Last updated - July 2, 2024
Do you want people to take you and your business seriously? If yes, then you need to have a professional business email address. Without an email attached to your business’s domain name, high chances are that your business will be considered amateur and irrelevant or valid. When mail comes from a professional mail address, it is considered safe and trustworthy by customers and clients.
If you have just started your online or offline business, you might not be in standing to subscribe or purchase a plan that helps you get a professional business email address. So, this blog is just the right bet for you.
Here, I am trying to elaborate on how a professional business email address benefits you, different popular email hosting providers, best practices while creating a professional email,/ and so on and forth. Without further ado, let’s get down to business.
What is a professional business email address?
It would be pretty much difficult to find even one person who does not have a personal email of their own. To have a professional business email address means that you use your business’s domain address rather than the usual generic one using Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.
What are the benefits of having a professional business email address?
The most blunt answer to this question would be “to be taken seriously”. If you are a business and trying to connect to your customers through mail, for them to take you seriously, you would need to have your domain name attached to your email address. Let’s see some of the other benefits that come along with a professional email address:
- Professionalism: To show that you are serious about your work or business, having a professional email address would help. The personal email ID always references matters that are more like inbound. So, having an official email id more or like helps you amp up your game.
- Branding: One slight effort to create a professional business email address can be your first step toward branding your business. With every mail you send, you are trying to reinforce your brand with your first-time customers or even the regular ones.
- Consistency: When communication is constant through your business email address, it becomes easier for consumers to track the mail. Even if your customer support changes, typing in the domain name will help in identifying emails easily.
- Customization: Each role in your business can have a custom professional email address. This will help the customers to identify easily what department of the business they are working with.
How to Create a Professional Business Email Address for Free?
Now, multiple platforms benefit from creating a professional business email address. Some are free provided you follow certain prerequisites and some come up with a payment of a base plan.
Over here, we will first look into the best free option available among the lot; Zoho Mail.
For a newbie or a startup who has just entered the market, initiating off with a paid plan may not be possible. Zoho Mail understands the plight and helps build the best professional email address for free.
To start with free email creation by Zoho Mail is only possible if you already have a registered domain name for your business.
The features that Zoho Mail under the free plan are:
- Five users can get their professional email addresses
- The storage will be 5GB per user an attachment limit of 25MB
- Integrating Zoho Mail with Google Workspace or Microsoft Outlook is not possible.
- IMAP/ POP/ Active Sync are not included
- Two-factor authentication
- Free Mobile Apps
- Custom email signatures
Now, let’s see how you can start with creating that professional business email address:
- Click on the icon that says “Forever Free Plan”, and Sign Up with your Name, email address, and password
- On the next screen, you will find multi-factor authentication, which you can do later
- Next, enter your domain name, and if you don’t have one you can create a new one in Zoho only
- Then, it will verify the authenticity of your domain
- Update the Mail Records
- Now, you are set to create a username and professional business email address
- You can add up to 5 users in the free version
- You can access your emails by directly logging into Zoho Mail, either through a web browser or through the application. To access the mail from Google Workspace or Outlook, you will need to have a paid plan
Other platforms that help create professional business email address
When we are speaking about creating professional email being free, probably the best option will be Zoho Mail. But considering certain conditions and paid plans, other platforms offer encompassed services and are not just limited to professional email creation.
Google Workspace
Without Gmail, email addresses in totality would not exist. Yes, Gmail not only offers personal mail but also offers a full-fledged workspace setup.
- You get access to Google Docs, slides, spreadsheets, chat, etc.
- Trial period of 14 days
- You can also create an email with a specific domain name and make your communication steadfast
- Google Workspace works only with a paid plan and an already-registered domain name
- The plans are billed from month to month
IONOS
IONOS helps build your professional email along with domain name creation. The basic plan from IONOS starts from $1. IONOS also gives complete security including anti-virus and anti-spam protection.
The $ 1-a-month plan comprises the following features:
- 1 email account with 2GB storage
- A domain name
- Easy migration to IONOS
- Integration with other platforms like Google Workspace, Outlook, etc.
- Easy upgrade to the next plan as your need grows
Blue Hosting
Blue Hosting now grants the services for professional email address creation over hosting services. The basic plan also allows you to create and use a domain for free for 1 year.
The basic plan of hosting comes with the following features:
- You will be required to take up the basic plan with blue hosting which starts from $1.99/month
- The professional email comes for a trial period of 3 months. Once after, you have to pay $2.49/month after the initial sign-up
- The integration with platforms like Google Workspace is quite limited
- Better storage as per the use of the customers
ProtonMail
If you value the security of your business and are head-bent on getting the emails in encrypted mode, then creating a professional business email address on Proton Mail is your best option. The encryption makes sure that the mail is password protected even if the mail is sent outside the recipient list of Proton Mail.
What does Proton Mail bring to the table:
- End-to-end encryption and security measures are prominent
- Emails are password-protected
- 500mb storage is available at the start and expands to another 500mb along the way
- 1 free email address
- Messages are limited to 150
Internxt
Want a professional email address just to meet the hour’s need? Then, InterNxt will give you temporary mail addresses that expire after 5 hours of inactivity.
Here are the features:
- The storage comes to 1 GB
- Email expiry after 5 hours of inactivity
- Signup is completely anonymous
- End-to-end encrypted
Best Practices to Follow while Creating a Professional Business Email Address
- Leave unnecessary nicknames out of the professional business email address
- Do not add numbers to your professional email IDs
- Avoid adding the position that you serve in the company
- Add generic names when it especially comes to customer support and other information, like info@xyz.com
- Avoid things that might look unprofessional
Summary
A professional business email address brings a drastic change to your business outlook. Rather than being just another one with email marketing, customers will be more aware of your business name thus increasing your chances of better visibility of your brand. Even though most platforms require you to take up a paid plan, it is going to be a worthy investment for your business.
FAQs
- Is professional business email available for free?
Professional business email addresses provided by Zoho Mail come for free but with certain conditions and limitations.
- Is Google Workspace available for business email?
Gmail is free for creating a personal email but to create a business email you will need to have a domain name and a paid Google Workspace plan. Now, you can have a trial period of 14 days.
- Do I need hosting for my business email account?
No, you needn’t have a hosting account to get your business email account.
- Is having a professional email account worth it?
Yes, having a professional email address can bring in a very structured format and aid in branding.