And impress your clients with your originality
Since all the research tells us that email signatures are among the top overlooked passive promotion of your business, and since 60% or more of my clients have asked me for help in creating one, I decided to create a simple tutorial that will walk you through how to create an email signature without a stock template you find online.
Do it YOURSELF, YOUR way! Let’s talk about a few things first.
1. The reason you shouldn’t use an email signature that’s from a template is because it’s from a template. You are in business because you have a unique value that you bring to the playing field.
2. If you want to use colors, use the colors that are a part of your brand, even if you’ve fallen out of love with them. Stay true.
3. Keep it real. Too much text, just like we talk about for websites, is just too much text. People don’t have time to read a book. They want the info they need (and potentially some they don’t know they need), and that’s it.
4. Images. While it’s okay and pretty standard in 2020 to include them (logos, headshots, etc.), you need to know that most email clients do not show images by default. So in order for your logo to show, your user most likely will need to specify that it’s okay to show images each time you send an email. If they don’t (which let’s be honest, will happen most of the time…unless there’s other images in the body of the email he or she doesn’t want to miss out on), then your signature will show a broken link where your image was supposed to be when you set it up. I want to be clear that THIS IS OKAY, as long as you place your image tactfully so that the entire signature doesn’t get thrown off if it doesn’t show. And more importantly, make sure that that your image doesn’t contain any of the important information that people would be looking for, e.g. your phone number and website address.
5. Be creative, if you want. Email signatures leave an impression on people. Live by one quote? Add it to your signature. BUT, only if it works with your brand.
