Choosing The Right Email Host To Meet Your Business Needs

Email may now seem like old technology, but it has certainly aged well enough to stay relevant to every business operation. Whether your business is looking to get into email marketing, set up efficient intra-company communication, or add the sophistication of a business email, a host is what you need! But how do you choose the right email host to meet your business needs?

To choose the right email host for your business, you should evaluate its needs, budget, and potential return on investment for a business email. Do in-depth research on the providers that best fit your use case as a client. You should also consult other stakeholders before making a decision.

Choosing an email host can seem daunting, especially for a small or medium business, but it doesn’t have to be! This article will explain all the essential information for you to choose a provider that’s just right for your business. Keep reading to learn more!

How To Choose the Right Email Host for Your Business

Like every business decision, choosing an email host is a process that requires step-by-step research. There are many factors to evaluate when making that choice, and there’s hardly a choice that perfectly balances every one of those factors.

However, you can find the best fit – an email host that adequately meets the most pressing needs of your business and offers valuable benefits. Let’s dive into how to make that right choice.

Evaluate Your Business Needs

When selecting an email-hosting service, the first factor to consider is your business’s needs. If you’re running a small business or are still in the process of getting your business structure together, this might be a tricky question to answer.

A helpful way to figure out what your business will need from an email host is to ask yourself – and other relevant stakeholders in your business – a series of questions for each need. Here are the most common needs of every business from their email host and questions you can use to pinpoint yours!

Your Business’s Email Hosting Needs

The first question to ask yourself is, “Why does my business need an email host?” Don’t feel pressured to come up with a business-savvy answer. Any answer that comes across as genuine, no matter how over-the-top, will do!

The Peculiarities of Your Industry

After figuring out why your business needs an email host, you’ll need to take your industry into consideration. Some pertinent questions you can answer to figure this out are: Does my business’ industry have special needs? Will these needs influence or limit my choice of an email host?

The Number of Employees in Your Company

The number of employees or stakeholders in your company will play an important role in determining what email hosting service you can choose. You’ll have to only consider providers and hosting plans that are robust enough to accommodate every member of staff who will need a company email.

Your Business’s Security Needs

The security level of your email hosting service will determine how secure your company data and communication process are. Some services may also require a level of security that offers client anonymity.

If your business requires high data protection, you may need to streamline your choice of possible email hosts.

Branding Needs of Your Business

Whether your business has an existing brand identity that you’d like to reinforce with branded company emails or you’re starting out afresh, branding is vital! It’s best to consider your previous work, like your business website, or consult your brand strategist to figure out what kind of host you should search for.

If you don’t already have a business website, you can create one yourself using Wix or other accessible web development tools.

Search for Email Hosts Who Meet Your Needs

After figuring out what you’ll need from your potential email host, you can get to work with searching for email hosts with enough potential value to meet your needs. As always, the internet is an excellent place to start your search!

Check out trusted sources for information on both popular and not-so-popular providers. It’s best to avoid “salesy” email host advertisements altogether. Beyond digesting personal opinions from tech reviewers, take out the time to do your own research from the companies themselves.

The support teams in email host companies are often willing to make clarifications and give you any more information you need. While they may be inclined to speak in favour of their employer, you can sift out essential, unbiased information to help you make a decision.

An intuitive way to narrow down your potential email hosts is to list out the possible providers. For each provider, include the potential pros and cons in the order of importance to your business. If one of the potential hosts has a high-priority downside, that provider might be ineligible for consideration to begin with!

Figure Out Your Business’ Budget

Figuring out your budget can go hand-in-hand with searching for email hosts. If you already have a concrete idea of the financial limits of your search, you can outrightly strike out options that don’t fit into that budget.

Without the constraints of a strict budget, you’re much freer to explore a wide variety of options! Even with a budget, you shouldn’t settle for a single option. Take the time to explore the best email hosts that provide great value for the price.

Weigh the Added Advantages of Different Providers

If you’re caught between multiple services after sifting carefully, you can begin to weigh their added advantages. For most email hosts, this advantage comprises access to exclusive business tools. Figure out how relevant each perk will be to your business, and make a choice.

As you make this decision, ensure that you bench any personal sentiments you may have towards these services. Clear your mind and think only of what would be best for your business!

Check for Client Reviews

With email hosts, it’s not uncommon for planning to be different from implementation. After doing due diligence with your objective research, you need to cover the last base – customer experience.

As always, the internet will be your most helpful tool for this task. You can search out customer reviews from verified subscribers and carefully go through them. For small and medium businesses, you may be able to get personal information from other organisations that use an email host that you’re considering.

What To Look Out for in a Business Email Host

Some basic services of email hosts will be crucial to the proper functioning of your business. You should know these features and be particular about them when making enquiries, so I’ll briefly explain them.

Custom email hosting: This is the most essential feature of every email hosting provider, so you mustn’t forget it. Check that the email host offers seamless custom business email hosting.
Anti-malware detection: Like free email hosts, all business email hosts should offer some protection against cybersecurity attacks. They should also have a fallback policy in the event of a breach.
Business-centred email support: The ideal email host should offer round-the-clock support services to its clients. In the event of a business emergency involving your email, the last thing you’ll want is to be kept waiting!
Connected cloud storage: If your email hosting plan includes a cloud storage feature, you should examine its capability. Cloud storage can be a vital part of upscaling your business’s data and information processes.
Centralised data management: Some email hosts offer centralised management for business data so that all employees can access and use all information. For high-security, like anonymous client information, you can even restrict which employees can access it.
Access to integrated business apps: If your email host offers free access to business applications like Vault with Google Workspace or Microsoft Office with Microsoft 365, you should check out their efficiency. Remember to always examine these features through the lens of your business use case.

Final Thoughts

Congratulations! You now have all the information and tools you need to find the right email host for your business! As you make the best decision for your enterprise, you’ll get to watch your brand grow beyond your wildest dreams!

Choosing the Right Email Host for Your Business