Working in the industry for over 10 years I’ve seen clients with all types of email addresses. Its important to think about what message your email address is sending your potential customers. Email may be the first contact a person has with your organization. Does your email address match the brand message you are trying to convey to your customers?
Choosing an Email that Suits your Brand
Clients registering a new domain and setting up hosting tend to setup [email protected]. I always try to have clients choose something a bit unique or something that pertains to their business. For instance I recently worked with an organization for Women’s Empowerment and I suggested that they setup the email [email protected]. I like going with an email address that is catchy or stands out from other company’s email addresses. As long as you own the domain (@yourdomain.com) you have options and can be creative when creating a new email address.
When choosing a generic email some are so common that spammers tend to guess the email address right off the bat and can start sending spam to it within a few days. Email addresses such as info@, accounts@, admin@ etc are commonly used addresses. Starting off with an account that receives spam may be okay when there are only a few spam messages a day but down the road you might get to the point where you get hundreds of spam messages and ultimately may consider abandoning the account because of spam.
Free Email Account Services
I’ve had clients create lovely new websites and then want to have a link to their gmail, hotmail, yahoo etc mailbox. To me using a free email service for your business can make your business seem inexperienced or unprofessional. In the past I’ve had clients post emails such ilovemycat431 at hotmail on their business website. Email addresses that don’t pertain to your name or your business have no place on a professional website.
Your Name in your Email Address
If you are using your name in your email address think about how easy it is to spell. For instance Jaclyn has different spellings and would lead users to mistype it. I’ve had clients with difficult names to spell opt for first initial, last name ie [email protected]. Or you might consider creating email aliases to catch mistypes of your name ie ann@, anne@, annie@ and forward messages to your main email address. I’ve had some clients use a nickname effectively if that’s a common name that people refer to them by. Sometimes though you have to consider your audience when using nicknames etc. A fun company targeting a younger audience could get away with that, but perhaps a legal office would send a negative message if they used a nickname for a lawyer.
Whatever email address you choose be thoughtful of its implications. It is something you will be using on different marketing materials so you want to choose something that you’ll be able to use for years to come.