With all of the work you do to establish your company and attract new customers, don't let a little thing like an email address distract your potential customers.

Here are a few reasons why an email address with your domain name is important and what you should expect from your email.

Professionalism: Putting your business name in an email profoundly shifts the relationship you have with your customer. It states that you are a professional and reputable and it builds trust. Plus, your email address is constantly building your brand identity, putting your companies name in front of customers, suppliers, vendors, prospects and partners. Ask yourself, which email would you be most likely to respond to when hiring a business professional This email address is hidden from email harvesters via JavaScript or This email address is hidden from email harvesters via JavaScript ?

Security: Paid email typically has anti-virus and spam filters to keep your inbox clean and secure from dangerous spam. It also has email encryption capabilities with password protection, so the information you send and receive stays private. Are you a doctors office emailing client records? A real-estate agent emailing back and forth contracts? Do you send information of any kind about your clients? If you are not on a secure email exchange that information is ripe for the picking. Dont allow yourself to be attacked and open up a world of misfortune to yourself or your clients.

Privacy: Free email services scan all of your in and outgoing email to get as much information about you and your clients that they can. Your information is a free for all; it is used for advertising purposes and to build an email data base and is sometimes sold. They collect as much information as possible about you as a user. That free email is actually a contractual agreement between you and the provider, giving them access to all your data and the ability to do whatever they want with it

So, are you ready to embrace a hosted email address? Have you already done so? What services do you or your business use? As always let me know your thoughts and that this is useful!