Email is one of the oldest forms of electronic communication, but also something that many businesses and organisations neglect to invest in, instead opting to use free email services like Yahoo! and Hotmail (now Outlook.com), rather than having their own @mydomainname.co.uk service.
But why pay for something that’s free?
Well, for starters, upon opening an email it takes the reader just seconds to establish their first impression of you.
Using a free email provider just makes you look cheap and unprofessional to potential customers. There are also other implications; as computer users become more aware of phishing attacks, they start to wonder if you are you really who you say you are, after all anybody can sign up for a free email address.
Using custom domain email also helps customers remember your address – myname@myname.com is much easier to remember that myname9873738@hotmail.co.uk isn’t it?
You may however, be surprised to learn that a service like this need not cost the earth. Most web hosting packages will include email as standard, but if not there are other services such as Google Apps where you can host your email service.
Google Apps costs around £3 a month and includes 25GB of email storage, IMAP email (sync your inbox across all of your devices), and Google Drive storage space.