May 19, 2008

Is Your Email Signature Working on Your Behalf?

Your signature is a valuable piece of marketing real estate. It’s one of the few places where you can update your marketing in less than a minute and keep the people that know you up-to-date in your work through the emails you send.

Your email signature is an easy way to show people you take your work seriously and what you’re up to. And the best part is you can let it promote your services on your behalf. It just becomes a part of your email.

Before I give you a sample email signature structure, here’s what you should avoid putting in your email signature:

Avoid Quotes

I love quotes as much as the next gal. However, when you are positioning yourself as an expert, the go-to person in your network, don’t waste advertising space to quote other people. Quotes pull the attention off your work and puts the reader in “thinking mode.” Hmmm… wasn’t that a nice quote. It feels nice. Ah…. That’s not what you want. You want them to take action. Which leads me to my next point…

Include an Action Step

Encourage people to take action beyond reading your email signature. Create an environment where people see you as actively solving problems on their behalf. This requires action on the part of your clients as well. So think about what would be a great first step to becoming a client or buying your product. Break the giant step (becoming a client) into baby steps such as signing up for your newsletter or attending an upcoming class.

Avoid Backgrounds Designs

This makes your emails difficult to read and looks amateurish.

Avoid fonts that are hard to read.

Papyrus is a popular one in the wellness community. Although pretty, it causes eye strain. Stick to Tahoma, Verdana, Times New Roman variations, Helvetica and other similar fonts. If you like pretty, try the font called Trebuchet.

Here is an example of an email signature structure that works.

YOUR NAME

YOUR TITLE

YOUR TAGLINE or WHAT IT IS THAT YOU DO IN RESULTS ORIENTED LANGUAGE

YOUR PHONE

YOUR EMAIL

YOUR MAILING ADDRESS ON ONE LINE (THIS IS OPTIONAL as your mailing address would be on your website)
YOUR WEBSITE

A CALL TO ACTION.

How do you set up your email signature?

In Microsoft Outlook, on the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Mail Setup tab.
Click on Signatures and then click on New.
Give your email signature a name. I have a different signature for each email account I have set up in my Outlook. (One for my personal, one for my business email address so when you send out an email you can select what signature to use.)
Once you’ve given your signature a name, click on Advance Edit. This will give you the option to make your signature look nice by selecting the font style, color and spacing as well as setting up hyperlinks to different pages on your website. Microsoft Word will launch. Type up your signature and click Save and thenclick OK.
Then you’ll be taken back to the set up section where you can select signatures for your email accounts.

If you have a new version of Outlook (I have 2003) or another type of email management software such as Entourage for MAC it's virtually the same steps, but to be sure, do a search for “email signature” in your help bar of your email system and follow the instructions given.

That's it!

To your continued professional expansion,

Karin

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Filed under Blog, Email Marketing, Materials that Work, Words That Work by Karin