First, what do we mean by having an email address associated with your holiday let website domain name?
Let’s say your website domain name is seabreeze.com, your email address would be associated with that domain name i.e. ending with the same domain name.
For example, enquiries@seabreeze.com
But you may be wondering, what’s the benefit of using this type of email address over a free email address from Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo?
The main reason … it projects a more professional image.
Remember your holiday rental is a business, and if you want to secure as many bookings as possible you need your business to look professional.
Even if it’s the kind of business that’s more of a hobby to bring in a bit of extra income, or simply to cover the cost of the property purchase.
It’s still a business.
And when it comes to business, professionalism matters.
Which is why having a professional email address is essential.
It suggests to the world, that you are taking your business seriously and it helps establish trust.
Who would you feel more confident doing business with?
An email response from this account:
seabreeze@hotmail.com
or this one:
enquiries@seabreeze.com
I know which I’d choose.
So with that in mind, how do you go about getting an email address that’s tied in with your holiday let website’s domain name?
There a few different options with varying costs. Let’s start with the simplest …
1) Purchasing a mailbox through your domain name provider
Assuming you’ve already purchased a domain name, you can easily add a mailbox option. This is often a low cost option.
To give you an idea, for those of you with domain names purchased through 123-Reg, an individual mailbox will cost £2.99 per month.
With Namecheap, a mailbox comes in at just £6.78 per year.
Provider costs may vary due to the amount of storage they offer, so be sure to double check what you’re getting for that monthly or annual cost.
But just remember, unless you’re expecting to receive large files from potential guests – and let’s face it, why would you – then a 3GB, 4GB or 5GB mailbox storage size should be perfectly fine for your needs.
And there are some domain providers out there offering mailboxes for free.
So it’s worth investigating with yours first, even if you decide not to go down this route.
2) Google Apps for Work
Another popular option is Google Apps for Work.
The great thing about this is you get a ton of additional features along with your mailbox.
- Google Drive with 30GB storage
- Suite of programmes such as documents, spreadsheets, survey forms, and presentation slides
- Online video conferencing using Google Hangouts
All this costs £3.30 per month.
But why can’t you just stick with their free Gmail version?
Well you can.
But the difference between using Google Apps for Work and a regular Gmail account, is that you can customise the email address.
So going back to our earlier example, with Gmail you could, at best, personalise it to be seabreeze@gmail.com.
With Google Apps for Work, you can customise it to enquiries@seabreeze.com
A business email address, rather than a personal email address.
3) Zoho mailbox
The final option we’ll present today is free. Which for some of you, may be the preferred solution.
Zoho offer a basic mailbox solution with up to 5GB of storage totally free-of-charge.
How to choose your customised email?
Now that you’ve decided to use a more professional email address, you may be wondering what you should place before the @ (since behind the @ will be your website domain name).
Well pretty much anything, as long as it remains professional.
- enquiries@yourholidayrentaldomain.com
- contact@yourholidayrentaldomain.com
- bookings@yourholidayrentaldomain.com
Or you could use your name if you want to be a bit more personal.
One last thing to bear in mind, regardless of the route you go down, is that you’ll need to ensure your domain name settings have the correct email servers in place. Any of the options we’ve mentioned above should provide instructions on this.
And there you have it – a solution for everyone.
Isn’t it time you got yourself a professional email address?
Leave a Reply