Should I have an Email Signature? Top Tips & Best Practices
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What’s the big deal about email signatures, anyway? Should I have an email signature? The answer, of course, is a resounding yes! From establishing that you are a real person to directing recipients to your social media to acting as a powerful message about your brand, an email signature is a powerful tool that does it all.
We’ve all seen email signatures. They can range from a simple email signature with basic information to one with images and animation.
Effective email signatures include text, images, and links and they are included at the end of every email. At a minimum, they include a name, job title, and contact information like a phone number.
Do you have an email signature? Be careful - minimalism could be a waste of a good marketing opportunity. Not sure where to start? Get creative with an email signature tool so that your email signature reflects the strength of your brand.
Think about the emails that you’ve quickly sent to your trash file after a cursory glance. Likely, you didn’t give them a second thought because you didn’t feel connected in some way. Perhaps they didn’t feel professional. Maybe it was because you weren’t convinced the sender was an actual person instead of a bot.
An email signature design that has been thoughtfully crafted avoids these pitfalls. The human connection is important and it opens doors to marketing opportunities.
Recipients will not only see that you’re professional but they will be interested in clicking on the links you include. Email signatures make it easy for people to contact you. Using our email signature template helps to keep your brand consistent and recognizable!
In 2020, there were 306 billion emails that were sent and received every day. The sheer volume is staggering! We are inundated daily with massive amounts of information and can only retain so much. Hopefully, you can see how important it is to have a way of standing out. Enter the email signature.
Your email signature is your digital business card. It leaves no room to doubt your professionalism and it makes you and your brand memorable. It is more action-oriented because it contains your name, contact info, and links to your social media.
A personal email signature generator helps you to create something that lets you be more efficient. You simply insert it into each email without having to retype all the information every time and that keeps your content consistent.
There are also times when legal disclaimers need to be included in emails. This information is critical and when it’s in an email signature design, you won’t run the risk of inadvertently forgetting something.
You can see why “Yes!” is the answer to “Should I have an email signature?” Before pressing ahead and looking for the best email signature generator, let’s make sure you know what you should include.
The purpose of an email signature is for contact, so your name and phone number is an absolute. Your job title helps people to know you a little better and a profile picture puts a face to a name. It’s nice to include some sort of send-off like “sincerely,” “cheers,” or “regards.”
A color scheme that matches your branding draws the eye as does a call to action like a link to a blog post, a special offer, or your website. If you’re including links to social media make sure that the content there is current.
Some people choose to include a company logo or an animated gif. Think critically about your design so that it doesn’t become cluttered. Keep it simple!
The perfect email signature design is the one that helps you to meet your objectives. What is right for one brand will be different from another. However, certain elements are common to every email signature. Let’s take a look at them.
Emails are already a wall of text so keep your email signature lean. Three or four lines of text including your name, job title, link to a website, and phone number are sufficient.
There is no problem adding a line of social media links, but keep the icons small. They are universally recognizable so they don’t need to be large.
The logo and colors of your brand need to be the same in every piece of company marketing material. This includes your email signatures, websites, brochures, and letterhead.
Each employee should have the same email signature layout. It reinforces your brand and avoids mixed messages.
This is a no-brainer but it’s surprisingly easy to have your inner frustrated artist emerge when thinking about an email signature. Using a personal email signature generator helps rein in ideas, follows best practices and keep the look professional.
Almost half of the emails that are opened are read on mobile devices which means that your email signature must be properly displayed. There’s nothing that will dampen the enthusiasm of your recipient like information that isn’t displayed clearly and quickly.
There are some common mistakes that people make when designing an email signature. It’s easy to get carried away and end up with something cluttered and confusing. Let us help you with these few simple pitfalls to avoid.
It’s not necessary to include every credential or certification you hold. People will get lost in the letters or they may feel like you are coming off as pretentious. Remember, you want to be approachable! Four lines of information is a good goal.
Limit your use of colors to two and they must be your brand’s colors. Consider choosing between your photo or a logo. If you’re attempting a personal connection, lean towards the photo. If you’re developing your brand, use the logo. And don’t forget that too many fonts are off-putting.
Why? It’s redundant. They are reading your email and so have your address.
If a recipient has an image block default setting, chances are they won’t see your email signature if you use an image instead of text.
With all these rules in mind, you have a lot to consider when creating your very own email signature. Luckily, email signature builders come equipped with templates, drag-and-drop functionality, and best practices already considered so that you don’t have to think twice.
All you have to do is customise your details and export your designed signature to your email provider of choice using integrations. There are no coders or designers needed!
Professionalism is a key answer to “Should I have an email signature?” When you present yourself as a professional, you almost immediately inspire confidence in people. They are inclined to remember you if they are needing your products or services at that moment.
The world tends to be a very chaotic place and a professional look has a way of breaking through the noise and building trust. A professional email signature shows that you took the time to care about how you present yourself and your brand and it contains information that makes it easy for people to verify who you are.
When you stop to think about it, a simple email signature contains an impressive amount of information and all roads lead directly to you. Recipients won’t be limited to just one way to contact you - important because we can’t assume that everyone has the same technology and people often prefer varied methods of communication.
With the email signature, your contact can choose to phone, email, respond to a call-to-action, or respond on your website or blog. A word of caution: Avoid giving out your address to strangers. Personal safety is important!
A strong social media presence is a powerful business tool but it isn’t easy to break through to claim a spot among influencers. Except for going viral, becoming known on social media platforms can be like running a slow marathon.
An email signature template that includes social media icons like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn is a great tool to increase social media followers. People love to engage with social media so use this to your advantage.
Don’t forget to keep your content current! There’s nothing that will kill people’s confidence in you more than outdated social media.
Brand awareness is life for your organization. You may have the best product or service since the invention of sliced bread, but if people don’t know who you are and what you’re offering, you’re stalled.
Another answer to “Should I have an email signature?” is absolutely because it may be the first time a potential customer sees and engages with your brand. A logo, with one or two colors, will make an impression. Remember to keep your information clear and concise.
Sometimes, people are inclined to associate professionalism with being devoid of personality or possessing a certain stiffness. Each of us certainly knows people who fit this bill but it’s possible to be a professional with an inviting personality.
The best email signature generator will give you the latitude to allow your personality to also shine through. The choice of colors, fonts, images, and layouts lets you design this digital business card that brings that touch of humanity to your professional aura.
By now, you understand the importance of an email signature and why its so important to get it right. With this knowledge, you’re probably thinking about how to get started or how to edit your existing signature to hit the mark. With so many guidelines, tips, and options, it can feel like a minefield.
Don't worry, thats where email signature tools come in to remove all the guesswork! With customisable templates that follow best practices, plus a drag-and-drop editor that makes it easy, you can have an effective and professional email signature in no time.
Let’s take a look at some of the best options for email signature tools that out there to choose from:
Publicate has an impressive email signature generator that allows you to fully customize your design. Publicate offers an array of templates to choose from and its drop-and-drag visual editing tool makes it easy to use - no coding knowledge is necessary!
When you’re happy with your design, Publicate offers an integrated feature that allows you to simply export it to the preferred email provider. It’s that simple. And, one of the best features is that your email signature is sure to look great on both mobile devices and desktops because it’s built to be responsive and fit any screen size properly!
You may be familiar with Hubspot as a CRM (customer relations management) and a suite of marketing tools but did you know it also offers a free email signature generator?
Once you have chosen one of the six different templates you can fill in your information and choose your brand colors. Custom logos can be inserted as well.
A free email signature generator is among the tools that HoneyBook has for small businesses. While it doesn’t have all of the features that other email signature generators have, its fast speed and ease of use make up for that. Once you’ve created your email signature, HoneyBook will email it to you.
Should I have an email signature? Yes and yes! Use a simple and effective tool to make a marked difference in how you are viewed as a professional, directing potential customers to your website, increasing traffic to your social media platforms, and growing the visibility and power of your brand.
