How to write an excellent electronic signature [+ professional examples]

The average office worker sends 40 emails a day . That's 40 opportunities to market your business and yourself in the individual emails you send, every day.

Many people treat their email signatures as an afterthought, which makes for a real missed opportunity. These signatures are a chance for you to make it clear who you are, make it easy for people to reach you, and give people a place to go to learn more - either about you, your business, or something you '' you are working on it.

So if you just put your name and a dot or two of the contact informationin your signature, you 're not taking full advantage of this opportunity to connect and interact with the people you email. (Although you don't want to go overboard, either. Jamming your signature with links and information is just spam and self-promotion.)

So what should your signature contain ? Much will depend on your personal preferences, your organization's brand and culture, and even what industry you are in. However, here are some suggestions when creating your own:

What to include in an electronic signature

1. First and last name
2. Affiliate information (such as job title and department)
3. Secondary contact details
4. Social profile icons
5. Call to action
6. Booking links
7. Cdisclaimer of the sector or legal requirements
8. Photo or logo
9. Pronouns

1. First and last name

As with the correspondence of the postponed postal mail, your name should always be included so that the recipient of your message knows who it is from. This manifests in the signature of the email, often as the first line of text.

2. Affiliate information (such as job title and department)

Affiliate information should be closely monitored. Your affiliations can include your job title, your business or organization and / or even your department. Your name should eventually be its own draw, of course, as you build a relationship with the recipient, but providing this information provides more context on the conversation and your role in it. In addition, joining a larger organization gives you morecredibility, especially if it is a recognizable organization. It helps you grab the attention of your readers to take your post seriously.

3. Secondary contact details

Secondary contact details are also important so that the recipient knows how to contact you otherwise. Secondary information may include telephone, fax, or any other method of communication that you wish to emphasize. In situations where you don't want to spit out your direct line, you can take this opportunity to promote your personal website - a passive way to open up the lines of communication without overwhelming yourself with awareness if you don't want to.

4. Social Profile Icons

Your social media presence is a major part of your personal brand as it helps you gain an audience in your space and show people what you care about. VoWe can tell a lot about a person by what they post and how they present themselves.

This is why it is a good idea to include links to your social media pages in your email signature. Not only does this strengthen your personal brand, but it also helps people find new ways to contact and follow you.

Even better? It can help drive traffic to your online content if you post links to that content. ent on social. So, if you include social icons in your signature, make sure to keep your social profiles up to date and full of interesting and relevant content. (In other words, if you haven't Tweeted in six months, you might want to leave Twitter out.)

Why use social media icons instead of simple links textual? Because icons are more easily recognized by people browsing your signature - and they will stand out from the rest of the text. According to a study by NeoMam Studios , visuals displayed in color increase a person's willingness to read the rest of the content by 80%. This is a huge advantage. Plus, icons are great space savers in a place where you can pack a lot of information.

Even if you are featured on a lot of social media sites, try to limit the number of icons to five or six. Focus on the accounts that matter most to growing your business or building your personal brand.

If you include a lot of social media icons, at least try to collapse other content if possible so that your design doesn't get too crowded. See the example below, made using Email Signature Generator .

5. Call to action

One of the smartest things you can do in your email signature is include a call to action. The best email signature CTAs are simple, up-to-date, non-pushy, and in line with your email style, which makes them look more like a post than a sales pitch. Pick a CTA that matches one of your current buses ness your goals and update it when those goals change.

Example

Here is a great example from the former Social Media Manager of, Chelsea Hunersen . She changes her text CTA based on her current social media goals. A few months ago, she used it to trick people into accessing the Twitter account .

Once 'she created a single Slack channel for inbound marketers , she changed her call-to-action email signatureto lead people there. in place.

Links to videos can be particularly visible because in some email clients like Gmail, a video thumbnail will appear under your signature. Here's an example of what it looks like from our own Emily MacIntyre :

6. Booking links

< p class = "p1 "> If you find yourself emailing colleagues nd clients who want to book meetings with you, make it easier for them by including a link to book your calendar directly in your email signature . Here is an example from our own Bryan Lowry , below.

Example

There are many tools that will help people make appointments. you. Bryan from the example above uses the shareable custom booking link from. If you are a Sales customer, you can share your custom meeting link with anyone of your choice book a meeting with and let them choose from your available times. If you want, you can have CRM automatically create a new contact record for anyone who books a meeting if they don't already exist.

If you are not a customer, a great meeting tool is Calendly , which is free for Basic and allows you to integrate your Google or Office 365 calendar. If you are looking for an alternative to Calendly , YouCanBook.me is another booking tool that costs $ 7 per calendar per month.

7. Industry disclaimer or legal requirements

Some industries such as law, finance and insurance companies have specific guidelines on the use of emails and etiquette to protect private information from transmission. For this reason, you may want to eximprove the regulations in force in your sector and include a disclaimer in your sign. ature on e-mail transmissions. Mail-Signatures offers a number of examples of e-mail disclaimers, including the following:

"The content of this e-mail is confidential and intended only for the recipient specified in the message. It is strictly forbidden to share any part of this message with any third party without the written consent of the sender. If you have received this message in error, please reply to this message and follow its deletion, in order to that we can make sure that such an error does not occur in the future. "

8. Photo or logo

A picture is a great choice to spice up your signature electronic. If you want a personal touch so that recipients you've never met can associate your name with your face, consider using a photo pprofessional in your signature. You can also use the company logo to increase brand awareness in the email.

9. Pronouns

While this is not as common in email signatures and certainly not required, adding your favorite pronouns to your signature is helpful, especially when you send emails to people you have never met. It also removes any ambiguity if you have a name that is perceived as gender-neutral.

Now that you know what to include, what does a good email signature look like? Here are some tips for creating useful and professional signatures, including some great examples. You can also use the free email signature generator from to create your own professional email signature template. and easily add it to your cliemessaging nt.

How to write an electronic signature

1. Highlight your name, affiliation and secondary contact details.
2. Keep the colors simple and consistent.
3. Use the design hierarchy.
4. Make links traceable.
5. Use space separators.
6. Include an international prefix in your contact number.
7. Make your design mobile-friendly.

1. Emphasize your name, affiliation and secondary contact details.

As you can guess, your name comes first. However, your name should be closely followed by your affiliation and other places people can reach you.

Your affiliation may mean your function, your company, your school or a similar organization that you deem important to your recipients. Your name should possibly be its own design, of course, but using a more popular brand name - and even its logo - allows you to grab the attention of your readers and take your post seriously.

Secondary coordinates is important too. You may not want to endorse your personal phone number, but you can take this opportunity to promote your personal website - a passive way to open up lines of communication without overwhelming yourself with reach you don't want.

Example

Here is an example of an email signature that matches the three things described above. Kevin's first and last name is accompanied by his University of Connecticut affiliation. He also promotes his personal website so that his recipients have another outlet to view his work and contact him for more information.

Do you want to create a signature like the one below? Use the generate email signatures heart.

2. Keep the colors simple and consistent.

Branding is most effective when it's consistent - and that includes your electronic signature. Adding the color to your email signature is a nice touch that will help it stand out from the rest of your emails. But if you do choose to use color, be sure to stick with one or two in addition to the dark text.

Example

Use subtle highlights to match your logo or brand, like Brittany Hodak does in her signature email below. Notice that its social media icons have the same blue tint as ZinePak Logo .

3. Use the design hierarchy.

Good design is to present your information in an easy way to digest. Because your electronic signature is probably more of an informational list.As a compelling story, you'll want to use the hierarchy to direct readers' eyes to what they should read first.

Example

Adjust your name to a larger font so that it attracts the most attention, as you would on a CV . Then choose the information in bold and color according to its importance so that you can logically guide people's eyes through the design, like in the example below.

Image credit: Envato

4. Make them trackable links.

So you put some links in your nature email, including your CTA and social media icons. But does someone actually click on them?

To find out if the links in your signature are actually attracting clicks and having an impact, you'll want to make those links traceable - like you do.iez for any other link in your emails.

Follow these instructions to easily create a tracking link that helps you attribute your website traffic to your email signature. Every now and then, you can change your signature format or your signature wording to see what gets the most clicks.

5. Use space separators.

While you never want to pack your email signature for too much information, there are ways to fit a lot of text into a compact area like this without compromising on design.

This is useful for dividing up different types of information like your name and contact details, logo, any call to action you have, or even a disclaimer.

Example

Using space dividers in your design, like in the example below, is a great way to do this. You poYou can also use glyph separators, which is the vertical bar symbol (i.e. |.)

< source data-srcset="https://www.hebergementwebs.com/images-folder/f1/resize-f10696b84372147584f270470456be4d.webp" type = "image / webp " alt = "">

< p style = "text-align:; "> Image credit: Venngage

6. Include an international prefix in your contact number.

If you work with people from all over the world, don't forget your country code prefix when entering your phone number. many people forget this if they are not used to dialing international prefixes themselves, but it is really helpful for your colleagues and international clients to get it right here. Here is a list of country codes if you don't know yours.

Example

Here is an example from Kit Smith , formerly of Brandwatch, a company that has offices in the United States and Europe and works with international clients. Displaying the country code of the United Statess on their help makes it easier for people in other countries to reach him by phone.

7. Go your mobile-friendly design.

According to Litmus, Apple 's iMobile accounted for 46% of all email opens in June 2018. Additionally, mobile users are checking their emails three times as often as non-mobile users.

The more people who read email on mobile devices, the more you'll want to keep mobile users in mind when you compose emails including your email signature.

A major way to make your email signature mobile friendly is to make your signature design easy readable and clickable for mobile users. This is where scale really matters. Make sure your text is large enough to be read on small mobile screens, and that your links and buttons are large enough- and far enough apart - that people can press with their fingers.

Example

Take a look at the example below and note the space available between different clickable items such as social media icons. They are great for tapping with your finger on a mobile screen so that users don't accidentally tap on the Facebook icon when they wanted to go to Twitter.

Image credit: Canva

Finally, as with any part of an email, make sure your signature looks as good as you think it is by testing it with various clients Microsoft Outlook does not recognize background images, for example, so avoid using them. Other email clients do not load images at all by default.

Armed with these email signing best practices, you can create your ownsignature that aligns with your brand and gives your emails an extra touch of professionalism.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published in June 2019 and has been updated for completeness.