Using Your Domain Name in your Email Address
Mad River Consulting recommends using your domain name in your
email address, whether it is set-up as an alias or a pop box. The
numerous advantages are as follows:
- You
are continually reinforcing your company name and domain name
and marketing your firm rather than your ISP. Go into "Tools
Accounts" or "Tools Options" in your email
program and change the "from" and "reply-to"
addresses to reflect your domain email address(es).
- If
you decide to change internet services someday, the change in
your email will be transparent. You're network of prospects, clients
and business associates will already have your domain email, and
this will be reprogrammed to point to a new email account that
you establish. This is similar to the situation where your mailing
address does not change if you move your place of business and
you have a PO box. If your "network" has been using
an actual email address, encourage them to use an alias/domain
email address, and try to allow 6 to 12 months before changing
or discontinuing services.
- Some
places where you list your website do not allow a link to
your website, or do not allow you to visibly display your
URL. An alias/domain email address accomplishes the not-so-subtle
task of making your domain known so they can type it in themselves.
- Domain
email allows you to do targeted marketing and promotions. You
can display a specific email address such as magspecial@yourdomain.com
to offer a special price, for example, only honoring it when people
write to you using that address. This allows you to measure the
effectiveness of specific marketing efforts.
Occasionally an ISP's email server programming becomes disabled
or is changed, causing you to lose or temporarily lose emails. If
you use your alias on a regular basis, you would notice a disruption
in email service quickly. In most cases, the lost emails are "hung"
on the server and can be retrieved. For this reason, we suggest
you establish a REGULAR schedule of testing all distinct email aliases
or pop boxes. This applies to forms, too—test the forms on
your website once per month.
When signing up for new services or submitting an email address
to a new site, use a specific email address that can be tracked
for abuse. Example, I use sbc@madriverconsulting.com for my link
on the Chamber site. I see numerous spam emails coming in using
this address; they have culled it from the visible page. If a new
service or site doesn't put the email address on the page (simply
putting the word "Email"), then if you receive emails
from elsewhere using this address, it is possible that the new service
distributed it.
View Projects and Client References.
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