Your Small Businesses Email Brand Value: Why aren’t more small businesses doing it?

This may article may seem redundant or even passé to many, but for a new start in a new year, I thought it might still have some merit. I’ll be discussing the importance of branded email not only to the service provider but from the user perspective as well. While everyone is examining Google, Microsoft, and AOL, I would like to address the basics of making sure the small business understands the importance of how email and their brand have a positive or negative impact on their end customer.

This was a hot topic a few years ago, and for forward thinkers it has been a hot topic for more than 10 years now. But as the Internet has become a daily part of many people’s lives, what may sound passé to guys in the business, should be part of their daily focus when speaking with small business prospects and clients. Without providing too many statistics, I am sure everyone knows that Email is still the most common and utilized form of communication by both business and residential users using the Web. To that end, ask your average small business owner or law office attorney if they would shoot a letter to a peer or a client without printed letterhead, business card, or envelope? No way! Although most people in small business are not using it as an effective branding or business tool.

Most people still send their ISP branded or FSP (Free Service Provider) emails and send simple HTML or text Email messages to their recipients. As a matter of small business or business in general this is just a plain bad decision, period. A small business that works hard to build a good local or regional reputation deserves to understand what the basics behind a simple domain name and email address can help solidify brand and add credibility to existing and future business. Not that is will make the user millions of dollars, but it is just the simple addition to their existing or lack of existing marketing plan.

A small business that works hard to build a good or great reputation deserves not to damage itself intellectually by implementing just a small piece of widely adopted Email technology. A small company should examine this, and a “client responsible” service provider should work hard to help their customer understand this, and prevent them from damaging their well crafted and executed brand. The small business’s brand is what drives his or her clients to their business. It is what will keep the client coming back to their business over and over again. I think the technical term we use in our business is “Stickiness,” while the small business calls them a repeat customer.

So if the SMB is a one man operation, as many of them are, or they are a large company of 500 or more employees, using an email address which correlates to your business can be one of the most inexpensive and efficient marketing tools they can use. You wouldn’t dare go to a business card exchange without your business cards, would you?

With every email you send not using an email which uses a domain name for your company you could be indirectly damaging your brand. Using an email address with your domain name gives the SMB the opportunity to make a positive effective contact with your client by allowing you to put your best foot forward.

Many savvy small businesses today are not only using branded email for their business, but may have multiple email addresses for a one man operation to help them to differentiate themselves, or again, to put their best foot forward. I know I probably have seven or eight email addresses that I use routinely. As well many Domain name registrars have solutions with a variation of email or email forwards that they email is all inexpensively or give away with the purchase of your domain name. Be wary though of an email forwarding solution. This is for setting up and receiving email only. You will still be sending email with your plain vanilla wrapper email address…

To give you a brief example of how widely accepted email is used around the world today; research suggests that there are approximately 900 + million email boxes in use today. About 70 billion emails are sent and received globally every day. And it is about a 50 / 50 ratio for consumer vs. business email. This number is slated to grow, still exponentially in the future. These numbers are for illustration only.

Organizations like Microsoft Windows Live and Google’s Gmail are implementing programs now to allow the small business to register a domain and get free branded email with their services. If you want a more professional service, there are a multitude of them available through Web Hosting companies or even your ISP. It’s my opinion that both Google and Microsoft see that most small businesses have limited resources and expertise. They also recognize that most small businesses need a simple way onto the Internet. And when they find their way onto the Internet, they will want their email solution to resemble the same solutions used in larger companies, with similar functionality and services attached. Both these companies recognize or are recognizing that the same features large companies utilize to stay productive online are the same features the small business requires as well, but in a more user friendly implementation package.

Companies like Microsoft and Google help to redefine small business automation. They in both the short term and the long term see that branded email will be in demand, and that its popularity will continue to increase. And they also must know (again this is opinion) that as they streamline their technologies that the more important the services will become to the small business users. Google has even gone and integrated their Google Talk feature into their Gmail interface. A great addition, I must say… Microsoft’s Office Live even has integrated a Web Site Building tool for small businesses to build a basic Web Site. These solutions may not be right for everyone, but they’re a start for some small companies that may want or need a smarter look and feel…

So what is a small business to look for when searching for a branded email solution? The basics today are simple. They are features that will protect you from obvious threats, such as:

• Email viruses of all types, continually updated by the email provider
• Spam solutions that offer protection against common spam threats as they emerge.
• POP, SMTP, Webmail, and Mobilemail access

Other features that may be nice to haves or requirements for your small business might be as follows:

• Collaboration tools (Sharing Calendars)
• Instant Messaging
• Secure Email with encryption for sensitive data
• Sharing files
• Email archiving
• Email auditing tools

As a small business, make sure you evaluate all the services you may require in the future. Then make sure to fully evaluate all the providers that you have chosen to look at. Features that you may use and definitely use in the future you will want to evaluate and possibly go with that provider. If it one thing an inexperienced person does not want to do is change providers on a whim once they start making branded email part of their core communication and marketing process, you will not want to just switch providers. Without a small migration plan you could take down all your email communications for an extended period of time. That could be very bad if you have implemented an ecommerce solution or other portal solution to sell your products or services online.

Lastly, small businesses are a piece of the marketplace that has been historically ignored and displaced regarding business class email solutions. Understand that these SMB users have been provided simple, feature poor email solutions to date. Today several providers have begun to add rich functionality to their email solutions for full collaborative experiences. What’s better is that these feature rich solutions are easily in reach of a small business owner’s budget.

As a former small business owner myself, I realized that regardless of my size I still needed the same types of tools as a larger enterprise. The difference, I wanted them at a much lower price point. And I wanted them to be just as good as the enterprise class solutions. Don’t compromise. Get your branded email, and get the features you want, and grow your business.