To be clear, this post is about choosing email prefixes, not the domain name itself. A prefix is the bit that comes before @ in your email address. Examples include sales@mydomain.com, enquiries@mydomain.com, yourname@mydomain.com. This is particularly relevant to small business owners.

First lets look at personal domain prefixes.

choose your email address wisely

There are 3 common variants on your name for an email address.

thomas.valaitis@
This is quite a formal arrangement. If you have an unusual surname (like mine!) it can be confusing to relay to people by phone, and to an extent is also prone to misspellings when people have your business card in front of them. It can however suggest that you are part of a larger organisation where you may not be the only thomas@ or tom@ or even thomasv@. I would recommend this arrangement where size and formality are of importance to you (though I am never a fan of talking up your size).

tvalaitis@
/ thomasv@

This implies a touch less formality than the previous example, but is not as

casual (or size indicative) as a simple first name approach. For my own business email address I tend to use a “thomasv@” email address (it’s a nice compromise for somebody with a complicated surname).

thomas@
Clearly this is a more casual email address prefix, which is great if you are proud of your small company size and expect to remain the only Thomas. The biggest advantage to a shorter email prefix is that it’s easy to remember (unless you also have a crazy first name!) and could be considered more personal.

Whichever email prefix you go for, it’s a really good idea to have all the other variations and common misspellings of your name set up as email forwarders to your main account. This ensures you do not miss any important mails. As an example I forward the following to my thomasv@ pop3 account:

tvalaitis@
tomv@
tom@
thomas@
valaitis@
thomas.valaitis@
t.valaitis@
tom.valaitis@
tomvalaitis@

So having identified which personal domain prefix you are going to adopt, you also need to think about domain prefixes for your business at large.

Common examples include
sales@
enquiries@
info@
complaints@
support@

In my businesses, I tend to have an “enquiries@” and an “info@” email address. The “enquiries” I have set up to handle the enquiries that come to us online, and info I use for clients who already have made contact.

I have them both set up as group forwarding emails, which means I pick the members of the respective teams to which these emails arrive.

Example:

I may have enquiries@ directed to the guys in my businesses that are good at selling and building relationships (the people whom I want to handle the sales calls).

I tend to use the email addresses prefixes purely as forwarders, as once a potential customer makes contact, I like them to have a personal email address (i.e. person = face = trust = accountability) to receive from and reply to for all future contact.

The info@ email address is a useful account to have so I may get customers to send in information that I want a number of people (or the whole team) to have access to. We tend not to promote this account on the website or business stationary.

For small businsses I wouldn’t recommend kicking off with too many email addresses as this can be confusing for customers (and you), and you can potentially lose control of what is pointing where (and are they being picked up).

If you would like more information on picking your email address prefixes I can be contacted at:
mrthomasvalaitiswhositsattheblackdeskbythewindowjustinfrontoftheprinter.iwishicouldtakemyownmedicine@edgeoftheweb.co.uk

Photos courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons license from users derrickkwa