep all your business emails, contacts, documents and more separate with the right setup. Business email suite’s such as G Suite and Office 365 give your professional branded email address and much more to manage your business.

Everything can easily be kept separate from your personal account. If you choose not to keep it separate, it’ll at least keep it professional.

4. More Robust

I just mentioned above G Suite and Office 365. While this goes beyond branded email, these will make your business more robust. They provide things like Office applications or Google applications including docs, slides, and sheets.

I use G Suite and am able to manage all my email, contacts, calendars, files, and documents all in G Suite. It’s an easy way to manage a large portion of your business while still having the comfort of Gmail.

Not only do these online applications make it easier to manage large portions of your business, but they also work nicely together to make life easier.

5. Consolidate Business Applications

Adding to the more robust theme, a branded email won’t make things more complex while making them more robust. You’ll be able to get rid of the many ways you might use to create a document, manage contact, and manage your calendar.

If you get a branded email address with either Office 365 or G Suite, you’ll also get access to applications that help you manage documents, contacts, and time. I am able to have my entire business application suite branded also.

Google Drive will no longer be Google Drive and instead become your business drive with your business logo. I now Have Exprance Drive along with all the other Google Suite applications branded to my business. Everything I use to manage my communications, email, and time either all run through G Suite or syncs with it.

I do use an external CRM but it syncs everything with my G Suite. Everything is consolidated and easier to manage.

6. Less Email Being Flagged As SPAM

Did you know that businesses are more likely to mark email from a free provider as spam?

They are. If you have an @gmail.com (or other free email provider email address) email address then your emails are at higher risk of being marked as spam. Most of the spam emails I receive come from free email providers. You don’t want to be lumped in with them.

A branded email address will help separate your emails from spammers. Your emails will become less risky than if it ends with @outlook.com, @yahoo.com, or any of the other free email addresses.

Branded Email Done Right

There is a right way to do branded email for your small business and then there’s a wrong way. If you want to save a buck but not plan for the long-term, you can use a regular email application and your website host (if you have a website).

This isn’t the ideal strategy because you won’t benefit from many of the things mentioned above.

Going with an online email application such as Microsoft Office 365 or G Suite is ideal. You will get all the benefits from the reasons above and much more because of how robust they are.

Microsoft Office 365 is more expensive than G Suite but some prefer the Microsoft applications. Me, I prefer the Google applications and there’s the added benefit that it’s about half the price. Which one you choose all comes down to preference.

My favorite feature of G Suite is that I can use either the Gmail app or Inbox (by Google) app on my iPhone. I love Google Inbox so I’m not sure I’d be able to function without it.

Improve Your Image

It’s time for you to improve the image of your small business with a branded email address. You want to come across as professional, together, and trustworthy.

The solution that would benefit you depends on what you currently have. If you have a website already, the transition to a branded email is easy. Even if you’re already using a branded email, you can switch to a more robust email application such as Microsoft Office 365 or G Suite easily.

You can learn more about a professionally branded email for your business and contact us to help you improve your brand image.

Even if you don’t have a website and aren’t ready to invest in your business growth yet, you can always begin growing your online presence for free. I wrote a helpful free eBook that will help you grow your email list without even having a website. This will help you start growing your small business online presence without spending any money.