What to Put in an Email Signature: Ultimate Guide
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One of your most powerful marketing and branding tools is the humble email. This type of digital communication is easy to organize, manage, and send; so easy that 124.5 billion emails are sent every day!
One email component often overlooked is the all-important signature. We’re going to take a look at what to put in an email signature and how our tools can help you.
When we consider the characteristics of an effective email, there is a tendency to just focus on the body, but there’s more to it than that. Great emails need a strong finish, and that’s the role of the professional email signature.
We can’t talk about email signature rules until we define what an email signature is. In short, your email signature is essentially your digital business card - a block of text that is placed at the bottom of your email.
Like a business card, it includes your full name, company details, and contact information. The digital email signature can also be interactive and include photos, logos, and links.
It’s not a terrible faux pas to sign off an email to friends or family with a professional email signature. In fact, it might be a bit exciting for you to show them what you are doing in your work life. However, a professional email signature is just that - professional. It is specifically for business communication and designed with marketing and branding in mind.
Personal email signatures are about you. They do share certain things in common with professional ones, but they lean toward the kind of familiarity that exists between friends and family. A personal email signature may link recipients to personal social media, personal contact information, or a favorite quote.
Your professional email signature is a reflection of the professional you, and your business. It plays a significant part in marketing and points recipients to your business brand.
In business, you get one chance to make a good first impression, and our increasing reliance on digital communication can make that challenging.
Luckily, an email signature builder like Publicate makes it easy to create your professional email signature in no time, so you know exactly what to put in an email signature! You gain access to templates and drop-and-drag features to design a professional email signature, so you can make sure that you follow best practices without having to think twice.
You may be wondering, “Is that professional email signature really that important?” It sure is, and here are a few reasons why:
Making a good first impression puts people at ease and any engagement feels natural and unforced. There is nothing worse than dealing with someone who is acting dishonestly or unprofessional.
By following a few simple email signature rules, you can provide recipients with the information they need to contact you. Customers that don’t have to search for your full name, phone number, or address are the ones you will retain.
An interactive professional media signature that includes social media links is a way to bolster a multichannel marketing strategy. Be sure to keep your social media content current so that you can attract followers and promote engagement.
Professional email signatures are a great way to showcase your company’s personality and emphasize the human touch. Using your images or those from our extensive library, logos, colors, and different fonts can create a signature that feels welcoming and human.
There are several things to consider when planning and designing a professional email signature. Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of what to put in your email signature, making it the kind of positive first impression that you desire.
Use your full name and make it the first line of text so that recipients know who they are engaging with. If you wish to choose a different or bold font, that’s okay, as long as the result does seem unprofessional. The use of preferred pronouns is also acceptable.
Your job title gives you credibility and it helps recipients understand your place in the hierarchy of your company.
You can provide a short wrap-up of your company’s products or services. This is particularly helpful if your business is new or if the scope of the products and services isn’t reflected in the name.
After you’ve provided your name, job title, and company name, people should be clear about the ways they can contact you. Including your email may be redundant because if they’re reading it, they already have it. A phone number of phone numbers, along with a fax number, and physical address are important.
Links are a great way to engage people. Include links to your various social media accounts and your company’s website. Including links drives traffic to your social media and it helps to reinforce your brand. Word of caution: Make sure your social media pages are current and are active.
This can be accomplished in a non-pushy, non-threatening manner through the use of a small button. For example, a company that provides blog content for small businesses may have a button that says, “Read our blog.”
You can make it easy for potential clients to make appointments with you by adding a link that will take them to your appointment calendar.
There are industries (legal, financial, insurance) that have specific email guidelines and etiquette. Don’t overlook this if you are working in an industry that requires this type of information.
A photo or logo has a way of capturing attention and building trust. These images have to be small, so make sure that any text is clear and readable. A photo should be clean, crisp, and professional and your logo shouldn’t be busy or distracting.
While we’ve covered what to put in an email signature and some of the email signature rules, we’d be remiss if we didn’t touch on some of the things to avoid.
Keep these in mind when using our tools to design your professional email signature:
Designing your professional email signature is a creative endeavor but exercise brevity. Be concise and informative, and let a link or two direct your recipient to more information.
This is one of the important email signature rules! You want your design to be easy to read and to load quickly and glitch-free - avoid videos, animated GIFs, and bullet points.
Remember that good first impression? Your photo needs to be in line with your brand. A professional headshot is best!
If your recipient is reading your email, they already have your email address. You could use up valuable space if you include it in your email signature.
Engaging and interactive doesn’t mean cluttered. Too many colors or fonts is visually confusing and has a way of making your design look amateurish.
The best way to avoid all these pitfalls is to use an email signature tool which will ensure that you incorporate all of the best design practices.
An email signature builder like Publicate has hundreds of customizable templates that follow all the best practices so that you don’t need to worry that you’ve missed something important in your professional email signature!
We’ve covered a lot of ground in this discussion about professional email signatures so let’s quickly cover a few of the best practices for designing them.
Take a few moments to think about the essential information that your recipients need to know about you and your business. Do you want a reply? Engagement with links? The fewer lines of text, the better!
You want your design to communicate what your brand is and the role you play in marketing. In other words, it needs to be cohesive and make sense.
Links that don’t work will frustrate your recipients and lead them to develop an impression that you aren’t quite as professional as you are trying to claim.
A bit of white space goes a long way to making your design less busy. Without it, your email signature looks cluttered, confusing, and the eye doesn’t know where to look.
The font in your professional email signature doesn’t have to match the font of the body of your email but it also shouldn’t harshly contrast it or be outlandish. Use a font that gives the feeling of a professional flow.
Always double-check that the information in your email signature is error-free, current, and will load without glitches on all devices.
Email signature generators are a tremendous asset if you need a way to create an email signature that looks professional and helps to make the best first impression. Here are our top three picks.
Publicate’s powerful, yet easy-to-use, email signature generator allows users to design and build a professional email signature. Coding knowledge isn’t necessary and the builder works with over 50 email services including Gmail and Outlook.
There are hundreds of templates to choose from and over 2 million royalty-free images in the library. Drop-and-drag tools let you insert content with just one click.
Designs can be exported immediately and if you are not sure where to start or need some inspiration, Publicate’s website features a wealth of informative blogs and how-to guides.
Try it for free for 14 days!
Newoldstamp offers a simple and intuitive interface with good design choices. It makes streamlining brand-consistent emails across your company easy and offers integrations with Google Workspace, Exchange, and Microsoft 365.
Email signatures are managed from one dashboard, and they offer automatic updates. Employees work from a master signature template and email signature segmentation is available. Pricing plans are dependent on the number of employees and begin at $13/month.
Signature users choose a template that they can work from. Colors, fonts, and spacing can be changed as can the size and placement of fields. The template design is shared with the employee team via email, Slack, or other preferred methods.
Employees then fill in personal info and copy and paste the email signature into outgoing emails. Signature is compatible with HTML email platforms like Outlook, Apple, Gmail, and more. There is a free option for one temporary personal signature and paid plans begin at $19/month.
Professional email signatures are just as important as the emails you attach them to. Learning how to create an email signature in Outlook, Gmail and other email platforms is frustration-free with a signature builder like Publicate. With templates, easy-to-use drop-and-drag tools, and other resources you will be have the best signature in no time.
An email signature builder will help you to know what to put in an email signature so that it looks professional and is a boost to your marketing campaign. Take advantage of Publicate’s 14-day trial period and get started designing your professional email signature today!
