Are you an entrepreneur, professional or individual who communicates through email?
Well, a professionally created email signature is essential to evoke trust. And when your communication is professional, you must create an email signature for your professional communication. As a result, your recipients will get doubly assured about the information and content in the email, and the probability that they respond to the call-to-action is highly increased.
As a business owner, you may send hundreds of emails to your clients, business partners, and prospective clients. But all of your efforts may go in vain if your emails do not have a professionally designed email signature. A perfectly-created powerful email signature adds great value to your entire email marketing. Here are some of the salient reasons you must create email signature in each email communication.
- Persuasive message – Your message matters a lot to your recipient. So make sure it is attractive, crisp, and to the point, compelling the recipient to take action. In addition, a persuasive message can help you build your brand as people find it authentic.
- Gives the recipient a sense of authenticity – When your email contains a signature, it evokes trust and authority in your brand. As a result, your email having an authentic email signature will have chances that the service provider won’t consider it spam mail.
- Email signature lets you showcase your contact details – An email signature works as a visiting card as it contains all required information. So if any of your email recipients want to contact you, they don’t need to Google or visit your website to obtain your contact information to reach you out.
Not yet convinced? Let me tell you an example of why you should create an email signature.
Courtesy: LoginRadius
In the above example, you can see that the signature on the left is standard while the email signature on the right is professionally created. You may be thinking that why can’t you use just a typical signature, but a well-thought-out email signature can bring a huge difference. On the contrary, you can neither build your brand nor make your recipients take action when you chase your recipients with a creepy/cluttered email signature design.
What are the crucial tips for creating a professional email signature?
Include relevant information only – A typical email signature includes your name, company name, job title, and phone number. You may also provide the link to the company’s website just below your logo.
You should avoid including information that looks odd and not necessary for your business. Information such as degrees, alma mater, personal social media links, etc., can make your email signature cluttered.
PS: You can make use of email templates to get some inspiration. You can use pipeline (|) or colons (::) to separate links if you want to put information in fewer lines.
Don’t include multiple phone numbers
An overstuffed email signature can sometimes irritate you. For example, if you include multiple contact numbers, it could be annoying for the recipients, especially when using a mobile device.
See the email signature given below. Unfortunately, it doesn’t give a sense of professionalism as it’s stuffed with multiple contact numbers, along with social links and email id.
So be careful while choosing your contact number. Include the most important contact number—you should set the preference. Putting all of your contact numbers, social media links, and email ids will be a big email signature design mistake. If your recipients are from around the globe, don’t forget to prefix your country code with your contact numbers.
Avoid adding your email address
Including your email address in your email signature is nothing but a wastage of space. Don’t you send your email using your own email id? Think about it!
In fact, the recipient will quickly get your email address by just hovering the mouse over your name. So instead of including your email address, you should use this space for something more critical information such as CTA, your social media icons, etc.
Consider using your own image
Using your headshot in your email signature is a great idea. It will let the recipients recall your image. But some email service providers block images, especially when the sender is unknown.
If it’s your commercial communication, consider using your brand logo instead. It will help you promote your brand.
Give it a colorful look
A multicolored email signature looks impressive. Ideally, you should use black color for your name and job title and light blue for your website link. You can go with medium grey when it comes to other information such as phone numbers. Keeping the background white will help you revitalize the colors. But ensure that the color scheme complements each other.
You shouldn’t use bright, vibrant, and unusual colors as they may evoke mistrust and confusion.
Add social profiles
No one can deny the impact of social media on today’s marketing. You, too, may be present on several social platforms for brand promotion. These platforms let your prospective customers know about your business by the way you represent yourself—your social media posts, likes, and shares are some of the determining factors people will judge you. Adding social media links to your email signature will help you drive more traffic to your website.
Look at the email signature below. Price Kapoor, the head marketing analyst at Login Radius, is present on several social channels, and he has included icons. And it makes sense to use icons of those social profiles as points of contact.
Include Call-to-Action
Including CTA in your email is the most important thing you should do. What do you want your recipients to do? Of course, to take action! After all, it is your ultimate goal of sending emails. You want your recipients to contact you for more business information.
Your CTA in the email should be simple, eye-catching, and aligned with the theme of your email. It must compel recipients to click the link or call/email for more information.
Steps to add email signature in your mail
Now that you’re well aware of the different elements that would work well with your email signature, here is a step-by-step guide to adding an email signature to your Gmail account.
Step1. Login to your Gmail account – First, log in to your account and open the inbox.
Step2. Go to Settings – Click on the “Settings” icon on the top right corner of the screen and then click on the General tab in the drop-down menu.
Step3. Check the Signature box – Next, check the ‘Signature’ box and then scroll down to click the box just below it to enable your signature.
Step4. Embed your signature – Embed your signature in the box. Pick the signature font that reflects your personality. If required, edit your signature or just increase or decrease the font size.
Step5. Hyperlink – You can hyperlink your site using the hyperlink option. You should also align your signature using the alignment feature to make your email signature look symmetrical and persuasive.
Step7. Incorporate your signature – Now, add your signature by picking your signature. Then, press Ctrl+C (Windows) or ⌘ Command+C (Mac). Next, click the “Signature” text field and press Ctrl+V or ⌘ Command+V to paste in the signature.
Step8. Save changes – You’re almost done! Now, just scroll down and click on the “Save Changes” button to save the text and design of your signature.