Does your email address confuse people?

Howdy everyone!  Casey Eberhart here with another tip for all of you folks looking to actually do business via the Internet.  Let me share with you what I have been doing all morning long and what conclusion I have drawn about email addresses.  This morning I have gone through stacks and stacks of business cards with the intention of putting them in different stacks according to how likely I will follow up with people.  If you are anything like me, you probably have 100’s laying around on your desk just waiting to go through them.  (As an aside, if you need some ideas on what to do with all of your cards, check out my friend Alan’s blog at www.followupsuccess.com ) 

I have an email list stared with all of my contacts in it.  You will probably have one as well growing that list every time you meet people.  Here is the thing I noticed over and over again this morning.  PEOPLE ARE CONFUSING!  It made me so confused I actually stopped inputting them into Constant Contact to write this post.  Here is the thing.  hotchik456hyes@rr.kc.orn.com for a lady named Samantha who sells high end real estate is a bit confusing.  After entering literally about 100 email addresses today, I ask you to take a few seconds and look at what your email address says about you.  You need to make sure you do not confuse anyone by your email address because you WILL lose contacts.  You might consider buying your own name and making your email address something like yourname@yourname.com.  When you use a free service such as yahoo or gmail, it makes you seem a little less professional in my opinion.  You might also consider making it really easy for people to email you by setting up a site like www.emailcasey.com. 

I beg you to take a few seconds and ask yourself if you might be confusing people by a silly free email account.  The last card I entered was for an Arbonne rep with an email address at an insurance office!  Does this make any sense to you?  Is she selling insurance or lotion?  You tell me. 

P.S. You may email me at www.emailcasey.com or casey@idealnetworker.com

Give someone an AWESOME day!!

Chris Morin - December 4, 2008

I agree with you! I wanted to also mention that those looking for a job and emailing their resume’s do themselves no good with emails like… hotmama @hotmail.com, cutiepie352, urdrinkinbuddy etc. etc. … I’m not joking! I was receiving resume’s with emails like this for job openings at an Office Equipment Company I own for IT jobs and Service Dispatch. These types of emails do NOT impress your future employers. I like the free services but I use my name or biz name in front of them. 🙂

DJ-RJ - December 6, 2008

Great article and your point is well made. We have to keep educating others about technology and positioning to look good to potential clients.

Grahame Brown - December 14, 2008

Casey, this is one of my pet hates too, its vital for people to think through every element of their personal brand and online presence from the ground up, including their email address.

The irony is they can still use gmail (which I think is a fantastic service) in conjunction with their own domain, which maintains their personal branding.

Regards Grahame

Robert Breiner - March 2, 2009

Amen to that! I thought I was the only one with this pet peeve…

Margaret Jacoby - March 2, 2009

Chris –

After working in the HR field for over 30 years, I am still amazed at the poor choices candidates are making when submitting resumes via e-mail. You are correct in that recruiters and those receiving resumes are not impressed by those “cutsey” names.

With e-mail and social networking becoming the norm for applicants, we all need to keep in mind simple business etiquette and courtesy. Employers put themselves at risk when they search the Facebook or MySpace pages of applicants and make hiring decisions based on the photo they find. But, those pages also give the potential employer a good idea of the character and habits of those applicants.

The Web exposes the good, the bad and the ugly.

Eddie - April 14, 2009

I recently ran a googleads campaign, and my database had 250 email addresses of
which only 10% of them made any sense and yes 95% of email addresses were from
the free providers (hotmail, yahoo, gmail).

I could tell straight away that the people on this list were not likely to do business
with me and sure enough did not make 1 sale in a 5 month period. It did not really
surprise me as i already came to this conclusion by the email addresses alone.

Heartburn Home Remedy - April 15, 2009

My fellow on Orkut shared this link and I’m not dissapointed at all that I came to your blog.

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