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Email is essential for work. No matter if you’re running a small business, launching a startup, or growing a small nonprofit, you must have email to communicate.
I have news for you, and it may come as a surprise: Sending email from a basic Gmail (or what have you) account is unprofessional.
If you are emailing people from an email provider anyone can sign up for, then how do you expect them to believe you officially represent an entire organization? Having a professional email address makes you legit and credible. When you send an email from yournameyourorg@gmail , you are inadvertently wasting an opportunity to promote your own business. Just think of all the messages you’ve marked spam and where they came from.
Don’t get too down on yourself if you’ve been communicating this way. We all have to start somewhere. You’ve simply been doing the best you could with the tools and information you had at your disposal.
In this digital age, there are a number of solutions to the email problem, no matter your budget. Read on to find out my own professional, and, well, personal, recommendation on how to remedy this situation.
Recommendation: Check with your website host and/or domain provider.
If you are a Siteground hosting customer, private email is free with each hosting plan. You can create professional email addresses with your website domain at no extra cost. You can create as many accounts as you need, access them using a friendly webmail interface, create forwarders and autoresponders, and more. Most hosting providers offer this feature as part of their subscription.
When I first launched my nonprofit but we were not an official 501c3, I tried out the Private Email offering through Namecheap for our catchall email address. They offered me a free trial, and it was super cheap after that. (Which was totally unnecessary seeing as how I could have used my hosting to set up all of the email addresses I could have ever needed.)
Any email address you create this way can easily be integrated in your preferred email provider (ie: Outlook, Gmail, Apple Mail, etc) with just a few steps.
Are you a registered 501c3 nonprofit? Consider Google for Nonprofits.
I’ve helped a number of my clients and my own nonprofit go through the process of signing up for Google for Nonprofits. When you sign up for Google for Nonprofits, you not only get email but a whole suite of apps you can use to support your day-to-day operations. To sign up for Google for Nonprofits, you have to be in the TechSoup system. You can find out more here: https://www.google.com/nonprofits/
Wrapping it Up
As you can see, there are a number of options for professional email in 2022. Rachel, you might ask, what do YOU use for your professional email? I use Google Workspace. It costs about $10 a month per user. It’s reliable, secure, and offers you so much more than just email.
If fooling around with setting up an email address isn’t something you want to deal with right now, reach out. I’ve walked through this process with many of my clients.
If you want to explore how you can upgrade your business or organization’s online communications, book a consultation. I’m happy to listen and help you identify solutions that can help you move your important work forward 🚀
No matter what you do, I hope you find an email solution that meets your needs and makes you look like the bonafide boss you are!
