Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Bad for Business: Using Free Email - Hotmail, Yahoo!, Gmail, etc.

By Ray Smith, JustRight Technology

Sure it’s free, but you often get what you pay for. Consider:

Hackers Love Free Email Accounts 
Hackers focus on free email accounts like Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! because they are millions of users. They use automated to tools to attempt to guess passwords on thousands of accounts every day. And if hackers gain access to your email account, they can use it to send scams, spam, and worse to your list of contacts. How would that look to clients, vendors, and business associates?

Free Email Says “Unprofessional” to Prospective Clients 
It has become expected to have a domain name for your business. If you’re using a free email service you might be sending the wrong message to colleagues, clients, and potential clients:
 Your company cannot afford a domain name and a professional website with email
 The email you sent is coming from your personal email account and not your business account
 You are not organized or professional enough to get a domain name for your company
 You are not concerned with privacy

Your Email Is Likely to be Mistaken as SPAM 
Most SPAM filters these days are looking for free email account email addresses like Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo!. The reason is that spammers typically use free email accounts to send spam. It is easier to setup a free email account and it doesn’t cost them a dime.

You Are Missing Out on a Valuable Marketing Opportunity 
When you use your company’s domain name in your email, you’re continually presenting your company name over and over again. If you use a free email service like Gmail, you are essentially putting a sign for somebody else’s business over your front door. In other words, you are advertising for Gmail and not your own business.

Conclusion 
It’s not expensive to purchase your own domain name. If you already own a web site, you already have a domain name! It’s not expensive to set up a professional email service to use your domain name. I use and recommend Microsoft Office 365 business plans. They’re month to month, professional, and include anti-spam. Search the web for “Office 365 business plans” to see pricing on Microsoft’s site. Your current email, contacts, and calendars can be migrated and your old free address forwarded, so you don’t lose anything. And it’s easy to have your email, contacts, and calendars perfectly synced with all of your devices: smart phones, iPads, and/or tablets. You end up safer, look more professional, are more efficient, and more “future proof”.

About the Author 
Ray Smith is the founder and CEO of JustRight Technology, an approved Microsoft Cloud Services Provider. JustRight focuses on helping 5 to 50 user law firms with computer systems advice and support, and cloud and VoIP solutions. If you’d like help, or just have questions, visit JustRight at http://www.justright.com, call Ray directly at 443-478-4298, or email him at rsmith@justright.com.

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