Imagine you get an email from corporate@mcdonalds.com. It sounds legitimate, as long as you expected a message from McDonald’s. Now imagine an email from mcdonaldscorporate@gmail.com. That immediately looks like spam, junk or a phishing attempt.
Anyone with Internet access can create a free email address through Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook.com and many others.
The number of small businesses operating under a free email address is incredible. Not only is it unprofessional, it creates immediate skepticism in recipients and makes it easier for criminals to impersonate the company.
For example, if Pioneer Landscaping uses PioneerLandscaping@gmail.com, a criminal could easily impersonate the owner with PioneerLandscapingCo@gmail.com and ask Pioneer’s customers for updated credit card numbers and contact information. It wouldn’t be difficult, either, since any available @gmail.com address is free to the public.
What makes an email address professional?
A professional business email address uses your company’s own website domain, such as contact@pioneer.media or corporate@mcdonalds.com. Besides looking trustworthy, it lets you protect your domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC records, which help your emails reach inboxes and make it harder for scammers to send email as you. (Read best practices to ensure email deliverability.)
You can still use a familiar app: business email on your own domain works through providers like Google Workspace (Gmail) or Microsoft 365 (Outlook), or through your web host.
We offer custom email addresses as part of our website hosting and management service. Contact us if you’re interested in this service for your business.
About the author
Leighton Smith is Pioneer Media’s website designer, web developer and webmaster, based in East Tennessee. As a solopreneur, he is each client’s one point of contact and has built hundreds of websites since learning to code in 2006.
