This article is part of a 10-day challenge designed to help mompreneurs start a business. To start the challenge, visit Mompreneur Bootcamp.
Which email should you use?
Email will be super important for communicating with customers and establishing accounts.
But which type of email do you want? DO NOT use your personal email address – create a new one. So, do you want your new email address to have something like @gmail.com or @outlook.com? Or would you rather have one with your own custom domain, like jane.doe@heartcraftgirl.com (don’t actually email this address – it doesn’t exist)?
Here are the benefits and trade-offs of each:
Gmail
- Cost: FREE
- Spreadsheet: Google Sheets
- Cloud Storage: Google Drive
- User Interface: Gmail
- Email via Phone: Yes
- Looks like a business: No
Outlook / Hotmail
- Cost: FREE
- Spreadsheet: Microsoft Excel
- Cloud Storage: OneDrive
- User Interface: Outlook
- Email via Phone: Yes
- Looks like a business: No
@custom domain – Google
- Cost:
- Email: $6/mo, $72/yr
- Domain: $12-$18/yr
- Domain privacy: $10/yr
- Spreadsheet: Google Sheets
- Cloud Storage: Google Drive
- User Interface: Gmail
- Email via Phone: Yes
- Looks like a business: Yes
@custom domain – Microsoft
- Cost:
- Email (1st yr): $2/mo, $24/yr
- Email (Others): $5/mo, $60/yr
- Domain: $12-$18/yr
- Domain privacy: $10/yr
- Spreadsheet: Microsoft Excel
- Cloud Storage: OneDrive
- User Interface: Outlook
- Email via Phone: Yes
- Looks like a business: Yes
Custom Domains
If you want your own domain for email, you’ll have to pay to reserve your domain name.
I use GoDaddy, but I’m not very happy with their service. They use scare tactics to try to get you to pay for more services. Feel free to shop around for “domain name registration” services. I’ll update this post when it’s time for me to move to a new domain registrar.
My Recommendation
If you’ve got the money and big ambitions for the business, I recommend using your own domain name. It’s hard to change later down the road.
If you’re on a tight budget or you’re not totally sure whether this mompreneur thing is for you, go Gmail or Outlook/Hotmail.
Customer Orders Management
We will be talking about how to do customer order management on a different day, but your choice of email here can impact that.
My opinion is to use Excel for order tracking because of a feature called “Tables“. I can’t figure out a way to do the same thing in Google Sheets.
However, I understand that the majority of you use Gmail. If your heart is set on using a Google email, you can still use Excel for order tracking – just create a separate Outlook account and only use it to work with the spreadsheets. You can create an Outlook email address for free and ONLY use the spreadsheet app, while continuing to do your email through your Google account.
Gmail may dominate the personal email market, but Microsoft dominates the Office software market. Excel is really good.
Where to Sign Up
- Gmail: https://gmail.com
- Outlook / Hotmail: https://outlook.com
- Custom domain (Google): https://gsuite.google.com/products/gmail/
- Custom domain (Microsoft): https://www.godaddy.com/email/professional-business-email
- (Yes, it is GoDaddy – but they use Microsoft under the covers)
Regardless of whether you choose a free or paid custom domain, you should always reserve the email addresses on the free services. This is to help avoid cybersquatting, where someone takes the address and pretends to be you. Don’t think it could possibly happen to you? Think again: there are people out there watching business registrations for the opportunity to cybersquat.
After you’ve got your email address registered, it’s time to reserve your business name everywhere else:
Homework Assignment
Based on what you have learned in this article, create one action item to do something new for your business and write it down in your MOMPRENEUR JOURNAL! Then do it! Focus on one little action item at a time and soon, your business will be booming!
What's the next thing to learn? I cover it all here - browse through and find an article to read!
You got this, mama!
