Domains. Email addresses, and your business
I’ve noticed several times over the last few weeks this situation:
A small business – it might be a plumbing company, printshop, whatever….. – has their website plastered on their truck / flyer / billboard / facebook ad / etc. They’ll have the company name, a phone number, maybe a phrase describing what they do – in short, it’ll look pretty good, and is probably pretty effective.
…and then I get to the contact email address.
If you are going to go to the trouble of having a website and your own domain (www.joesplumbing.com) – you really ought to use an email address from that domain as your primary contact.
Why?
Using whatever@joesplumbing.com will reinforce your website, your brand name, and make it easier for potential customers to remember you. There is also the advantage of consistency – clients only have to remember ONE domain (joesplumbing.com) – not 2 or three (Wait – was the email contact at yahoo.com? hotmail? live.com? uhhhhhhhh……)
Granted, this is ONLY an advantage if your domain makes sense for your business – but it is definitely worth doing well!
What about spam?
Most hosting plans will offer some type of spam filtering. The plans over at MidGaHosting.com all do. It is a fairly capable spam filtering system that catches the majority of the spam received, and it is easily configurable in the hosting control panel. You just make a selection for each email address on how aggressive you want the filter to be.
If you need something heavier-duty, try the hosting plans offered by the MaconMacGuy. You can add on an industrial strength spam filter for $12/year per email address that will catch virtually every piece of spam the world throws at you. It is remarkable effective – and can save you some significant time in handling email.
Another Option
Setup what is known as an “alias” email account – again, easily done in your hosting control panel. An alias account isn’t a “real” email account, but the hosting will automatically forward any emails sent to info@joesplumbing.com, for example, to Joe’s real account at Gmail or Yahoo (which then spam filters the incoming mail). The DISADVANTAGE of this approach is that your customer will email info@joesplumbing.com, but will receive a reply from joesplumbing@gmail.com – and this can be confusing. It could also possibly trigger their spam filter.
Contact the MaconMacGuy for more information and ideas for using technology in YOUR business!
