“But I got 700 free hours with the CD!”

A lot of people make their first contact with me via email, which makes their email address often the first thing I know about them. They might not realize it, but their email says, or at the very least suggests, a lot about them.  One of the first things I do is check their email address and see what domain it comes from. If it’s from a website, I check out that site.  If the email is from a producer using a personal email for business, I immediately categorize them as not taking their business seriously. Then they’re starting with a disadvantage to raise capital and interest in their project.  If I receive loan proposals from islanddude@aol.com on a regular basis and the first thing I think, is “Really?!  Island Dude?” I’m sure if I asked about it he’d tell me it’s the same address he uses for his charter fishing business in Puerto Rico. Right. Why do I want to give you money again?

The best is when I receive an email with the person’s name at their company dot com and when I go to their website, there is a real web page.  Even if it’s just a logo, it leads me to believe it’s more than one person with a script and a dream; it’s a real company, they are in business, this isn’t a hobby, they hired someone to make their logo, and they pay to have their page hosted.� Water Tower Funding is a good example of this. Web page, logo, looks professional: I assume that they’re real and I’ll take a serious look at what they send.  Shallow? Yes. Superficial? Yes. Judging a book by its cover? Yes, but unfortunately I don’t have the time to go through every email to learn about someone’s project and to determine if it is a worthwhile investment. So I use quick shortcuts to sort things into “no’s,” “maybes,” and “yes’s” regarding spending more time to learn about their project.  For the same reason people dress up for an interview, make your email address look good. You owe it to your project. You want to be judged for your merits, not by the fact that you didn’t shower.

Here’s a breakdown of the different types of email addresses I encounter, ordered from worst to best:

5. anything@aol.com

I’m not sure why people use AOL address for work. Actually, I’m not sure why people use AOL, or any email service that isn’t free, at all. Paid-for email addresses from companies that you haven’t heard of anyone using since the dialup era make me think of people with bulky beige computers who print their emails before reading them. Also, paying for a version of a service that’s vastly inferior to numerous free incarnations of the same service shows a lack of good business sense or a disregard for positive change, and neither of these excites me.

I’ve also noticed that a lot of people with AOL addresses usually use numbers and nicknames, for example: “duffer88@aol.com.” A nickname email address is always a step or three below an email address with a real name, so duffer88@aol.com is at the bottom of the barrel, and if there are 87 people who came before you with the same email name, then you should think of something else. When I receive an email from duffer88@aol.com, I think that they didn’t even take the time to set up a free email account to use for their business, which makes it hard for me to take them seriously.

The exception to this is that occasionally, I’ll get an email from some massive whale that still uses an AOL address for all of their email.  I have a vision of some old wealthy guy who has his assistant type outgoing emails and read incoming emails for him.  But unless you’re Francis Ford Coppola and your email address is francis@aol.com, set up a more current address.  Successful, professional AOL users do actually exist (see this article from Newser), but they aren’t the norm, and you most likely aren’t one.

4. nickname@yahoo/hotmail.com

When I see something like “nikkitrixx@yahoo.com” or anything at hotmail.com, I think to myself that I’m sure Nikki is really fun, and probably a great person to have a shot and beer with, but I probably don’t want to invest in her film. I’m sure she was really cool in 2002, but being cool in 2002 doesn’t do much for you in 2011, a time in which Hotmail and Yahoo have an ancient feel to them. I used Hotmail right after college until gmail was introduced in 2004, so I’ll always associate Hotmail with that time period. She should instead use something closer to her real name like nicoletrichtman@gmail.com, or better yet, ntrichtman@evergreenfilms.com.

3. your.name@gmail.com

Ok, you’ve out grown your nickname email and you are going to try gmail.  Why Gmail over Hotmail or Yahoo? Ask your kids this question if you don’t know the answer already.  Because of its popularity and reputation amongst informed internet users, a “@gmail.com” address appears more professional than other free providers, especially in conjunction with your real name or some variation of it, mhansen, mike.hansen, et cetera.

2. projectname@gmail.com

This is another notch up from a personal email address for project related emails.  To me it says, I don’t have the resources to set up a website and specific email address but I did take the time to set up a separate email address so I have all my project or work related emails in one place instead of interspersed with my personal emails, where something can be more easily overlooked. deadbirdproduction@gmail.com is an example of one of these I’ve seen recently.

1. name@yourcompany.com

As mentioned above, my favorite is when someone sets up a website so they have an email address from that site, such as “jsmith@retroproductions.com.” It is also good if they put up a holder page so when I go to their website, I don’t see just a registered but blank Go Daddy page, like this. This is good but that last 10% would make it so much better. Black Bear Pictures is a perfect example: name, logo, contact information.  I don’t have any idea how big or small this company is, it could be one person or 100 people, but I know that when I go to the website and see a nicely arranged website with a logo and contact information, it looks like they care about being professional, and most likely care about their projects. So I’ll take a serious look at anything they send me.