Isn’t it about time that you got rid of that AOL, Comcast, Earthlink or Yahoo email address?
Using an email address at one of these free sources does NOT make you look professional and it certainly does nothing for your branding.
But, what about those email addresses that your broker gives you? Why not use one of them? There are two good reasons why you want to stop using your broker’s email system.
1. Any email sent from them brands the brokerage and not you
2. What happens to email sent to this address when you leave the brokerage? That’s right, the broker shuts down the account and the emails bounce back to the sender!
What does the sender think when they see that bounce message? That’s right, you have left the business or the brokerage, but in any case, they can’t find you.
You’ve always been able to have your own domain. Once you have a domain, you can have email like this: you@yourdomain.com. All you would have had to do was to pay for it and then set it up. Some brokerages will forward email sent to you@yourbrokerage.com to you@AOL_Etc.com account. But when you go to reply to a sender the reply comes branded as AOl, Comcast etc.
So, it’s always been easier for you to put up with the amateur email services, but really, this is 2016 and it’s way past time for you to start sending emails that promote you, not your broker and not one of the free services.
One of the better email services is gmail. Gmail has allowed you to have email sent to a gmail account be forwarded anywhere, but again, you are just branding Google and not you!
Recently Google came out with a new service that falls between the free gmail and the moderately expensive Google Apps for Business. It’s called Google Domains with email.
It works like this, you go to https://domains.google/ and register a domain for about $12.00 a year. Pretty standard stuff. You can have email there for free that is branded with your domain, but it forwards to your AOL, Comcast, Gmail, Yahoo or brokerage email. When you reply, your reply comes from your free AOL etc account. Not very professional.
The new feature is a Google apps email feature for $5.00 a month, billed monthly. You can learn about it here: https://support.google.com/domains/answer/6069226
Once your new branded email is setup and you can send and receive from it, go back to your old email and send an email to everyone explaining that you have a new email address. Give them the new address and ask them to start using it.
You will have to keep checking the old address as some people will not immediately comply. You’ll need to keep gently reminding them each time they use the old address!
You need to do this sooner rather than later and start branding yourself on every email that you send. If you need help setting it up and notifying your previous email recipients, my fees are reasonable. Just get in touch, and for Pete’s sake get rid of those AOL, Comcast, Earthlink and Yahoo email accounts…today!
