Get a business email address

• Credibility – A business email address shows customers you are a real business they can trust.
• Brand recognition – A business name in your email address helps people remember your brand.
• People see your emails – Emails sent from a business email address are less likely to go to the receiver’s spam folder.
• Multiple email addresses – You can have more than one email address on your domain and manage them from one place.
• Email marketing – Some newsletter platforms restrict free email accounts. A business email address also makes your email newsletters seem more trustworthy.
• Separate business from personal – Having an account just for work emails makes it easy to keep track of them.

Get a domain name

You need a domain name for a business email address.

If you already have a business website you can use your website's domain name for your business email address. Otherwise you’ll need to register a new domain name.

An email hosting service gives you the software and storage for your business email address.

If you have a business website, check if your website host also offers email hosting.

Or you can sign up for a separate email hosting service. Some popular ones for businesses are Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and Zoho Mail.

Now you can create the email addresses you need. A sole trader might only need one email address, such as info@yourbusinessname.com.au.

If you have employees, you might want an email address for every staff member. Use a consistent format, such as firstname.lastname@yourbusinessname.com.au.

You should also consider creating an email address for the main parts of your business. For example:

• sales@yourbusinessname.com.au
• support@yourbusinessname.com.au
• feedback@yourbusinessname.com.au.

This shows customers that you’re organised and they are emailing the right area. It can also make things easier when a staff member leaves your business.

Choose a strong password and consider using two-factor authentication (2FA) to keep your email account secure.

Email apps let you send, read and manage your emails. Most computers and mobile devices will already have an email app installed.

Your email hosting service should tell you how to configure your apps and start using your business email address.

Most email hosting services also let you send and manage emails through a web browser.

Set up forwarding on your old email address

If you've been using a different business email address until now, some people might still try to contact you there. 

Most email services let you set up automatic forwarding on your old account. This will forward any emails sent to your old email address to your new one.

If your old email provider doesn't offer automatic forwarding, you can set up an automatic reply on your old account. This is a message that automatically gets sent to anyone emailing your old address. Use an auto-reply message to tell people that your old email address is no longer active. Include your new email address so people know how to contact you.