We all know about branding and about how every little thing counts.
So what does your email address say about you? You probably send dozens, even hundreds of emails a week on a professional basis, so what are you telling people when they see your email address? Let's look at some examples:
My own email address, like most people at TSDG is [email protected]. Doesn't that seem sensible to you? When someone gets an email from me, it's all pretty straightfoward and professional. But imagine if my email address was [email protected] - what would that tell you? In addition, my email address is pretty easy to remember, unlike that xjj thing.
We all have to present ourselves properly. If you are meeting the surgeon who is going to perform your triple bypass, wouldn't you prefer him or her to be soberly dressed in a white coat rather than in scruffy jeans and a torn t-shirt?
Imagine you're applying for an accounts person at your business and a resume is emailed to you from [email protected]. You may have your own reasons for employing a sexy hot party chick, and good luck to you, but what does that email address say about her accounting ability, her stability and her dedication to her job? Will a sexy hot party chick even turn up at work on time if she's been partying and being hot and sexy every night?
And AOL. Did you know that there are employers (like me) who will automatically discount a job applicant with an AOL email address? AOL was always positioned in the market as being for people who are unfamiliar with computers- the email service for dummies, basically. Do I want to employ someone who uses such a service and sees themselves as an internet dummy? No, I don't. (By the way, do a Google search for 'AOL sucks' and there are over three million results. What does that tell you? And that's just using the dreadful word 'sucks' - search for the more literate 'AOL problems' and there are twenty two million results. Say's it all, really.)
So, not only is your potential accounts person out partying every night, she is also an internet dummy.
I'm not Sherlock Holmes, I can't look at someone's walking stick and tell you that he's a colonial tea-planter just returned from India and has a fondness for Tanqueray gin and hot sausages, but deciphering that email address was pretty elementary. But maybe I'm wrong - maybe she's a mousey little creature with pimples and thick glasses who is a complete genius at accounting? OK, so why the email address? Some sort of strange fantasy world she lives in? Or worse? You never know. There's obviously something amiss there.
AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo ... they all say something about you. Why don't you have an email address from your own domain? Usually, it implies that you don't have a website. What sort of fly-by-night company doesn't have a website?
So let's imagine I get an email from [email protected]. I am likely to go to hiscompany.com to find out more. Remember, your email address is promoting your website. Your AOL email address is branding you - and not in the TSDG meaning of the word.
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