There are a lot of things that go into crafting your image as a real estate professional. While you may take care of the bigger stuff like building a website or arranging print materials like business cards, some of the smaller things like picking the right email address might slip through the cracks. While you may think an email address is just a means of communication, it really does speak volumes about you and can serve as a first impression to your potential customers.

Avoid Service Provider Email Addresses

These are probably the worst kind of emails you can have as far as an outside perception. Whether it be an account from Time Warner, Verizon, Rogers, Bell or any other smaller internet provider, this just sends the wrong message to prospective clients. Email addresses like this work as a beacon to the rest of the world telling them that you probably aren't the most tech savvy person. If your address is from an ISP people could draw the conclusion that you're just a part timer or that you may only have access when you're at home at the end of the day.

The biggest issue with these emails is what if you decide to change service providers? Sometimes these changes are unavoidable, maybe you find a great deal with a rival provider that's too good to pass up, or maybe your provider goes out of business. What happens then? The email that you had printed on your business cards and in the Yellow Pages will now be entirely inaccessible to you once you leave that provider. Think of all the hassle of updating all your online services with your new address and getting in touch with all your contacts to update them. In short, it will be a mess. Ideally you don't want real estate leads slipping through the cracks because you decided to save a few bucks on your Internet bill.

Skip Generic Web Based Email Services

In 2014, most people have some type of email with a service like Gmail, Yahoo, Live, Facebook or any number of other free email providers. While these may be handy for any number of reasons, like checking your email from anywhere or logging into social media sites, they don't necessarily come off as the most professional. While you may be lucky enough to get a decent email address from a free provider, odds are you'll have something like [email protected] given how many people use these services.

The perception of these free email addresses is that you're not willing to pay the cost of doing business. If you're not willing to get a proper email address, what other corners might you be cutting during the process of selling someone's house?

Pass On A Brokerage Email

Relying on a brokerage email could be a similar mistake to using an ISP email. While you may have a great address like [email protected] and you genuinely put across that professional impression, what about the day you decide to leave that company? All the contacts that you passed your business card to can't email you anymore. You're back to contacting everyone in your contact list and telling them to update your contact info (again).

Get Your Own Domain

The cost of buying your own domain for a year is probably less than what you paid for yesterday's lunch. Prices can typically range from $10-$15, depending on what type of domain you're registering. In a lot of cases, if you already have a real estate website, go the extra mile and have you IT person actually setup the email addresses to go with it. In a lot of cases, it's like having already run a marathon, then forgetting to cross the finish line.

The best part of about having your own domain is you always get the prime email address, so instead of [email protected], you get [email protected]. Not only do you get a great email address, you get to brand yourself and your business every time you send and email. It's a win/win.

Consolidate Your Inbox

If you're using a service like Gmail already, all hope isn't lost when it comes to your inbox. Google allows you to import other email addresses into your inbox, so you can consolidate your older accounts or personal account into one unified inbox. That new address you just setup for your domain can be imported directly into your existing inbox. You can set it up so that you can send and receive emails from multiple accounts, with each having its own unique signature. This is something I've been doing for years and it really is great to have a single inbox where all my correspondence for my various domains goes. Searching for information becomes a snap, too, which is an added bonus.

To view the original article, visit the Lone Wolf blog.