Think of your business domain name as your own branded corner on the Internet. This is the space you have for business-related web and email traffic.
In today’s digital economy, most businesses have a custom domain for their website. However, it’s surprising how many don’t use a custom domain for email and instead use generic email addresses like gmail.com, yahoo.com, aol.com, etc. Even if you have not yet registered a custom domain, the the process is relatively simple and inexpensive, and the benefits to your business are significant.
Here are the top five reasons why every business needs a custom email domain.
Public image
Your business and employee email addresses make a statement about you and your business. What would you think of a job seeker whose email address is [email protected]?
When your business email address is [email protected], potential customers may perceive you as late, unprofessional, or just someone who doesn’t take their business seriously.
A custom domain sends a message that you are established and agree to stay for a period of time. Custom domains also provide a perception of increased security and trust. People have more confidence that they are communicating with you and not with someone pretending to be you.
Privacy and confidentiality
Companies that use a generic email domain often share a corporate email address among multiple employees or business partners. A custom domain allows you to create separate mailboxes for different users. This is essential to limit access to sensitive information.
With a shared mailbox, there is no way to tell if the email is staying with its intended recipient. Emails containing Personally Identifiable Information (PII) or Personal Health Information (PHI) should only be sent to secure single-user mailboxes.
Control and security
When users delete messages from a public domain, the information is lost forever. Custom domains give you more control over company data. If someone leaves the company, you retain access to the data in their mailbox. This allows you to retain ownership of company records and comply with all data retention requirements.
Additionally, security measures in custom email domains are more focused on businesses than mainstream email providers. Mailboxes can be configured with unique user permissions and allow different permissions between users and administrators rather than everyone working under the same security role.
Efficiency and scalability
A custom domain allows you to add and remove mailboxes as your business grows and changes. Additionally, you can create shared group mailboxes for collaboration. Setting up your domain and mailbox now, before you need to scale, will save you the time, money and headaches associated with migrating years of emails to a new domain. .
Flexibility of the service provider
Custom domains provide the ability to select the Internet or email service provider of your choice. They offer the ability to switch from one provider to another without changing your email address. You lose the ability to switch providers when locked into a generic, provider-specific email domain (i.e. [email protected]). You can choose to walk away from a service provider for a number of reasons. For example, you can move your business to a location not served by your current ISP, or your email host can change their pricing structure. This is of particular concern for companies that need HIPAA Compliant Emailbecause the free versions of most email hosts do not offer the settings necessary for security compliance.
This article originally published on Innovative, Inc.
