Small Business Focus: Let’s talk about e-mail

This column is sponsored by BizLaunch, a division of Arlington Economic Development.

While small business owners communicate with their customers and stakeholders in numerous ways, e-mail continues to be a popular communication method. Thus, it’s essential that your e-mail is secure and represents your business well.

Since its inception in 2002, BizLaunch has helped over 80,000 clients start, grow or scale their businesses. Often, communicating with clients via e-mail using an address such as [email protected]. While there is nothing wrong to use a free e-mail service for personal use, you should think of your e-mail as your business card, and it should match your website domain, for example [email protected].

Let’s face it, anyone can use Gmail, AOL or Yahoo, and that’s the problem. By using a more generic e-mail, you’re missing the opportunity to add credibility and to personalize to your business. Additionally, these free e-mail providers aren’t necessarily free; remember those terms and conditions you agreed to but didn’t read?

For companies to provide free e-mail service, many sell these e-mails causing many small business owners to receive an enormous amount of spam, possibly missing essential messages from prospective clients, updates on grant applications and other important communication sent via e-mail. Additionally, since anyone can purchase these e-mails, small businesses are targets for phishing attacks putting vital information at risk.

The good news is that creating a customized e-mail is very affordable and straightforward. At BizLaunch, we like the easy button, and there are two simple ways businesses can easily customize their e-mail domain.

Arlington small business owners can apply for our ReLaunch program, and our tech experts at Nub8 can create a customized e-mail domain for your business. Many clients have already received this as part of their project scope with Nub8.

Businesses can quickly and affordably get a customized e-mail through Google Workspaces or Microsoft 365 if you prefer to do this yourself. Both services make it easy for clients to set up a customized e-mail, and data is stored securely in the cloud — able to be accessed on any internet-connected device.

The first step in securing your customized e-mail is purchasing a domain name. There are numerous places businesses can buy domains; however, since your business domain is essentially your digital billboard, here are some tips for selecting a domain name from our partner, Score.

While e-mail continues to be widely used, it’s essential that your e-mail address represents your business well and is secure. For support getting a customized e-mail contact your BizLaunch advisor today.