Are AOL Email Addresses for Losers?

Posted on April 2, 2008
Filed Under Realtor Tools & Tips | 2 Comments

Andy Wibbels thinks so and I bet many people would agree with him. I won’t be so rude here as to call some of the top producing Realtors in the country “losers” but I will say; Realtors using AOL, free mail accounts and email addresses with their ISP domain name are definitely “losing out”.

Let’s discuss some of the reasons you should not be using your AOL, Yahoo or other ISP email accounts. Yes, there is more than one reason, in fact there are many. The first and most obvious is that it is simply unprofessional. I know the dangers of “assuming” anything but let’s please just assume that we all know and agree that lulu69@hotmail.com is not an appropriate email address for your business image.

What else is wrong with this address? Well, it kind of looks like SPAM so there is a more than high possibility that this email would be deleted, blocked or even blacklisted. What else? As if your email not being received isn’t enough to deter you from this bad practice. Well then…

How about branding? You all know branding. You have spent money on logos, business cards, direct mail campaigns, just listed and sold cards. You have a website. You have a full page ad in a glossy magazine and listings in all the local newspapers. I don’t have to tell you about branding. Then why are you branding your ISP domain name every time you send an email?

Still, that email address seems like such a small thing compared to your other marketing efforts. And yet, think about it. How many emails will you send and reply to today? Compare that to how many other marketing/branding impressions you made today. How does it compare? How does the cost compare? Can you see how your biggest return on investment (ROI) could actually be coming from your own branded email?

Comments

2 Responses to “Are AOL Email Addresses for Losers?”

RealEstate on June 16th, 2008 6:09 pm

Not only do I not recommend using AOL email because it looks a little unprofessional, but also, alot of the time AOL email will block emails generated from website forms and other random email addresses. You could lose business!
alex on December 9th, 2008 4:40 pm

save to my Bookmarks