According to a recent study, people receive on average 121 emails per day, that's more than 44K emails each year. Chances are, your inbox is probably flooded with emails too.
But the question is, “Are you opening each and every one of them?
Nobody does. And the same thing applies to your business emails too.
Ask yourself: What will make my audience open the emails my company sends?
Using a free personal email address such as "yournamehere@gmail.com" could actually be preventing your emails from being opened and read. I'll explain how this could be the case as well as other reasons you should consider a branded email address below.
Top 5 Reasons to Use a Branded Email Address
Listed below are the reasons we’ll taking a closer look at:
Create an Outstanding First Impression
Build Trust & Credibility
Maintaining a Professional Image
Reduce Risk of Being Marked as Spam
A Branded Email is Affordable
Create an Outstanding First Impression
First impression matters, they just do.
When a consumer is looking for professional help with their situation, they want to know that they can rely on your company to provide that professional fix they're looking for.
If your email isn’t professional or appears un-branded, you might not be leaving the impression of professionalism that you want. A generic email will be projecting inexperience, and perhaps worse, may make your audience doubt whether you are a real business or not.
A branded email feels professional and serious.
Build Trust & Credibility
Consumers have become more cautious when it comes to their email, and with good reason. According to one study, cases of identity theft and fraud are on the rise. It’s no wonder, therefore, that people are afraid of spams and being scammed in this digital world now more than ever.
In fact, seventy-four percent of consumers in a Verisign survey would trust a company-branded email address more so than a free email address.
One reason may be because a branded email shows your customers that your business is legitimate and established. Not to mention, every time you send out an email, you’re promoting your business’s name, not your free email provider’s name. It grows your brand.
Maintain a Professional, "Bigger" Image
One of the biggest lessons you will ever learn in the professional world is that you always need to sound professional during your first interaction with your audience. Having a strong brand image can go a long way to winning business.
If you don’t, your audience may take you for someone who’s not worthy of their time and money.
Reach out to me at "name@company.com" sounds way better than reaching out to me at "nickname@gmail.com."
It looks a lot more professional and makes you sound like you are the real deal. For smaller companies, it can help you look bigger than you actually are and compete with the larger providers.
Having a branded email will help you position yourself as a business that's well-established, genuine, and will help to ensure your prospective clients that they should trust you with the safety of their property and more importantly, their family.
Reduce the Mark of Being Flagged As Spam
Worried about your emails hitting the spam folder? You should be.
If you don’t use a professional email address, the chances your email could be flagged as spam, will be a lot higher. That’s because anyone can utilize a generic email address.
However, not everyone has access to a professional branded email. You will have to buy a domain to create a professional branded email address for your business. Some malware and spam filters will automatically disable as well as reroute emails from personal mail address to Junk folders.
However, if your email address is professional, the chances of your emails hitting the spam or junk folder are comparatively low.
A Branded Email is Affordable
There's a myth out there that getting a branded email is expensive and difficult to set up. That might have been the case at one point, but that's no longer the case today.
There are a number of low-cost branded email options out there that have a user friendly interface. Here at LMM, we use the Google G Suite for branded email, work calendar, online file storage, and so much more.
Setting it up is pretty quick and easy and it comes with a host of other tools for your business. Don't feel comfortable setting this up yourself, no problem; we have set up G Suite for a number of our clients for just $10 per email a month.
Conclusion
What this means is that if you haven’t already been using a professional email address while sending mail to your audience, you could be hurting your business. With the high degree of competition that already exists, why wouldn't you give your company every advantage.
If you're looking to grow your contractor business, take the first step today, and learn how we can help with our all-in-one contractor marketing platform.