Have you ever walked into an ice cream parlor, only to find out that they only offered one flavor? Probably not. That's because they know that different customers have different tastes. Some people like chocolate, while others prefer vanilla -- and then there are some who only like triple-mint chocolate chip!

As business owners, we should keep this in mind, even if we aren't peddling ice cream. It's easy to fall into trap of thinking that everyone has same tastes, and if we do that, we are probably excluding large groups of potential customers.

I am not saying that we should try to be everything to everybody -- What I am arguing is that we should do our best to remember that not everyone is alike, and that by simply putting a little extra variety into our product or service line, we can expand our customer base -- leading to more profits!

As promised, I’ll explain e-mail redirection and its benefits. I’ll use a client as an example. This company was just starting e-mail marketing, and decided to send e-mails to their customers. They wanted to show appropriate departments for e-mail addresses. Unaware of e-mail redirection, manager created e-mails with different free providers; john@hotmail; susan@msn; james@yahoo.com and so on. As an upscale restaurant, they had a prestigious reputation. However, when their business cards portrayed above e-mail addresses, they shot their image in foot!

A free-service e-mail address on your business card shouts “business on a startup budget.” They had a fabulous web site, but employees didn’t have corporate e-mail accounts? Using e-mail and web name redirection would enhance their image and search placement. The restaurant could get another web name (as explained in part 1 of this article) something like www.prestigedining.net, and establish e-mails as explained below

Here’s how it works. When I designed www.popcornfart.com , the web site for these articles, I received e-mail redirection option. E-mail redirection allows me to send to “anyone” at popcornfart.com. That means, I can pick any name and use it for e-mail as long as ending part of e-mail was @popcornfart.com. I can use following e-mail addresses:

jobs@popcornfart.com info@popcornfart.com support@popcornfart.com dodobird@popcornfart.com

All of these addresses redirect to one address; my company e-mail. That’s right! I only check one e-mail account. Just as popcornfart.com can redirect to another web site, you can have several e-mail addresses redirect to one account. If I wanted, I could use e-mails in this fashion:

Judy_in_HR@popcornfart.com Mr._Johnson@popcornfart.com

Listing e-mail addresses on business cards using first method, would also eliminate expense of business card reprinting each time an employee left; another cost saving procedure to consider.