How to create a business email

When starting a new business, having a professional image can encourage customer trust.

A part of your growth plan could involve creating a business email.

Using a business email can help your start-up look professional and make it easier to organise business communications.

It can also make it easier to scale your email system as you hire more staff members.

In this guide, we’ll outline what a business email entails, how it works, and its benefits.

What is a business email?

A business email is intended for company use, including communicating with employees and clients.

A professional email address is generally helpful for businesses, from start-ups to large established companies.

A business email is generally branded, with the business name - or domain - appearing as part of the email address after the @ symbol.

For example, non-business personal email domains can include @outlook.com or @gmail.com, where the email provider’s domain (such as Google) appears as part of the email address.

A business email might include @yourcompanyname.com as part of the email address.

This helps people better know they are sending or receiving an email from your business.

What are the benefits of having a business email?

There are several benefits associated with having a business email.

Besides allowing you to separate work emails from personal emails, it could benefit you in the following ways:

• it can enhance your business security, as you can take advantage of all the security features your email provider offers
• it makes you and your business easily identifiable and memorable
• you can ensure brand consistency while communicating with potential customers – which could increase the chances of conversion
• it can help to establish credibility for your start-up
• your company will stay in line with data security regulations if data is being shared and stored via email
• you can easily create more employee email addresses and stay organised.

If you plan to grow your start-up, having a business email could make it easier as you hire more staff and develop relationships with customers.

How to create a business email

1. Choose an email provider

An email provider is a service that hosts and provides access to your email account.

However, every email provider differs in terms of the setup, services, and security levels they offer.

When deciding on the right provider for your business, consider ease of use, security and privacy policies, and whether you can create a custom business domain.

Consider whether you can link your email to other business tools and migrate all your existing emails and contacts.

Also look for a comprehensive control panel – this allows you to manage user email addresses and set all domain-related settings, including spam policies and filters, email signatures, and any restrictions.

There are several email providers to choose from, such as Microsoft and Google.

2. Secure a domain name

Your email provider may provide you with a domain name if you don’t have one already – for instance, you may wish to use your company name.

If not, there are a few ways to secure a domain name – for instance, you could use an email hosting company.

Email hosting is a service that rents out servers to store and manage your emails.

If you plan to secure your domain through an email hosting company, such as IONOS or Google Workspace, you may need to sign up for a package that includes this service.

You can also get a domain name through your website hosting company if you select a plan that includes this as part of their service.

You may need to pay a small monthly fee to secure your domain name.

3. Select your email address format

Once you’ve set up a business email account and secured a domain name for your business, think about the format of your email address, including the username.

The username portion of your email address comes before the @.

Typically, this is either a department name (for a shared email address) or the individual user’s name (for a private email address).

For an individual user’s email address, usernames could include their full name or variations of this and their department – such as johnbrown.sales@, john.brown@ or jbrown@ – depending on what suits your start-up.

Selecting an email address format that all employees can use can establish brand consistency and make it easier for customers to communicate with you and your team.

4. Create your email address

Once you have a domain name and email address format, you’ll be ready to create your email address and subsequent email addresses for employees, departments, and functions, such as accounting@yourbusinessdomain.com.

This process can vary depending on which provider you’ve selected, but typically, it involves adding a name and contact details to your account and setting a password.

How to create a business email using Google Workspace

Google Workspace is a popular email hosting service with various plans to suit your start-up’s needs.

This is how to set up a Google Workspace business email:

1. On the first page, enter your business name, select the number of employees you have, and where your business is based.
2. Provide your contact information, including your full name and current email address.
3. You will then be asked to select if you have a business domain.
4. If you do, you will be directed to connect to it, but if not, you will then be able to search for the domain you would like and find out if it’s available.
5. You will then need to enter your business information, including your business address.
6. Select a username and set your password.
7. Choose the best plan for your business and follow through the checkout process.

Business email tips

There are a few things you can do to create the best business email for your start-up.

It pays to get your business email correct from the start, as changing your email after you’ve already started growing your business might be difficult or costly.

Consider the following:

• use an email signature to add professionalism to your emails and provide essential contact information
• avoid using job titles in the email address, as these could change as your start-up grows
• avoid using nicknames to maintain a professional image
• avoid using numbers in the email address – filters may incorrectly identify these as spam and send them to junk boxes
• if you are a sole trader, use your name or your business name for your email domain to add a personal touch and make it easy for clients to remember.