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Why Your Business Should Have More Than One Email Address

Posted 18 June 2007 at 3:12PM by David Crowther in Email and communications

One of the many fears a small business has ironically, is looking like it's a small business! You don't want potential customers thinking you're not up to the challenge or can't deliver the goods based on the size of your company. You know you can do the job, but for some people size does matter! (Yes guys, your worst fears are realised...)

So, many of us use all the tricks under the sun to 'appear' like a thriving medium sized business that can 'handle' the big jobs.

One of the easier ways of appearing bigger, as well as more established and professional is to employ a number of email addresses for your business. For example, if your company was called Widgets Ltd you could create the following addresses: sales_widgets@btconnect.com, support_widgets@btconnect.com, billing_widgets@btconnect.com to name a few.

This hints at the fact you have different departments within your organisation - what the customer doesn't know is that often you're the sole employee for each department! It also helps you manage your incoming emails more effectively, and can be especially useful in campaigns or promoting special offers by simply creating a unique email address for your offer (offer_widgets@btconnect.com). The number of emails you get to this specific address helps you measure the effectiveness of the campaign.

If you have your own domain name or are looking to purchase your own domain name, the same principle applies. For example: sales@yourdomain.com, support@yourdomain.com, billing@yourdomain.com. In fact, many companies today not only have multiple email addresses that help them look big, but also have multiple domains to make them look like more than one company too! Like the washing powder companies who sell ten different 'brands', you can do the same. Giving customers 'multiple choice' of a supplier of your goods or services means they're certainly more likely to bring business your way.

Also, if any of your employees are dealing with customers direct, they should have their own email address. It's the internet equivalent of everyone having their own direct phone line, but it's easy to set-up and a lot cheaper.

Here's a quick tip: if you ever post your email address to other websites, newsletter subscriptions or online forms etc, then set up a separate email address just for this purpose. This way your main email address won't get added to any junk mail lists and ultimately be spammed.

If you already have a BT Business email account, it's easy to add more email addresses. If you don't have business email yet, what are you waiting for, sign up for our free Business Email Lite.

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