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Have you ever been out and about outside and then you see a truck or a van with a “@aol.com” or “@hotmail.com” address? Lately, one doesn’t even have to go outside, as I saw a “@hotmail.com” on an egg carton. I have also seen one company that had a full page ad with an “@aol.com” address.

I’m not saying that no one should have “generic” email addresses on their business cards. Everyone has to start somewhere, but if the company has been around for a while, (over 2 years), there should be little reason why one should have a “@this-is-my-osp-address.com” address on their marketing materials. If anything, the generic e-mail address could serve as a back-up, just in case the web hosting goes down.

However, a company needs to have a consistent brand. Having a generic e-mail address gives the impression that they are not “ready for prime-time”, which may cause the loss of contracts and other opportunities.

How does one overcome this? Here’s a quickie solution.
Have your webmaster and or web hosting company establish an e-mail address at your company name “you@yourcompanyname.com” and have it forward to your generic e-mail address.

On the flip side, in your e-mail application program, you can set the “Reply To:” address to “you@yourcompanyname.com”, so that when someone clicks on the “Reply” button or link, they see “you@yourcompanyname.com” in the “To:” field. This re-enforces your company brand.