I found this interesting link in my LinkedIn home screen today. What ever email service you use shouldn't matter, as long as the client enquiry reach you and that you providing a professional service punctually respond to the client message.
It is light reading and something for aspiring photographers and retouchers to think about.
While on note, it is also imperative to take into consideration of the username preceding the "@domain.com." If you use a free email service, e.g. GMail, your username should appear "professional" and reflect your services. What do you think? Do you agree, disagree, or have no opinions on the subject matter?
There are many hosting companies that offer an email only option as name@domain.com, where you don't have to pay for the hosting.
Melodye Joy
Posts: 527
Rancho Cucamonga, California, US
I agree. It's not easy having three emails, but I feel I need to maintain a professional grade when its "normal" job seeking or model casting/audition inquiry.
My email address is my name only...I have a rather "fun" email for my aunties and family that frequently email or chat with me.
You always keep personal and professional life separate.
RONALD NZ TAN
Posts: 2,366
Sacramento, California, US
I kid not: I received a model submission from "uhoesmakemesick@[REDACTED]" two weeks ago.
Being the nice and friendly Ron that I am, I replied and suggested him to make a new email with a professional appearance in his username. Others might not be as lenient. I replied and gave him similar strategies to improve his username.
Matt Knowles
Posts: 3,520
Ferndale, California, US
I believe that if you're a professional business, you should own and use your own domain.
Biggest reason is that it will always be yours, as long as you don't forget to renew the domain. You can change ISPs and not have to reprint your business cards.
I've seen clients go from AOL, to Hotmail, to Yahoo, and now Gmail. What if in the next few years something comes along and replaces Google? Each time they change, they have to deal with notifying every contact, who may or may not make the change in their address book. They also end up with printed materials and web links that point to an address they're no longer using.
Further, when I send an email from my domain, I'm reinforcing my brand, not Google's.
Using my domain, I also have full control of the amount of spam filtering I wish to use.
I regularly point new clients to this blog entry of mine.
If you're a pro photog why use a free email service? Like someone already mentioned, you should have your own domain. I'm not a pro, I use hotmail. bootybandit68@hotmail.com
My "day job" is business to business sales. While this is a little different than a photography business selling to consumers, I would frankly be embarrassed if my company didn't provide an e-mail address with our web domain, knowing that it would immediately scream "unprofessional" at all potential clients. My photography business is a small side venture, but I treat it the same way as my "real" job. I would not have anything other than my own domain in my e-mail address.
For shooting models for fun and experience, a free web based e-mail is fine.
Most free providers like Google and Yahoo offer pretty inexpensive options for getting e-mail set up that has a domain name instead of @gmail.com or @yahoo.com
Marciofs
Posts: 1,574
Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
I have my own domain but I don't usually give my e-mail but ask people to contact me through my website. So they don't actually have to know my email. Only when I reply.
RKD Photographic
Posts: 2,997
Iserlohn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
kevjohn Photography wrote: If you're a pro photog why use a free email service? Like someone already mentioned, you should have your own domain. I'm not a pro, I use hotmail. bootybandit68@hotmail.com
I do have a proper email associated with my website - for paying clients
MM isn't 'Pro' - although there are pros on it... hotmail serves me well enough for this aspect of what I do.
On one hand I take someone less seriously when they are doing business under a gmail or hotmail (etc) account. It's not professional. But, on the other hand it's stable. Hotmail has been around forever, gmail has been around forever, and since my first hotmail account in 98 I've lost about 4 generations worth out outlook mail and my website.com mail due to moving servers, crashes, etc. Sometime I'll hook website email with gmail, but I may have to learn my lesson again before then.
So yes, it's more unprofessional but it's stable.
Although (depending on the email address) any email company is still better than calling yourself CEO or some other dumb stuff to make you look more professional or important than you are.
Andrew Thomas Evans wrote: I'm back and forth about this.
On one hand I take someone less seriously when they are doing business under a gmail or hotmail (etc) account. It's not professional. But, on the other hand it's stable. Hotmail has been around forever, gmail has been around forever, and since my first hotmail account in 98 I've lost about 4 generations worth out outlook mail and my website.com mail due to moving servers, crashes, etc. Sometime I'll hook website email with gmail, but I may have to learn my lesson again before then.
So yes, it's more unprofessional but it's stable.
Although (depending on the email address) any email company is still better than calling yourself CEO or some other dumb stuff to make you look more professional or important than you are.
I have a copy of everything that comes into my e-mail for my photography business automatically forwarded to my Yahoo mail due to some of the issues you mention, plus I never have to open up Outlook and can do pretty much everything through my Yahoo e-mail.
I use a mix. My pro work for hire website is my private domain name and my email address is my firstname.lastname@domain_name.com. However, I have several alias email addresses for that domain all routed to the same inbox:
This allows me to ability to give people I have a more comfortable relationship a "friendly" email address to use (bob@domain_name.com), or to route inquiries or photo requests to auto marked folders and color-code priority.
I find consistency to be a very important marketing tool... and that's also the reason that I am using the same headshot on my MM, FB and other modeling sites profiles and website, business cards etc.
Some people disagree... about the photo... but... well... that's just my philosophy.
udor wrote: Some people disagree... about the photo... but... well... that's just my philosophy.
I'd agree that a name across many sites is a great idea, but not sure if branding to your extent would really be helpful here. Across other sites and professional sites it's a must though.
Are you saying that gwc69me@gmail.com isn't professional?
But seriously, domain names are so cheap these days there's really no excuse for not having one. I have my domain name email set up to forward to my gmail account (no it's not the one above), and my gmail account set up to send emails from my domain name email.
I enjoy catchall emails (The spam problems of the past are largely solved)
If I have an art project, the casting states to send messages to ArtProject@JayLeavitt.com - Workshop queries go to Workshops@JayLeavitt.com- the specificity adds a certain level of "yo, that's legit" in my experience.
Also, with Mozilla Thunderbird, I have 7 domain emails (models/families/commercial, etc) all tracked in one spot, organized, etc.
Seems a petty outlook to me.
Personally I'm more interested in the subject line and content of an e-mail than the address of the sender. I don't even notice the senders address unless I think the e-mail is suss, even if i'm replying i usually hit "reply" without looking at the address, and if I'm sending something via their website most websites have submit forms now rather than an e-mail address.
I have also noticed that a lot of e-mails that are from a website (ie you@yourdomain.com) seem to end up in my spam box. When I had a website and sent mail from my website i had people telling me that they didn't reciee it, and sure enough when i told them to check their spam box, that is where it would be.
Edit, I do agree that the name of your e-mail needs to be professional and reflects who you are to a large degree, but i don't think the domain the mail service comes from should be something to be making conclusions from.
GM Photography wrote: My "day job" is business to business sales. While this is a little different than a photography business selling to consumers, I would frankly be embarrassed if my company didn't provide an e-mail address with our web domain, knowing that it would immediately scream "unprofessional" at all potential clients. My photography business is a small side venture, but I treat it the same way as my "real" job. I would not have anything other than my own domain in my e-mail address.
For shooting models for fun and experience, a free web based e-mail is fine.
Most free providers like Google and Yahoo offer pretty inexpensive options for getting e-mail set up that has a domain name instead of @gmail.com or @yahoo.com
I recently helped a client transition from running Exchange locally to using gmail. It was amazingly simple to have their domain changed so their mail goes to google and it made it really easy for them to access email from anywhere particularly smartphones. They couldn't be happier and it costs them just a couple hundred dollars per year for the entire company - something like $50/yr per mailbox. They log in to google using their login ID @ their domain name not gmail.com. It also gives them 5GB of cloud storage on Google Drive, Calendar, etc.
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