If you own or run a business you’ll love free publicity through marketing communications, but many businesses do miss out on free publicity every day simply because they give little or no thought to their email signature.
The email signature is the block of text and possibly an image that is automatically appended to the bottom of an email message. As well as your name, it’s a great place to provide your contact information such as address, phone numbers and email address.
If you already have an email signature that includes this information, give yourself a small pat on the back – you’re already promoting your company in a small but albeit important way. If you don’t already have an email signature, drop everything (after finishing this article!) and create one immediately (see below for instructions for Outlook 2007).
But when you consider you probably send out tens or perhaps hundreds of emails every day, if you only include basic contact information in your email signature you’re still missing out on opportunities. Here are just a few ideas on what you could include in your email signature to boost your business marketing communications:
- The company logo. Make sure the logo is a .gif, .jpeg or .png file and the file size is small.
- A link to your website. If you include a company logo you can probably add an additional link in the logo.
- Your business’ key position statement (i.e. The Marketing Communications Specialists).
- Current special.
- A link to your website’s latest post, blog or article.
- A list of your major products or services.
- Any significant news, such as an award or a large contract your business has won.
If you really wanted to go to a bit of trouble, you could have a suite of several email signatures. Then, for example, if you were sending an email to a first-time customer you could choose a signature with a customer focus; an email to a colleague could simply be appended by a signature including your contact information.
A word of warning: It’s generally best not to go overboard and include too much in your signature. Having a link to every page on your website or including every key business message is probably a bit over the top!
Creating an email signature in Outlook 2007:
- In Outlook, select Tools | Options from the menu.
- Go to the Mail Format tab.
- Click on Signatures.
- Go to the E-mail Signature tab.
- Click New.
- Type in a name for your new signature.
- Click OK.
- Type in your desired information.
- Click OK.
- Click OK again.
You should be able to find information on how to add signatures to other email platforms by conducting a search in your favourite search engine.