Leveraging Your Email Address for Branding Purposes

The Power of a Branded Email Address

If your email address is something like yourname@aol.com or you@bell.com, you're inadvertently promoting your Internet Service Provider (ISP) rather than your own brand. This is not ideal, especially considering that you're the one paying the ISP, not the other way around.

You might not realize it, but you do have a choice in this matter. Instead of promoting Earthlink, GTE, BellSouth, or AOL, you can use your email address to advertise and establish your own brand.

How to Set Up a Branded Email Address

Here's how it works. Let's say my service provider is home.com. However, I've configured my email program so that the address in my "from" field says "wanda@loska.com". This is possible because my web host provides a forwarding service. This means that any message sent to wanda@loska.com is automatically forwarded to my home.com account.

You don't need to have a live website to do this. Even if you're not ready to launch, you can still use this feature. Once you have a domain name, you can set up a simple page like this: http://internetsuccesscoach.com/bizcard.html. However, even this isn't necessary.

To use your domain name in your email address, all you need is a domain name and a reliable web host. With domain name registration costs as low as $9.95 per year, and web hosting fees around $15-30 per month, it's a small price to pay for the branding benefits.

Choosing the Right Domain Name

To register a domain name, you might want to use a tool like BuyDomains.com. It allows you to search for domain names containing your specific keywords, saving you time.

When choosing your domain name, keep the following in mind:

• Choose a name that's easy to pronounce and spell, and that sounds the same as it's spelled.
• Avoid hyphens, numbers, and abbreviations to prevent future confusion. If you must use them, consider registering both versions of the domain name.
• If your preferred .com domain name is taken, consider other options, but try to secure a .com before opting for .net, .org, or other extensions.
• Keep it as short as possible. While most one-word .com domain names are taken, don't give up on two-word names. There are still many great ones available.
• Three or even four-word domain names can be good too if they're not too long. Count syllables as well. If it's easy to pronounce and under six syllables, it's likely fine.

Using your own domain name in your email address is a cost-free branding tool. It adds instant credibility to your correspondence and ensures that your email address remains the same even if you change your ISP.