A professional email address is, by definition, an email address used for business purposes. In the digital age, email is, without doubt, one of the most common forms of communication for many companies. If you are setting up email accounts for your company, you will want to select the right email address.
Why is a professional email address so important?
Your professional email address is going to represent your company and people will inevitably form first impressions based upon it. This will be the address that your clients and contacts use to contact you. As such, your business email address needs to be appropriate and memorable.
Conversely, if your email address could be classed as frivolous, inappropriate, or misleading, it could be identified as spam. In this case, your business communications could go completely undetected, or worse, your business email address could be blacklisted.
In order to minimise the chances of your messages being marked as spam, the email address should clearly show the person or the business from which the message originates. If the recipient can identify this when the email lands in their inbox, they are more likely to open the message, read it, and act on it.
It is important, therefore, that your business email address represents your firm clearly and appropriately. Check out our hints and advice to ensure that you select the perfect professional email for business.
Domain
Almost everyone has an email address and we are all familiar with @hotmail, @googlemail, or @gmail addresses. However, business email from a professional organisation should have a distinct domain name.
An email address with a company name after the @ is the hallmark of standard business email format. After all, anyone can have a joebrown12345@hotmail.com email address and nothing about this email address suggests that the communication is from a business.
Contrast this with an email address such as joebrown@smithsaccountancy.com. This lets you know exactly who is contacting you and that it is business correspondence. If you were to receive emails from both of these senders into your inbox, it is clear which one would be taken more seriously as a form of business communication.
A company domain in a business email address adds credibility and signifies that the contact is an authorised communication from an established business. Using a personal email address, with a Hotmail or Gmail domain can convey that the business is not fully established, or that perhaps the business is not fully on top of its technology and communications.
Don’t use a nickname
The part before the @ sign in an email address is also an important part of the address. This is commonly the name of the sender which means that the recipient immediately knows from whom the message has been sent. If you are using your own name, don’t be tempted to use a nickname. Any credibility gained from using a company domain after the @ sign will be immediately lost if the name prefacing it is “Dantheman” or “awesomeannie”.
Using your own name
It’s a good idea to use your name but there is no need to include middle names and if you have a particularly long or complicated name, it is fine to shorten or simplify it. In choosing an email address for business, generally, a first name and last name is sufficient but you could use your first initial and last name or your first name and initial of your last name.
Provided that it won’t cause confusion with other staff, you could use just a first or last name; all of these options are suitably professional and formal but do factor in potential growth in your workforce and the need for unique names.
No titles or personal information
The key when selecting your email address is to avoid any extraneous information so you should not use Mr, Miss, Ms, or Mrs or have any reference to gender. Even if your name is gender-neutral, there is no need to make any reference to your gender in the email address itself. Likewise, it is not advisable to include any reference to your ethnicity or religion. A business email address should not contain any personal information, it should be simple and professional.
Functional names
If the address will be used to send emails from a certain business function or it will receive communications to a group rather than to a particular individual, it may be helpful to have a more generalised username. Support@, sales@, or enquiries@, for example, are all perfectly acceptable options as an email address for business.
By following the above hints, you should be able to keep things simple and ensure that your business email address perfectly represents your company.
Grab your professional email address now
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