Many people going into online business make simple mistakes or overlook things that could hurt their overall success online. When building web credibility with your customers, detail is everything. Having a custom domain email adds to your business’s overall credibility. It not only shows that you are a professional operation but an official, legitimate operation.

 Here are 10 reasons you should be using a custom domain email over a third-party service.

1. They give your business Credibility.

 Using a non-custom domain email can look like you’re not sure what you’re doing. It gives off the impression that you are winging it and just using whatever free service comes your way. It can call into question whether or not you are using the top resources and services to secure your customer’s information and even payment information.

 Take this simple exercise as an example: Which business would you trust more when handing over credit card numbers, PayPal payments and so on?

retailstore1882@gmail.com
or
donna@retailstore.com

2. They are Memorable

 If you are using a third party email service, most common emails go very fast, which leaves you with using long and unusual email names.

 For example: name18.businessname16@gmail.com

 Having this type of email can cause issues with people remembering your email or even misspelling your email. And then you have the added issue of remembering which third party email service you are using? Is Gmail? Or Hotmail? Or Yahoo? Or Outlook? etc. . . .

 When you have a custom domain email, people are more likely to remember your email and spell it right; especially if it’s the same as your website’s domain name. They simply have to remember your name and your website domain.

3. They’re Uniform

 With credibility, you also create a uniform, company-oriented persona. With official company emails and employee emails all having a unified look, it makes them more memorable and gives off the impression your company is larger than it might be.

 For example:

employeename@company.com

info@company.com

support@company.com

no-reply@company.com

4. They can bring you Brand Awareness

 When sending emails using the same domain as your website, it can help raise awareness for your brand. If you are emailing people outside your circle or your emails get forwarded, people can see your website’s domain name right in the email, opening up the possibility of those people checking out your website.

5. They help build Legitimacy

 With email scams still prevalent today, people use the domain name the email is coming from as a first confirmation of if the email is legitimate or not.

 Let’s say you get an email from Target or some other company, stating that there was an issue with an order, or payment or shipping or reset your password and they need you to do something to fix the issue. The best way to gauge whether this is a scam is to look at the email address. If the domain is misspelled or doesn’t quite look right, it’s the first sign that this email is a scam.

 Even if the email you sent was really from you and is legitimate, there’s a strong possibility your customers might not think so and toss the email into their trash or spam folder.

6. They Prevent Imposters

 When using a non-custom domain email, you open yourself and your business up to scammers and trolls. Say for instance you and your employees all use Gmail. And you all use a similar setup with yourname.companyname@gmail.com. You might think to yourself, well I have our names and company name, that seems pretty official and standard, right?

 However, this method is not secure. Anyone using Gmail could set up an account under your name. They simply create a username with their name, your business name, and then they are off to the races impersonating your business.

 Since you’ve established this type of email is “legitimate” from your business, anyone can create one just like it and start requesting sensitive information from business contacts, soliciting payments, donations or other sensitive information from customers.

7. You have full Ownership over them

 With a custom domain email on a custom server, you have complete control over all your email accounts, and you fully own the content in them.

 If an employee is fired or quits, you have complete control over their email and restricting their access. With a third-party email service, you and your company do not legally own the email if the employee has set it up. Which means without the former employee’s help, you can’t access their archive of emails, which could be vital to future business deals. Also, if the employee setup social media accounts or other third party services for your business, it would be near impossible to prove you own those accounts or reset those account’s passwords.

8. They give you Privacy

 Using a third party free email service makes you, your business and your customers subject to that third party’s privacy policies. This means you don’t have full control over your emails privacy and you can’t guarantee your customers how information sent to you through that email will be used. Most third party free email services use algorithms and other methods to snoop through your emails to find better ways to sell products to you. If you have a privacy policy on your website, (which is required in at least 17 states) you could be opening yourself up to breach of contract if your privacy policy doesn’t take into account your third party email usage.

9. They give you control over Spam Filters

 With third-party services, you are pretty much subject to whatever they decide your spam filters should be. And those services often update their spam filters to block emails from IP address ranges, entire server networks or domains, which could cause you to miss important emails from customers or business associates.

10. They give you Security (SSL) options

 Many third party email services don’t give you control or options on security. You are stuck using whatever they give you or are charged an extra fee to have SSL security. Using your own custom domain email on your own server allows you to have complete control over your email security. You can make sure every email sent from your account is secure, no matter if you are sending it from your computer, phone or tablet device.