Corporate email is much more than a company communication channel. In the business world, it takes on different roles capable of directing teams towards various objectives.

Whether it’s to make a sale, build B2C relationships or create B2B connections, a professional email is an expressive and relevant element for the image of the company as a whole.

It’s the one that will drive more solid corporate communication within the expected effects, which can be limited to a simple message between employees or follow the path of a creative product launch email campaign, for example.

The possibilities are endless and in this post, we’ll explore each of the uses that a corporate email represents for freelance professionals and also for companies that use it to communicate with different audiences.

Let’s start by understanding how it has evolved over time.

A brief history of corporate email

Emails, in general, originated in the 1960s. Researchers at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) began sharing information via computers. Email was therefore used mainly by scientists and academics on private networks.

Electronic mail, as we know it today, began to appear in 1971, when the first emails were sent with the “@” separating the username from the domain.

We call this email syntax, which is nothing more than the format we know today: usuário@domínio.com.

As early as the 1980s, companies began to adopt email. They realized their great potential for improving internal communication between employees and also external communication with consumers.

Emails gained popularity in the 1990s with the emergence of free providers such as Hotmail, Yahoo and later, Gmail.

Companies realized that the effectiveness of this type of communication won over consumers. As a result, corporate email systems such as Microsoft Exchange Server (launched in 1993) began to become the standard in companies.

With the arrival of mobile devices in 2000, corporate email gained even more strength. Professionals needed to access and manage their emails in real time, from anywhere on the planet.

In the 2010s, Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 combined email with calendars and cloud storage, creating integrated work environments.

As a result, sending and receiving professional emails has grown, and online security has become a priority, with advances in encryption and domain and IP authentication.

The evolution of corporate email continues today with a focus on user experience and automation, and companies are using it as an Inbound Marketing strategy to generate business.

Corporate email represents business opportunities

Many people don’t know what a corporate email really is, and are also unaware of its ability to generate business.

Bearing in mind that this tool allows companies to reach their audiences quickly and effectively, email marketing is widely used:

• Prospecting customers in the first stage of the marketing function, where professionals need to build valid email lists, for subsequent communication and sending of company/brand content.
• Nurture potential customers, through educational or entertaining content, in order to build a relationship with them and qualify them for conversion or sales.
• Close deals by sending content from the bottom of the funnel to encourage them to make a purchase decision.
• And also after-sales, fostering customer loyalty by creating long-lasting relationships.

Just to clarify, sending bulk emails is only accepted by the recipients’ ISPs if the sender is a company.

So, with the functionality of being able to communicate with thousands of users at an excellent cost-benefit ratio, companies can boost their revenues using this strategy.

Email marketing has been in 1st place in the ROI of all digital marketing for years. There is a return of US$ 42 for every US$ 1 invested.

All this expressiveness translates into lead generation, consolidation of relationships with the public, revenue progression, among other benefits.

See how corporate email makes all the difference? And that’s not even the beginning. There’s much more to see!

The importance of email verification

Email verification provides the necessary structure for professionals to work with email marketing by building healthy lists.

This is because mailing lists, in their “raw state”, have large numbers of invalid emails and bounces, which prevent messages from being delivered to recipients’ inboxes.

In other words, unverified lists mean losses, since the recipients’ email providers block the sending of lists containing only 3% bounces, as well as stopping the receipt of valid emails or sending them to the spam folder.

And so a vicious circle is born: senders blocked by ISPs have their domains and IPs sent to international spammer blacklists.

These same ISPs consult the blacklists to inform their spam filters who the spammers are.

Only a clean list free of invalid emails reaches the recipients’ inbox, thus increasing the deliverability rate, while at the same time lowering the Cost per Lead, since the addresses are receiving the messages.

Corporate email as a recipient of email marketing campaigns

So far, we’ve been talking about corporate email as the sender of email marketing.

But as a recipient, a corporate email can become invalid very quickly. This happens because of the turnover of employees in companies.

Transfers of work regions, promotions and dismissals mean changes in emails. As a result, a contact that is valid today may no longer be valid tomorrow.

In addition to the high risk of becoming invalid, a corporate email can be temporary, since the creation of aliases is common in companies.

Email aliases are alternative email addresses linked to the main account, which can be disconnected at any time. They are used to organize communication management in organizations.

Hence the importance of checking emails frequently. There’s no point in sending an email marketing campaign today and then sending another one in two or three months’ time without checking it.

If this happens, the sender runs the risk of having their campaign blocked and their identification (domain and ips) sent to spammer lists, as described above.

Information security

Cybercrime is becoming increasingly sophisticated, even more so in the age of Artificial Intelligence.

Everyone who communicates by email is subject to receiving suspicious messages, and corporate email is no different.

The most common scam in companies is ransonware, which hijacks customer and supplier data. The criminal then requests payment to return the information.

Data leaks are a major headache, because under the General Data Protection Act, whoever collects and stores the data is responsible for its security.

In other words, companies that contain information on millions of customers are responsible for the privacy of the data of the various audiences they have stored and processed.

And anyone who thinks that including a Privacy Policy is enough to guarantee compliance with the LGPD is mistaken.

There are many requirements for data protection and it is important that companies know all the details in order to avoid fines and sanctions imposed by the law.

The DPO is the professional who protects the company’s corporate email from hackers; receives questions from the public regarding the company’s privacy policy, among other details relating to information security.

Why freelancers need to create a corporate email

Corporate email is one of a company’s most important identifiers. This is because this tool is the mouthpiece for communication with various audiences.

The same applies to self-employed professionals. Just like companies, people who work for themselves need to create and maintain a corporate image that conveys the idea of credibility.

Corporate email is an instrument of reliability. Imagine that you are selecting professionals to provide services.

Between [[email protected]] and [profissional2@domíniopróprio.com], which one would you choose for a partnership?

Your own domain acts as an online signature and therefore generates a good reputation for the professional who, in this case, takes on the role of a company when using your corporate email.

Not to mention the fact that free email providers don’t accept bulk emails.

In other words, it means that a professional who uses Gmail, Yahoo or any other free provider can’t communicate with their leads via bulk emails.

This is extremely damaging, since every professional is looking to build a relationship with their leads, either to close deals or to consolidate the connection with them.

How to build a quality professional mailing list

A corporate mailing list is the crème de la crème for sales and marketing teams. Just the possibility of prospecting or selling on a large scale is an excellent reason to build a corporate list.

An excellent way to create a list of corporate contacts is through a newsletter. Everyone knows that content is the bait for attracting leads, and creating a newsletter with relevant content from your area of activity can arouse interest in prospects.

Designing landing pages to capture emails is essential, as it is through these that people will access your content and, in return, provide their names, emails and other data relevant to your business.

Again, email verification is necessary, by integrating a real-time verification API with the landing page or any other email collection service.

The API protects registration forms from invalid emails. This way, professionals can collect lists of promising leads. Active contacts who are interested in receiving your communication are much more likely to close deals.

Participation in events and conferences is also important, not only for networking, but also for generating contacts through email exchanges. This is where professionals have the chance to build a list of relevant contacts.

The impact of corporate email on team productivity

Corporate email generates benefits that involve communication, both between teams and in dialogues with leads, in the case of sales and marketing teams.

The first advantage this tool provides is agility in exchanging information, which can be crucial for closing a sale, for example.

Project management – be it sales, marketing or any other area – also gains a lot from corporate email, which acts as a record of everything that has been done, serving as a reference for decision-making.

The relationship between professional email and the brand

Professional emails are a brand positioning tool. This happens through the structure of the company’s communication transmitted through its emails.

This is a pattern of text/language (brand tone of voice) and images that together define the company’s behavior with its consumers.

In this way, the lead recognizes the brand among the email senders, which helps them to open the messages and, consequently, the click-through and conversion rates that follow.

In addition, corporate email generates consistency in communication, allowing leads to be nurtured within the marketing funnel.

The future of corporate email: trends and innovations

With the aim of making work even more accessible and uncomplicated, professional emails are being integrated with corporate collaboration tools such as Slack and Trello.

Corporate email settings are advancing, and algorithms identify the tone of messages to define response priorities.

Providers offer robust support for hybrid work environments, allowing access to full functionality outside the office.

These are just a few trends that will continue to transform the corporate email experience. And adopting these innovations is crucial for companies that want to keep employees engaged, as well as competitive in the online environment.

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