Why You Need A Quality Email Signature

September 15, 2010 / in Information Technology / by Mic Johnson

As social media coaches, we truly enjoy helping our clients learn how to use social media effectively to increase their online presence, brand awareness, and ultimately their bottom line. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and more…we work with those tools every day.

But one of the things that makes our job that much more rewarding is when we identify other opportunities to help businesses work smarter and more efficiently. One of those opportunities is a simple, but often overlooked, business practice: Creating a Quality Email Signature.

Here are the Four Questions We Get The Most About Email Signatures.

#1. Why do I need an email signature?

The primary reason you need a quality email signature is to make it easy for customers, prospects, vendors, etc. to get in touch with you.

How many times have you wanted to call someone and you went back to an email exchange you had with them and there was no contact information? Is it the end of the world that you have to search somewhere else to find their phone number, web site, etc.? No. Is it annoying and does it take more of your time? Absolutely.

In addition, people forward your emails and contact information to clients, prospects, vendors and others. Having a quality email signature makes it easy on EVERYONE.

#2. What does a quality email signature look like?

Take a look at my email signature below as one example. It’s important to note that Jason and I didn’t just throw this signature together in a couple of seconds. We looked at it strategically and discussed what we liked about other email signatures we’ve seen, what we think the signature should communicate, what fonts and sizes we prefer, what colors to use (surprise, surprise, we landed on a few shades of BLUE!!), etc.

Our email signature is absolutely a part of our brand…just like our logo, just like the blue shirts we wear, just like our business cards, just like the blue cases that protect our iPhones, and on and on.

We wanted to make sure that our email signature was easy to read, wasn’t too many lines, used different fonts and font sizes, and had every method of contacting us readily available in a nice, clean format.

The feedback we’ve gotten on our email signature has been great. We know we did something right if people actually took the time to comment on…of all things…an email signature!

Take a look and let us know what you think.

(Note Regarding Pictures or Graphics In An Email Signature: Our recommendation is to avoid placing pictures, logos, or simlar graphics into your email signature. There is such complex mix of email formats, email programs, and email security settings that your picture/logo won’t always appear correctly to some recipients.)

#3. Should the email signatures for everyone in the company be consistent?

In short, yes.

The email signature serves several purposes, one of them being that it is part of your company’s brand. People send and receive emails all day long. When it comes from your company, it should be consistent no matter who is sending the email.

This communicates to your clients, vendors, prospects, etc. that there is consistency and professionalism in your business communications and that you want to be easy to do business with.

Now of course there may be instances where there is a need to include or remove information from the email signature of some people in the organization. That is certainly fine as the situation dictates, but as a general rule you want to keep them consistent.

#4. How do I create a quality email signature?

Creating a quality email signature line varies from email program to email program. Since many people use Microsoft Outlook, we’ll quickly cover that program.

Go to Tools, Options, Mail Format, and then Signatures. It should be fairly self-explanatory from there. Note that the options available to you will vary depending on what version of Outlook you are using.

For all other email programs, typically you will find a “Signatures” option somewhere in the general settings. Some features allow you to put hyperlinks (as you can see on my email signature line) which is a much cleaner look than spelling out a long URL (i.e. www.linkedin.com/in/micjohnson). Some will have several font choices and some will only have a few. Some will allow you to bold and italicize and some will not.

In the end, you just have to work with any limitations that your email program has. The more limitations…the more creative you have to get!

Thank you for your continued support of Blue Gurus. We truly appreciate it and we look forward to seeing you….and your new email signature…..soon!

Have thoughts, questions or suggestions about this article? Leave us a comment below!