For years, I’ve urged every business I’ve met to swap their free e-mail for a domain-based account. It’s a small investment in time and money, but ultimately well worth it.

But why would you stop using a free e-mail account and change to something you’d pay for?

Well…what’s in a name?

How would your customers and prospects respond to a message from ilovecutekittens@verizon.net?

or a message from your doctor’s office from drluuuuuv@gmail.uk?

Picture the difference getting an appointment reminder from

service@charlandtech.com
vs
geekytechdood@aol.com

1. Generic domains (like verizon.net, charter.com, yahoo.com, gmail.com, and especially aol.com) are more likely to get caught in SPAM filters. Seriously, your junk mail folders are full of crud from hijacked yahoo, gmail, aol, hotmail, verizon, comcast, and rodgers accounts. Many of your recipients wouldn’t know how to find and whitelist you even if they realized they missed your mail.

2. Service-based addresses (like verizon.com, comcast,net, etc) won’t transfer after you terminate service. If you business moves from a Comcast city to a Charter town, you need to change addresses quickly. If you switch from DSL to cable you will lose your addresses.

3. Free addresses beg the question, “You can’t afford/can’t figure out/can’t hire someone to set up” your own domain? You can have the best website, most competent people working for you, but that e-mail from joe-mycompanycantaffordadoman@gmail.com hurts.

And then there’s security….but that’s another story. Free accounts are much more likely to be compromised than hosted e-mail on a modern paid platform.

So yes, we strongly recommend you move from your old aol, msn, verizon, charter, etc email to your own business e-mail.

Next time, we explain how we do this without interruption.