{"id":5968,"date":"2016-08-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-30T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/how-to-write-and-design-a-great-email-signature\/"},"modified":"2020-04-21T19:37:43","modified_gmt":"2020-04-21T19:37:43","slug":"how-to-write-and-design-a-great-email-signature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.litmus.com\/blog\/how-to-write-and-design-a-great-email-signature","title":{"rendered":"How to Write & Design a Great Email Signature"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we think about email marketing opportunities, we focus on promotional and transactional emails. These emails are usually designed and executed by a company\u2019s marketing team, obsessing over subject lines, copy, and design.<\/p>\n

But what about your company\u2019s everyday 1:1 communications with each other, prospects, customers, and partners? The thousands of emails sent every day from your employees represent a huge opportunity. Whether that\u2019s part of sales outreach, customer service communications, or an internal announcement, an email signature is prime real estate ready to be optimized\u2014and so often is overlooked.<\/p>\n

We sat down with Dan Hanrahan, founder and CEO of Sigstr<\/a>, to talk about how email marketers can optimize every email, not just ones from the marketing department.<\/p>\n

\"Dan
Dan Hanrahan, founder and CEO of Sigstr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How can you use employee emails as a branding and engagement opportunity? What role do email signatures play?<\/h3>\n

Marketers pour their hearts into content and invest in events to help the business. SiriusDecisions says that 65% of content goes unused. That\u2019s a big problem.<\/p>\n

At the same time, each employee will open up Gmail or Outlook and hit send 10,000<\/strong> times per year<\/a>. 10,000! When you stop and consider that the audience is hand-picked and includes your most important customers, prospects, and partners, it\u2019s the same audience we strive to reach with our marketing investments.<\/p>\n

For a B2B company, the brand impressions racked up from employee sends dwarf the number of impressions generated from the website. Traditional marketing email sent from an email service provider will continue to be a cornerstone of marketing programs. But your employees are your brand, too. They interact with the most important stakeholders for your business. A consistent and always on-brand signature coupled with a subtle call-to-action (CTA) can drive tremendous value for the business.<\/p>\n

Are there different opportunities with email signatures depending on what department the employee is in?<\/h3>\n

Absolutely! HR should promote the Careers page or culture content, while Customer Service promotes the support portal, and Sales links to a recent case study. We recently wrote a blog post<\/a> about this.<\/p>\n

A signature should also change depending on the recipient reading the email. We often hear that certain people or teams only send email to others in the company. If the only recipients of an email are internal to my company, the signature should promote internal communications. Think benefits changes, health and wellness, compliance, change management, or the famed Hawaiian Shirt Day. The signature is a chance to communicate whatever is most important without requiring an additional send.<\/p>\n

What are some of the challenges around companies creating consistent email signatures across all employees?<\/h3>\n

Typically, when marketing departments are trying to launch a new email signature design, they have to send a company-wide email containing the format of the new signature, as well as a 10-step guide on how to update the signature. It\u2019s often a one-size-fits all signature, and success is impossible to measure. Adoption is impossible to track, and the result is a mess of inconsistent signatures with old logos and links to the old blog!<\/p>\n

One of our clients recently told us that in the past, they would host contests with prizes for which groups of the company all updated their email signatures first. You should not have to resort to bribery to try and have consistently branded email signatures!<\/p>\n

Is including an email signature that promotes marketing messages in your customer service responses a good idea? You get in front of your customers, but is the context right?<\/h3>\n

This circles back to the question on different opportunities within different departments for the email signatures. If you\u2019re engaged with customer service, the focus should be on helping you as quickly as possible. Signatures for Customer Service Reps should contain helpful content around the knowledge base or FAQ\u2019s. It should also contain my direct phone number along with a link to the support app \/ portal to see the status of my request or ticket.<\/p>\n

What are some common pitfalls with using email signatures for marketing?<\/h3>\n

To be effective with signature marketing, the company needs to first have a solid marketing plan and great content marketing. Once you have content and events to promote, then it\u2019s time to drive awareness and engagement via signature marketing. The next step is creating a well-designed CTA for the signature.<\/p>\n

Does sending an email signature graphic mean that emails sent by employees are converted from plain text to HTML?<\/h3>\n

Nope! An email cannot be converted, but if you wish to send an email with a signature graphic you will need to be sending that email in HTML form. You can change your default format in your email settings.<\/p>\n

What kinds of A\/B testing should you run with email signature campaigns? Any examples of experiments marketers should try with their signatures?<\/h3>\n

We have tested different sizes, shapes, colors, placements, etc. Through Sigstr\u2019s platform we can measure the results through clicks and click through rates. In our own use of Sigstr, we tested two versions of a campaign, and the first had a click-through rate that doubled the second, likely attributed to a clearer CTA:<\/p>\n

\"Email
Example 1: Had double the CTR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Email
Example 2: Performed poorly in comparison to Example 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What are some ways that you can measure if an email signature is influencing conversions? How can you track a conversion back to an email signature?<\/h3>\n

Marketers love to measure. We have a metrics obsession! But so many avenues are unreliable in proving the impact on a company\u2019s bottom line. There are a ton of ways we, as an industry, have mastered tracking analytics\u2014like Bitly and Google UTMs<\/a> to name a few.<\/p>\n

WHAT TO INCLUDE IN AN EMAIL SIGNATURE<\/h2>\n

What constitutes a \u201cgreat\u201d email signature? What should it include and what should it leave out? Any good examples or best practices? Any shortcuts or templates you\u2019d recommend?<\/h3>\n

We have spent a great amount of time building, testing, re-configuring and perfecting the formula for a great email signature. We found success in simplicity. Keep the text short and easy to read. You want your most relevant information in your email signature.<\/p>\n

You want it to be as easy as possible for people to reach you, so be sure to include your phone number! In terms of including social icons, it\u2019s better to link to the two most important social profiles in your signature. Here is a template we (shamelessly) recommend:<\/p>\n

\"Example<\/figure>\n

How can you stand out with an email signature? Are there situations where you wouldn’t want to stand out?<\/h3>\n

We might suggest that the best email signatures should not be overbearing. Consistency and simplicity = success. Images and links are used wisely to draw attention to the 3-4 most important areas. The best signatures are those requiring as little real estate, images, text, links, etc. to accomplish two goals:<\/p>\n