There are no standards for creating business email addresses, and so the formats chosen reveal a lot about the company behind them. Here’s an overview:
Corporate Titans (or wannabes): jennifer.mann@titancorporation.com. This format is serious, sober, and says, “Don’t mess with us – we have thousands of employees.” (An extreme example is Accenture’s format: Jennifer.n.mann@accenture.com.)
Friendly SMB’s: jennifer@philsflorist.com. Everyone’s on a first name basis with them.
Sole Proprietors: westshorecpa@gmail.com. The lack of your own domain name is a dead giveaway – technology is not a big part of your strategy.
Nostalgics: MANNJ72@firstnationalbank.com. The seven-character name comes from old IBM-mainframe-style user ids, which were limited in length. This format says: we loved the world before servers.
Do email address formats affect the way you view companies? Which model do you prefer?
