Your Email ADDRESS Sends a Message Too

Thanks to Matt Norcia at the Retail Contrarian for posting on something that I've been thinking about for a while.  It's your email address.  You have a nice business location, professionally printed stationary and business cards, an easy-to-remember phone number, and a generic email address. 

You may have signed up for email on AOL or Google when email just wasn't that big a deal and just haven't bothered to change it.  Maybe you've given it out to so many people that you don't want to change it for fear of losing those contacts.  That's something that's easy to fix.  As Matt points out, there's really no reason to be joe@aol.com when you already own a domain name.

If you already have a web page, your service provider most likely includes a free email address in the package.  All you have to do is set it up.

If you don't have a web site, you should at least register an appropriate domain name, even if you're not ready to put up a site right now.  Domain registration is very inexpensive, just $10.00 per year at Yahoo Small Business.  Prices and service vary by provider, so shop around to get the best deal.  But a word of caution, don't trust your domain name, email, or web site to someone who may not be around next week.  A bargain's not a bargain if all your stuff suddenly disappears.  A good rule of thumb would be, if you've never heard of them, you should probably shy away.  Domains are being gobbled up at a remarkable pace.  You should lock up a good address now, even if you don't plan to use it for a while.

You can even register a free domain, including email address at Microsoft Office Live.  You're somewhat limited in what you can do, but if your main interest is just a professional-sounding email address, MS Office Live might be just the ticket.  And, you lock up your domain name at no cost.  There has been some criticism of the Office Live free plan because it's not easy to transfer your domain to another provider if you decide to upgrade your site, but it can be done.

You can avoid the problem of losing contact with the people who have your old address by forwarding mail addressed to the old address to the new one.  It's a simple service and virtually every email provider offers it.