This article will cover email signature tips for professional marketers to leverage their potential.
Before we get started and dive deep into the world of email signature marketing, why don’t we play a little game, to begin with? How many emails do you think an employee sends out every day (on average)?
Is it 10? Nope.
How about 20? Nope.
Research studies have found that on average, an office worker sends our 28 to 40 emails per day.
Considering how we get tired to reply to even 4 or 5 emails a day, that is a significant number.
And if you think that social media marketing is shifting the focus of marketing away from emails, think again.
Amid the Twitterverse, regular email numbers continue to rise:
Those are some significant stats.
So how do you plan to use these numbers to your advantage and boost your marketing goals?
Ironically, most people view their email signatures as an unfortunate necessity. Email signatures are not a little bow to your present but is an opportunity for you to brand yourself. It becomes easier for people to contact you and gives them a place to go to find out more — either about you, your brand, or what you’re working on.
And, if all your business email signature has is your name with a few a point or two of contact details, you aren’t leveraging the potential of your emails. (But remember you don’t want to go overboard, either.
Stuffing your signature full of social media links, company logo and information is just spammy.)
Although I can’t guarantee subscribers or followers, what I can guarantee is you how to reap the benefits of a little-known way to reach out to your audience: your email signature.
Trust me; this is prime email real estate, it’s the Mid-town Manhattan of emails.
Now, here comes the most crucial question. What are the aspects that will make your email signature stand out, and what should you include? Most of that would depend on your preferences, the brand and culture of your company, and also your business.
Without further ado, the list we’ve all been waiting for!
Leverage
The Power of
Email Signature
Top 10 email signature tips for future-ready marketers
Professional and unique email signatures make a bold statement about you and your company. They’re just as much a part of your branding as a business card. Often they work as your digital business card, and that’s why it’s crucial to pay attention to your email signature.
Like in the case of Goldilocks and the three bears, your email signature can neither be over the top nor boring and mundane. To engage your audience, it needs to be just right.
Here are the top ten email signature tips:
1. Keep it simple
You would have probably come across the saying, “Less is more.” That can be accurate when it comes to the perfect email signature look. When your email signature is too busy or includes too much detail, your reader can be confused or overwhelmed.
In fact, certain businesses encourage the use of a uniform, clear email signature for formal business emails. You can also have a look at how to make a professional email signature.
The critical aspects of a professional or personal email signature include your name, job title or profession, company name, social media pages, and phone number. You can also provide an address and your company website. However, please don’t include your email as it becomes redundant.
Here is the perfect example
2. Say no to unnecessary information
As seen in the previous example, you don’t need unnecessary and redundant information. Let’s look at it this way, would you rather have a complete burger or would you prefer a deconstructed one that you need to assemble yourself? It is safe to assume that you would prefer the former option.
Similarly, when presenting your email signature, give the receiver one or two links where they can get access to all the required and relevant information. Don’t spam them with multiple links to your entire life story, but give them one link where they get the whole picture.
How does this example look to you? Doesn’t it seem overwhelming? This is clearly a bad example of an email signature.
3. Use Colour
As humans, we are highly visual creatures. Think about it; we rely heavily on visual cues for simple survival behaviours such as looking for food, companions, and shelter, as well as more nuanced behaviours such as parental care and the development of social hierarchies.
In that manner, even an email signature can become more visually appealing by using one or two colours drawn from the colour palette of your brand or logo.
Quite often, using more than two colours tend to overlap and become distracting, and unless you have a very fine eye for design, stick with one or two colours of your brand.
If you are a brand or individual working in the creative field, you could use bright and bold colours, if not you could stick to the subdued and mild tones.
Be sure that the colours you pick blend in with other branded items such as your website and you’re stationary.
4. Get Social
Social media offers an excellent way for your readers to interact with you. Such interactions may be an integral aspect of establishing an enduring relationship
Keep in mind that the social media links that you include should be professional. If you are sceptical about the content on a particular social media account, a smart idea would be to review the account and delete any unprofessional posts.
You can seek the help of a friend or colleague to check your social media account and alert you of any posts that seem unprofessional.
Sloovi email signature offers professional email signature templates that attractively display social media information.
5. Use a photo or logo
Using a photo or a logo is a great way to add more depth to your email signature. By including a photo or logo, your recipients who you’ve probably never met to face or logo to identify you or your brand with.
Using the logo also draws more attention to your brand, as well as increases brand awareness and recognition. And lest you forget that humans are visual animals, using a photo or logo will add more visual appeal to your email signature.
You could choose to either use a photo or logo or both, the choice is yours.
P. s: A small tip to note is that your email signature format will vary depending on the size and orientation of your logo. Landscape logos fit well with a stacked email signature, while circular, square or portrait logos may be put to the right or left of the text if preferred.
6. Options aplenty
Since your email signature reflects your brand, it’s useful to have options. It comes in handy if your email signature needs to be updated.
For instance, you might change your job or company, or you might even decide to switch from being full time to part-time or freelancing. In any case, you will need an email signature to match your new role. And in case you are branding, rebranding or expanding, you could choose a dynamic template that you can tweak as and when necessary.
At Sloovi signature, you can choose from a variety of flexible templates that give you a diverse range of email signature choices.
7. It’s all about balance
The most effective email signatures use a design hierarchy to balance content, form, and imagery. Use dividers or white room, where ever possible, to distinguish the various elements of the email signature and draw the reader’s attention. By including bold, capped, and coloured content, the user’s attention can be grabbed so use it appropriately.
Too much and it’s overpowering, too less and it’s boring. It’s all about the balance.
8. Call to action
One of the best things you can include in your email signature is a call-to-action. The best email signature CTAs are short, up-to-date, non-pushy, and in line with the style of your email making them feel more like a post-script, and less like a sales pitch (though the idea is to pitch your brand or service or product). Pick a CTA that reflects one brand’s ideals and marketing goals. You can modify your CTA as and when required.
For example:
Jane Doe I Sr. Digital Marketing Strategist
Phone #: 123-456- 7809
123 Street I City, State, Country
But do keep in mind that if you list every phone number, email address, or social media channel that you belong to, the less likely the receiver is to click on any of them — a concept known as the Paradox of Choice.
9. Suit up your email signature
When you work for a business or a company; your email signatures may need to look more professional. In such a case, you will have to include the corporate logo in your email signature.
Note that business emails you sent using your corporate email signature reflect your company. It is necessary to conform to corporate requirements, which may include:
- Confidentiality Statement: Most businesses expect you to include this statement in every corporate email.
- Corporate colors and fonts: To streamline the look and feel of corporate communications, your organization may have only specific colours and fonts that can be used
- Corporate links: It is preferred that you connect corporate links and social media accounts rather than your own.
10. Make it mobile-friendly
The latest email statistics show us that:
So with the more people who read their emails on mobile devices, the more attention you have to pay to ensure that your email signatures are mobile-friendly.
One of the best ways of making your email signature mobile-friendly is to make your signature template simple to read and clickable for mobile users. Here is where the scale becomes relevant. Please make sure the size of your text fits well into mobile screens, it should neither be too small neither nor take up too much room.
Also, make sure that your links and social media icons are large enough for users to tap on their phones. No one likes having to zoom a page to click on the links.
Conclusion
Whoosh, pat yourself on the back. You have successfully (and we hope it hasn’t been too long!) reached the end of our list of email signature tips and tricks to optimize the potential of your email signature.
We believe that you will no longer waste this prime email real estate, and use it to better connect with your audience.
Last but not least, after you have created your professional and unique email signature, keep it up-to-date. Review it regularly to make sure links, phone numbers, and other details are up-to-date. Replace old links and add new information as required.
An email signature with obsolete information creates a negative image of your brand.
Why not test out the ‘Sloovi email signature generator’ today?
And watch your brand ambassadors sign off in style!