How to create a free institutional email with your own domain

Creating a free institutional email with your own domain is simple and adds a lot of value to your project or venture.

This is an important resource for any person or company that has a virtual store, both to facilitate communication processes and to convey a more professional image.

Therefore, in this article, we are going to teach you how to create an email with your own domain and we will share some benefits of having an institutional email.

What is an institutional email?

An institutional email, also called corporate email, is an email address made up of the name of a person, a word, or an area of ​​​​the company and the brand domain.

An example of an institutional email is [email protected], which we use at Tiendanube as a channel for users to contact us and vice versa.

Advantages of creating an email with your own domain

Creating an institutional email for your business, especially if you have an online store, will bring multiple advantages both in the short and long term. Some of them are:

1. Market credibility. Businesses with institutional emails tend to have more credibility in the market in which they operate. This is because companies that use email addresses from common servers —such as Gmail, Yahoo, etc.—can be seen as amateurs.
2. trust. Entrepreneurships with emails with their own domain transmit a more professional and reliable image. In the end, this favors both sales and loyalty.
3. organization. If you intend to use email as a customer service channel, an institutional email account will allow you to manage your company's contacts independently of your personal matters. Thus, you will be able to create a much more practical and efficient routine.

If you Googled “institutional mail”, “institutional mail” or “create free email”, keep reading.

How to create an institutional email?

Some hosting services (hosting) offer the possibility of creating personalized emails. To host a website with these companies you must pay a fixed monthly fee.

If you are using a hosting service that does not offer the option of having institutional emails —or an e-commerce platform—, you are going to need a tool that allows you to integrate the domain of your site with the email account.

Below we share some alternatives for you to create a free institutional email.

Steps to create a free institutional email

In this section, we are going to show you, step by step, how to create a free email with your domain name through Zoho Mail.

Zoho Mail  is software that offers various benefits to users of its free plan that can be very useful for your business, for example:

• Email hosting for your own domain.
• 5 user accounts.
• 5GB of storage.
• Attachments up to 25 MB.
• Ability to upload files up to 1 GB.
• 2FA (two-step authentication).

However, the free version of Zoho Mail does not have the IMAP/POP function to be able to open emails from a platform like Gmail or Outlook, for example. Of course, access to mail through the tool's own website can be done without any limitations.

See how is the step by step to create an email with your own domain in Zoho Mail (exclusively for Tiendanube customers who have their own domain hosted with the DNS we provide):

2. The plans they offer will appear here so you can select the one you want. If you want the free service, look at the bottom for the plan that says “Forever free plan” and click “Sign up now” .

3. Fill in the data, check the message “I agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy” to accept the terms and conditions, and click on “Register”.

4. You will receive an email that you have completed a one-time password. Verify the account with that password.

5. Copy that code and click “Verify”.

6. Choose the option "Add an existing domain" to add your own domain. Then, fill in your domain information.

7.  Next, you will have to prove that the domain is owned by you. For this, click on "Continue with domain verification".

8. Next, click the dropdown arrow and select the “Add a CNAME record to DNS” registration method.

9.  The CNAME record that appears is the one you will need to verify your domain.

10.  So that we can do the configuration on our servers, send an email to [email protected] with the data from the previous point (Name and CNAME Value), in text format or as a screenshot.

Once we confirm receipt of this email, you have to finish completing the operation in order to obtain your free email accounts. Less to go, patience!

The last step is to create a corporate email in Zoho Mail

1 . Go back to Zoho Mail and log in with the details of the new account you created in the first tutorial. In the "Hosting" section of the Zoho panel, verify the CNAME record that Tiendanube confirmed that we received and configured.

2. Add the name for the first mailbox you want to create in “Username”. For example, “contact”, “hello”, “sales”, etc. Then click on “Create”. In this way, you will have created the first email account of the 5 that Zoho gives you for free.

3. Configure the DNS records that allow the mailbox created to work correctly. To do this, you have to go to the “DNS Mapping” section and click on “Verify MX Records”.

4. Once the verification of these records is done, click on “Verify SPF record”.

5. Next, click on “Continue with DKIM setup”.

6. On the next page, you will see the name and value of the DKIM (TXT) record. Write to us at [email protected] and send us this data in text form so that we can carry out the necessary configuration on our servers.

Once we confirm receipt of your message, you will have finished configuring the ZohoMail records for the operation of your mailbox with your own domain.

Payment tools to create an institutional email

In case you need an email with more features, you can opt for one of Zoho Mail's paid plans or choose another tool that also charges for the service.

Some of the most used, both by companies and entrepreneurs, are:

• office 365
• Google Workspace
• GoDaddy
• Yandex

Evaluate the advantages of each tool and its functionality. This will help you understand which service fits the needs of your business.