Why You Need a Professional Email Account

​Are you using your personal email for professional correspondence?  Now is the time to stop.  Even if you worked hard to come up with the perfect email handle that is neither too casual nor too business-like, thinking it would find that perfect middle ground, I can promise you that it isn’t striking the right tone.  To help you get the motivation to switch over, here are reasons why you need a professional email account.

​It keeps everything organized in one spot

​When your professional, personal, and marketing subscriptions are all going into the same email account, it can be hard to keep things straight.  Even if you utilize tabs, things can be a struggle.  Rather than having everything mixing together in a single account, make a separate professional account at the very least.  If possible, open up another specifically for marketing subscriptions and online shopping so you can look at those on an as-needed basis.  

You give the right impression

And this isn’t just because you have a better handle or your own domain.  When you have an account that is strictly for professional use, you feel more comfortable presenting it in a professional manner.  You may not want your professional headshot to accompany emails to friends and family or to include a signature with links to your website, portfolio, or PayPal.me.  With your professional account, you will feel comfortable taking the actions needed to present the right image.

Clients will take you more seriously

Having a professional email address makes you seem more official, which results in clients taking you more seriously.  There is a hierarchy to this.

At the bottom is any email with a handle that reads like your AIM chat name from when you were thirteen.  If your birth date is incorporated in any manner, it is not suited to professional correspondence. 

Going up a rung on the ladder, you may have a suitable handle, but you are using your email address from ten to fifteen years ago.  It is with a provider like Yahoo, Hotmail, or AOL. 

Next on your way up is an email with a solid provider, like Gmail.  However, the handle is just your name or a variation thereof.  One way this might rank higher is if you have a professional title to accompany your name. 

Jumping up another rung, you have a truly professional handle paired with the right provider domain name.  This is what I have been doing since starting my freelancing career, with SRB.martin.freelance@gmail.com.
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Finally, at the very top of this ladder is using an email address with your own domain name.  How important is it to reach the top of the ladder?  That really depends on your goals.  However, you should keep in mind that the bigger your image, the more your clients will be willing to pay you.  

​You are less likely to be marked as spam

​Certain types of email handles are favored by spammers, and that means that email programs will me more likely to filter them into the spam folder.  Even with a good handle, any free email can be a target since that is the type of email the vast majority of spammers will go for.  To make certain your message gets through, you need to send it from a professional email account. 

If your email doesn't present you well, it is time to make a change.