Professional Email Signatures in Digital Marketing
In a digital world, email communication and email marketing can’t be overestimated. In this article, we’ll discuss the importance of email signatures and the best way to create a professional email signature.
In this article:
What’s a Professional Email Signature?
A professional email signature is an essential part of an email that provides information about the sender.
It is also called “an email footer” due to the variety of elements and information that it can contain. Usually, an email signature includes the sender’s name and contact details.
How to Create and Add a Professional Email Signature
To add a professional email signature to your email client, you need to follow two steps.
First, it’s necessary to create a design (the combination of the necessary information and graphic elements, such as background, layout, logos, colors, fonts, etc.).
Second, you need to integrate the signature into email clients. Let’s take a deeper look at the ways of creating and adding signatures.
Using Email Templates to Design a Signature
Numerous online tools offer free templates. For instance, you can use Canva.com’s search to browse email signature templates. After choosing the one you like, it’s possible to personalize it by adding your information and removing unnecessary elements as well as downloading an image.
Some platforms (like Gmail, for instance) let you upload your graphic design file to an email client while creating your signature.
An example of this signature integration method is shown in the screenshot below.
However, it’s hard to say that such a signature looks professional. Although it includes relevant information (a telephone number, an email address, and a website), the elements are not clickable. If recipients try to reach your website by clicking on the signature, they’ll only see an image preview in Gmail as shown in the screenshot below.
Another way of adding a signature to your email platform is to convert the image into HTML code and integrate it. Well-written code ensures that the signature will be displayed correctly on various devices and in browsers.
There are several ways you can get an email signature design and code block which we’ll talk about briefly.
Creating Email Signature with Online Generators
You can find a variety of online email signature generators such as Hubspot or MySignature.
They allow you to choose from a variety of pre-designed templates, create a signature, generate HTML code, and copy it. This way, you can preview your signature and get a code block that you can integrate into your email client.
However, there are several points to remember when using such signature generators.
- Online email signature generators may have limited functionality. So you might be unable to implement all the features you need.
- Most online email signature generators are intuitive. Yet you’ll need to spend some time mastering the functions they offer and experimenting with your signature’s look. It can take you some time to understand how to upload a picture for a banner for instance (see the screenshot below).
- If you are looking for a completely free solution, you might be limited. Some generators require an account (sign-in), while others limit the number of functions in their free generators, which means you might need to pay for the necessary functionality. There might also be watermarks (which look unprofessional) on free signatures. As you can see in the screenshot below, an email signature by Gimmio includes a watermark.
- Not all signatures created with online generators are responsive. You’ll have to check your email signature on different devices to make sure it looks good and meets your expectations.
In a nutshell, email signature generators can be good for creating a single signature. However, when you work in a company and need to create various signatures for employees in different departments, it can become quite challenging.
Using Email Signature Development Services
Professional email signature development services are a guarantee that your signature will indeed look professional.
- If you have already visualized your signature or have a graphic design file with it, professional developers will transform it into code quickly and easily. There is no need to learn how to convert a graphic design into code or about code requirements for different platforms.
- You can discuss all your design requirements with an actual person, especially if you need to create several types of signatures for different projects or departments. In addition, you’ll get assistance and recommendations if you don’t have a design. Just describe your vision and necessary elements, and an experienced team will produce your signature in the shortest possible time.
- Trusting your email signature creation to developers also means that you’ll get clean, well-functioning code without any additional elements. Also, the signature code will be thoroughly tested to ensure it looks good on various devices.
- When working with professionals, you can get assistance when adding the code to your email client.
That all being said, is creating a professional email signature worth the time and money spent? Isn’t writing your name at the end of emails instead of bothering with email signature creation enough?
Our answer is, “A professional email signature is definitely worth the time and money.“; and here’s why.
Top 10 Reasons to Create Professional Email Signatures
The creation and integration of email signatures may sound difficult and worthless.
However, email signatures are an essential part of digital marketing in general and email marketing in particular. Now we’ll look at the reasons why creating a professional, well-designed and well-coded email signature is worthwhile in the long run.
1. Showing Professionalism
Although it sounds tautologous, a professional signature adds professionalism to your email.
Including a well-thought-out signature lets recipients know whether you’re contacting them as a company representative or an individual professional (freelancer, for instance), compared to a private person
An email like this ties employees to their company. If every employee has a signature that follows the general company’s style and guidelines and at the same time contains information about the sender, recipients will notice and appreciate the consistency.
2. Adding Personalization
Professional signatures also reassure recipients that they are communicating with real people, not bots. In the era of spam emails, getting a personalized trustworthy email is one of the keys to success.
Furthermore, adding a picture to the signature lets people visualize the sender and creates the impression of communicating face-to-face.
3. Making Contacting Easier
When email signatures include various ways to connect with the company, people can use whichever channel suits them most.
For instance, if you add a telephone number, customers can call you instantly as soon as they receive an email. It ensures they’ll get a faster reply instead of sending an email and waiting for an answer.
4. Brand Awareness Promotion
For a brand-wise signature, adding a logo is a general practice to introduce the company. In other words, the company’s logo and a link to the website let everyone get acquainted with your brand faster.
Also, for those who have already gotten to know your company, an email signature with a brand logo will enhance brand awareness.
5. Marketing Campaigns Support
When you have a running/ongoing campaign, you can add a banner to your email signature. Thus, you’ll get a greater number of clicks and a wider awareness of your products and services.
The screenshot below shows an example of adding a sales banner ad to a signature.
6. Engaging Recipients
Besides promoting your products and services with email banner ads, it’s also possible to inform recipients about and encourage them to participate in various online events such as webinars, clubs, etc.
For instance, in the screenshot below you will see a signature with an invitation to join a conference.
7. Attracting Social Media Followers
Email signatures often include links to the company’s social media pages or professional accounts such as LinkedIn. Customers may prefer these communication channels to stay in touch with your business, and your company can grow its audience through social media.
8. Building Trust and Sharing Valuable Achievements
You can add a section in your signature showing that your company has been recognized by top platforms, reviewers, or magazines for example.
This way, customers can check your ratings and real feedback (if you include links to such platforms as Clutch), and therefore build their trust in you more. This is especially important in those cases when people get an email from a company for the first time.
9. Facilitating Cooperation and Providing Feedback
Email signatures can include a call-to-action that encourages people to review products or services, register for events, get an appointment, provide feedback after purchases or events, etc. Just include a simple call-to-action with a proper link so that people can complete the necessary action with one click.
The screenshot below encourages recipients to book a direct appointment with the sender.
Below is an example of a signature that offers the option to provide feedback (rate a person).
10. Protecting Confidential Information
Last but not least, companies often have to provide legal disclaimers and protect data sent in emails.
Creating an email signature with a legal disclaimer lets you stop worrying about the necessity to include this information in every email simply because it’s already embedded in your signature.
It also provides an additional layer of trustworthiness and professionalism.
Conclusion
Although it’s a tiny part of an email, a signature is a powerful tool that lets you introduce yourself or your brand, increase brand awareness, promote products and services, get feedback, attract social media followers, and much more.
As you can see, having professional signatures with a well-thought design and clean code is an essential and powerful part of the business.