Why This Matters
Email is an important part of most businesses. Even as texting and messaging through various social media platforms gains a foothold in overall communication, email is considered official. So official that emails can be considered legally binding and hold up in a court of law. Keep all your business emails in a program that you feel confident in using.
It’s important to set up your email properly and ideally, attached to your domain name. It can be difficult to migrate company emails from one domain to another. Email can be foundational so take some time to make good decisions here.
Email using your own domain name ([email protected]) builds customer and vendor trust. If email is important to your business be sure to invest in a system that archives all messages, has a lot of space in the cloud to save your emails and is reliable. You might also set up a generic email such as info@ or hello@ contact@.
If you do not have a domain name, you can create a free @gmail account that is clearly identifiable as related to your business (ie – [email protected]) or by using your local Internet Service Provider (ISP) such as Telus or Shaw, however, it’s not seen as “professional” as one tied to your website domain.
Resources
How to Create a Gmail Account – Easy steps to get you started with Gmail.
How to Create Email Accounts for Business – Get custom email and more with Google Workspace.
How to Create Email Accounts for your Domain Name – Learn how to create email accounts for your domain name.
The Best Email Apps – These apps can help you stay on top of your inbox and never miss an important message ever again.
Best Email Clients (Free & Paid) – A comprehensive list according to TechRadar.
Recommendations
Microsoft Outlook – Microsoft’s Outlook is a very popular email client for most businesses and enterprises, and has been around for decades. It integrates with other Microsoft services, taking email beyond the simple exchange of messages. Outlook works both on the cloud and on your computer.
Gmail (Paid) – Businesses often use Gmail as part of a paid Google Workspace (formally GSuite) package. In this case the email is secure, ad-free with 99.9% uptime. It is integrated with, and included with, most other Google products. It’s encouraged that you use your domain as a business with Gmail. Gmail continues to be rich with features like a “send later” function, snoozing emails and more.
Gmail (Free) – First released back in 2004 by Google, Gmail has become the market leader in free email services with more than a billion users across the globe. Gmail accounts also enable users to access Google Drive, Photos, a whole range of other Google Workspace products and services.
Mailbird – Mailbird is a Windows email application that works with Gmail (and calendar) and integrates with the most popular task, calendar, messaging and video calling apps. Mailbird unifies all your communication into one desktop app.
Thunderbird – Thunderbird is a free, open source, email application that’s easy to set up and customize, and comes with many features. It is associated with Mozilla the maker of the Firefox web browser.