Is your brand masquerading as Yahoo or Google?
We have already established that branding is how the customer ultimately perceives you. And with that, two pieces of the branding puzzle are consistency and credibility.
Whose brand are you promoting anyway?
Think about the face you present everyday in the form of your email address. Does your email address include 'gmail.com' or 'earthlink.com,' 'yahoo.com,' 'hotmail.com'? Whose brand are you promoting? Certainly not your own, unless you work for Google, Yahoo, or one of the other email providers.
If you have a website, you have a domain name that reflects your brand, your business, don't you? Then what does it say about you if your email address does not reflect your brand? Are you masquerading as someone else when you are doing business?
Consistent use of your name builds your brand.
Think about brand consistency. Do your prospects know who you are? Are you making your domain name memorable to them? Or are you promoting Yahoo? When you are doing business every email should have your company name on it, right down to the email address. Your promotional materials, business cards, stationery, even advertising may have this address and it needs to be your company name, not something generic. And this applies to your employees’ email addresses. When they are communicating with your customers they are reinforcing your brand.
Your company name builds credibility.
Now think about brand credibility. Is there some reason you don't want people to know who you are? Probably not, but how does it look when doing business under a generic name? Remember, impressions may be all a prospect or potential business associate has to go on. Personally, I don’t take any business owner seriously if they have a generic email address.
Any person that is proud of their enterprise wants people to know who they are. Your website and your email address is part of that enterprise. Think consistency and credibility.
Are you willing to step up and be recognized?
by Claudia Hafner
