Gal Friday Tips

Hello and Happy New Year! January 5, 2023

Wow, here we are in 2023 already. How time flies. After a busy holiday season, it is time to get back to work and routines.

Today's blog is about E-mail addresses, and how to present a professional email address and email to your clients. I hope you enjoy the read.

Kind regards,

Sheila MacKay

Front Line Gal Friday

Is Your E-mail Address Hurting Your Business?

Learn the benefits of having a professional email domain

We all use e-mail every day. And while social media gets most of the buzz, it’s actually e-mail (social media’s less sexy roommate) that gets the work done, day in and day out.

All this means that if you own and operate a small business, you need to be sure that you’re taking full advantage of this wonderful tool. Step one is paying attention to how you come across when you send emails to other people.

Here are two big mistakes that I see repeatedly in my work with solo professionals and small business clients:

1. A generic or hard-to-understand line. Most of us pay a lot of attention to the “subject” line of our emails. It’s the headline and the thing that entices people to open our emails in the first place.

But the “from” line is even more important. Why? Because that tells the recipient who is sending the e-mail in the first place. If it’s a friend, relative or company I do business with, I’m very likely to open it (regardless of the subject line). If I don’t recognize the sender, I’m very likely to assume it’s spam and click delete.

Say, for example, I got an e-mail message from “Gabbi,” with a blank subject line. Well, I don’t know any Gabbi. I would therefore one click away from deleting it until, at the last second, I might remember a woman named Gabriella who works in customer service for one of my clients. She could be sending me some important information. It would make me wonder: How many of her emails are regularly deleted?

Another common faux pas of this sort is when the “from” line is simply an email address. That’s okay if your full name is part of your address, but not so good if your e-mail address is something like hotchick576@gmail.com.

What’s the solution? Try something like this: First and Last Name | Company. My first and last name, followed by my company name, either of which may help you realize who I am.

2. Not using a custom domain for email. You may not know this, but if you own a domain (e.g., www.mycompany.com), you can create e-mail addresses (name@mycompany.com) that use that domain name (and at no additional cost).

Unfortunately, I frequently see emails from small businesses and solo professionals who use Gmail, Verizon, Comcast, Yahoo!, and other providers to act as their domain. An example is companyname@gmail.com.

Not only does this approach come across as less professional looking, but it also represents a missed opportunity to help people find your website. When you create an email address that uses your custom domain, you are constantly advertising your company and where it can be found on the web.

Like any tool, e-mail is only as good as the way in which it’s used. Polish up your approach and start getting the full benefit from this important aspect of your business!