That's the short answer to why I have stopped actively using my former primary email address, the nifty jon@j*ngreer.com (the * stands for an 'o'). After several years of relatively quiet and manageable spam, it took off in the past year. That email address is now receiving more than 1,000 spams for every legit email that comes through. The spam filters can't even come close to keeping up.
Instead, I'm now using my gmail address as my primary email address, and intend to do so even as I build my consulting practice at www.jgcllc.biz.
This isn't all about spam, however. It's also about making my email easier to share and remember. I now believe that an email address with a commonly known domain, such as gmail, is a business and personal benefit.
Fewer custom characters means it's more likely that you'll get my email address right the first time. As someone who spells his name Jon Without the H and had that in both parts of my former email address, I've had to say that phrase thousands of times and always worry that the person still didn't catch it. The Internet is unforgiving in that sense, so anything one can do to make it easier for the user is worth doing.
For me, this represents a 180-degree reversal of my stance on primary email addresses. Obviously, I could have stayed with an address using @comcast or @yahoo years ago, but I shunned those in favor of a custom URL. From a marketing and positioning standpoint, my message was intended to be this: even though I'm an independent consultant, I'm sophisticated enough to have my own URL. And that was intended to be in contrast to freelancers and part-timers who stayed with provider-supplied emails.
Now that I've made this change, I've noticed that many of my consulting colleagues still have custom URLs, so I wonder: Is this still working for you from a marketing standpoint? And my follow-up: Have you been attacked by the spammers, and if not, how have you dodged that bullet?
Instead, I'm now using my gmail address as my primary email address, and intend to do so even as I build my consulting practice at www.jgcllc.biz.
This isn't all about spam, however. It's also about making my email easier to share and remember. I now believe that an email address with a commonly known domain, such as gmail, is a business and personal benefit.
Fewer custom characters means it's more likely that you'll get my email address right the first time. As someone who spells his name Jon Without the H and had that in both parts of my former email address, I've had to say that phrase thousands of times and always worry that the person still didn't catch it. The Internet is unforgiving in that sense, so anything one can do to make it easier for the user is worth doing.
For me, this represents a 180-degree reversal of my stance on primary email addresses. Obviously, I could have stayed with an address using @comcast or @yahoo years ago, but I shunned those in favor of a custom URL. From a marketing and positioning standpoint, my message was intended to be this: even though I'm an independent consultant, I'm sophisticated enough to have my own URL. And that was intended to be in contrast to freelancers and part-timers who stayed with provider-supplied emails.
Now that I've made this change, I've noticed that many of my consulting colleagues still have custom URLs, so I wonder: Is this still working for you from a marketing standpoint? And my follow-up: Have you been attacked by the spammers, and if not, how have you dodged that bullet?
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