Free email service for your business domain just isn’t a good idea anymore. If you’re still using an old email service that was packaged free with your website hosting or just forwarding your domain’s messages to your free Hotmail account, you may want to consider upgrading.
Even with social media, texting and messaging apps, email is more mission-critical than ever before. Email is still the primary communication archive for your business and you need to be able to count on it, access it anywhere and know you can find that old client message from 4 years ago when you need it.
In addition, the ever-escalating standards for message deliverability and security demand a premium email solution that incorporates domain verification – so your clients know that the messages that you send to them are authenticated and safe.
So, what features should your business email system include?
- Huge message storage – most premium services start at 10GB per mailbox. I recommend getting more.
- IMAP access – a fancy way of saying your received and sent messages are synced on all your devices.
- SPF, DKIM & DMARC – Domain-level authentication that assures contacts (and their email in-boxes) that your messages really came from you. Some email marketing companies (MailChimp) are beginning to require this authentication for sending domains.
- Flexible mailbox aliasing – this expands the scope of your email address. [email protected], [email protected], or [email protected] – can all flow to the same mailbox.
- Domain name aliasing – this creates mirror accounts with multiple domain names. If you use “yourdomain.com”, but also own “yourname.com” or other domain names – these can be mapped to your primary mailbox – at no extra cost. This multiplies the value and flexibility of your email service.
Luckily, there are great options that provide premium email features at surprisingly low rates. My favorite is Google Apps for Work, but Microsoft’s Office 365 and Rackspace Mail are also excellent choices.
If you’d like to discuss the best options for your business, schedule a call – I’m happy to help!