post by Stephanie Nelson
If you’re using a free email service such as Gmail or Yahoo, you may be costing your business money without you even knowing it, and you may be unwittingly putting your business email at risk.
When your email is tied to a free service (instead of to your own domain), you’re potentially sending a few messages to your clients and potential clients.
- You’re not serious enough about your business to invest in a domain/email address.
- You can’t afford a domain/email address, so your business isn’t doing well and/or may go under soon.
- You choose not to invest in even the smallest part of your business, so you can afford to be paid less than going rates for your industry.
In situations 1 and 2, you’re probably losing clients before you’re even given a chance because, let’s be honest, who wants to do business with someone that may not be around in a bit for one reason or another? In situation 3, you’re either losing business when your rate is deemed too high or you’re getting the business but undervaluing yourself – neither of which is great for a business owner.
In addition, some of these free services don’t offer adequate anti-spam, anti-virus, and anti-phishing protections, so you’re putting yourself AND anyone you email at risk. (Gmail happens to be the exception on this one.)
As if that’s not enough, if you use your free email service for your email newsletter, you’re violating the terms and conditions of use. The free services do not allow you to use their service for any sort of mass email. Should someone report you for spam (which I’ve posted on how easy that is for folks to do), you run the risk of having your email address shut down altogether.
Do yourself a favor. Spend the money. A domain is roughly $12 per year. Google’s G Suite, which allows you to use Gmail through your own domain, is around $5 per month. For less than $100 per year, you can save yourself a lot of headaches and potentially bring in so much more money!