Email domains that are specific to a company help increase portability and branding.  To help your clients save money and improve their web presence, have them consider acquiring a company specific email domain.

Email Domain Issues to Consider

  • Because many small business owners publish their e-mail address from a domain that they clearly don’t own (i.e. Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL or MSN accounts), if they ever have to change ISPs, switching all their documents becomes an expensive proposition.  A typical small business owner has their e-mail addresses on everything from business cards to print advertisements to direct mail pieces and yellow pages ads.  Without a brand specific email domain, changing e-mail addresses is enough to bring on a major migraine.
  • When a company does have a specific email domain, if their ISPs’ raise prices, start giving horrendously poor customer service, or go out of business, it is easy for you to move the Web site and e-mail domain hosting to another ISP.  
  • The small business owner wedded to an inexpensive standalone dial-up account, is frequently unaware of the risks of not having their own email domain. As your small business clients’ virtual IT director, discuss these issues at the outset when planning a small business network.
  • If your clients do already have a company specific email domain, be sure to review the WhoIs domain name reports with them to be sure your clients really own the domain names in question (and that the contact information is correct.)
  • When the client has a dedicated email domain, all of the employees in the company can use the same email domain, which makes it easy for customers to communicate.
  • Finally, because most companies with a “dot com” presence follow this convention, having a consistent e-mail domain naming structure also promotes the Web site URL. For example, when people see our questions@ComputerConsulting101.com e-mail address in a direct mail piece, even if we don’t explicitly list the Web site URL, the vast majority will surmise that www.ComputerConsulting101.com is our Web site URL.
Bottom Line on Email Domains
Aside from protecting your clients from being orphaned or trapped by their ISPs, company based e-mail domains  help to strengthen your client’s branding and marketing identities. Consistency breeds brand-name recognition.  The cost is minimal to use an email domain that matches the website domain and the benefits are huge.

In this article, you’ve been introduced to Email Domains. To learn more about how you can improve your knowledge about Email Domains, just click here now to get access to a free one-hour audio training program on 5 Easy Ways to Grow Your Computer Consulting Business.