How to write a signature for email
Many treat their email signatures as an afterthought, but the signature gives you the chance to establish who you are and showcase the company that you represent in 2023. It also gives people a place to go where they can learn more about your business. For that reason, it makes sense to learn more about how to write a signature for email. Understanding everything that goes into an email signature will help you to make the most of it. If all you do is put your name and contact information, you miss an incredible opportunity to connect and engage with people. Let’s take a look at why you would want to use an email signature and how to write a signature for email.
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Table of Content
Why Use an Email Signature
Before we show you how to write email signature, we’d like to show you when they make the most sense to use.
Marketing Products and Services - First, you might use an email signature to market your products and services. It encourages people to click on the page and learn more, which can generate more leads for your business.
Raising Brand Awareness - Based on information from the State of Business Email Marketing Report, an estimated 82% of marketers use email signatures to build brand awareness and help their reputation. When you consistently end your emails with the same message over and over, it can start to create brand awareness through making the brand recognizable. Ultimately, brand awareness leads to people choosing your products over your competitors because they see yours as more trustworthy.
Expand Your Network - Keeping your contact information in a signature will make it easy for customers to speak with you. They can reply whenever they wish. This helps you to build relationships and develop a personal network that you can use to your advantage. For example, you can send them to your social media pages.
At the top of your email signature, you need to put your first and last name because you want people to know who they’re corresponding with. It also adds authority and professionalism. They won’t do business with you if they don’t feel that they can trust you. Use your proper name, not your nickname. You could also include a middle name or just a letter from the middle name. The whole point of this is to tell the recipient who the email was from.
Especially in the beginning of your relationship with a new client, linking yourself to a larger organization adds credibility and trust. Along with that, people will take it more seriously if they see that you’re affiliated with a trustworthy organization. Your affiliations may include things like a job title, your department, or your company. You add affiliate information because it provides context for potential customers.
Next, you will put in a logo or a headshot. You might choose a logo because it provides you with a unique opportunity to add branding to your message every time you send an email. That makes the most sense when you want to build a brand and improve your visibility. Giving a headshot is especially powerful if you never corresponded with those customers before. They will learn to associate your headshot with your name. The headshot route works well in cases where you will send out tons of emails to new customers, and you want them to see who they’re talking to.
When sending an email to a professor, be respectful and clear in your communication. State your purpose concisely and use a professional tone.
This was particularly meant for people who want their customers to take some form of action. You can add a call to action in the signature. Remember: Add only a single call to action rather than trying to get them to do multiple things. You will find that you get more people to take action than if you muddle it with giving multiple requests. Tell them what you want them to do and add the call to action right in the signature for convenience.
Things to Consider
Colors - Choose your colors wisely because they will help your signature to stand out. Beware of light and bright colors, such as yellow or red, because your readers may struggle to read your signature, or they may find it distracting. For consistency, you may want to choose a signature color similar to the body of your email to add consistency. Think of your brand as well—for example—purple is associated with luxury, so if you’re selling luxury products, you might choose that color.
Font - In general, Sans Serif works as the best font with 10 to 12 font size. You can read it easily, and it doesn’t distract you. People can read your signature and get information from it without a struggle. Other fonts that you might consider include Georgia, Arial Black, Arial, Calibri, or Times New Roman. Whatever you choose, always keep the ease of reading in mind. Be aware as well that not every font will be compatible with all devices and operating systems. For that reason, you may want to err on the side of caution with font choice.
Simple is Better - One key to learning how to write a signature in email is don’t overdo the design of your email signature. In general, limit your email signature to three or four lines of text. Oftentimes, less goes further than doing too much that distracts your customers. While you shouldn’t leave out crucial pieces of information, you should still keep everything condensed to give your customers as much information as quickly as possible.
Legal Requirements - Depending on your industry, some fields require you to include certain things in the email signature. The financial and insurance industries are examples of this, but you may want to check your own industry ahead of time. You can also add disclaimers in your email signature, and in some fields, federal legislation requires it.
What You Shouldn’t Do in a Signature for Emails
When learning how to write an email signature, you should learn what not to do. You do have a couple of things to avoid for the most success. First, don’t fill your signature with graphics or media. This can make your emails load slowly. On some devices, they may display incorrectly, making you look unprofessional - better to avoid the issue altogether. Next, to keep your signature short, don’t include unnecessary information. For example, pointless certifications, irrelevant information, and inspirational quotes all fall into this category.
Beware of using colors that don’t align with your brand identity as well. This is an easy mistake to make. If you have more than 10 lines for a signature, you probably need to cut some of the information.
You can put social media icons on your signature, but exercise caution. Don’t overdo it. Most experts recommend that you only put 4 icons as the maximum.
Tips on How to Write Signature in Email
Tip #1 Make Sure the Links Work - You can get around this issue by sending a test email to yourself to check the links. If you link to the company home page, you want to see that it sends you to that page. Check it before you start to send them to clients. If you include a social media link, make sure that those send them to the correct page. URLs change from time to time, so you may want to check this every once in a while. This goes for contact information as well. Check it to see that it’s correct.
Tip #2 Check for White Space - Don’t be ashamed of a little white space in the email signature—in fact, you want it that way. Resize it if you must. If the signature has no white space, it means that it has become too compressed, and your recipients will struggle to read the details. White space also makes it easier on the eyes.
Tip #3 Optimize for Mobile Devices - An estimated 50.55% of all internet traffic now comes from mobile devices. That’s why if you don’t know how to write a professional email signature for mobile devices, you could be missing a huge portion of your audience. Mobile friendly signatures will be under 400 x 400 pixels to accommodate for the smaller screen. Be aware of how some layouts are impractical for mobile devices. For example, horizontal layouts are at a disadvantage on the mobile due to going over 400 x 400 pixels.
Tip #4 Optimize for All Email Clients - You especially need to exercise caution with HTML formatting. Most of the email clients won’t support all types of HTML content, which will make the signature invisible. Microsoft Outlook, for example, doesn’t recognize background images. Forget about embedded content because most corporate email clients won’t load them due to security reasons.
Tip #5 Don’t Use Too Many Colors - Like when you create a professional logo, you want to keep the color palette limited with an email signature to make it memorable. Too many colors become a distraction, and you risk choosing colors that clash. In general, we would recommend sticking with 2 colors that complement each other. This is in combination with your base text colors like black or gray.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this shows you how to write signature on email. Luckily, creating a signature for email isn’t difficult. Follow the steps and guidelines that we outlined above to make an email signature. You could also use a generator. Creating a consistent and clear message helps customers to know what to expect when they interact with your company.
If you receive a rejection email, don’t be discouraged. Use it as an opportunity to learn and grow.
A branded email signature will create trust, and people are more likely to do business with companies that they trust. You may also get paid more—an estimated 46% of customers surveyed said that they would be willing to pay more for brands that they trust. That should show you why you want to learn how to write a professional signature email.
When writing a resignation letter, keep it professional and concise. Express gratitude for the opportunity and leave on a positive note.
Along with an email signature, you may want to consider using an AI email writer like the AImReply service. This AI assistant will help your business to look more professional by eliminating common grammar and spelling errors that take away from your message. Many people may not realize this, but AImReply can also help you to create unique and personalized email signatures that will stand out from the rest. If you don’t want to waste time doing it yourself, you can create one very quickly with this software that still looks fantastic. Because you can tell it the tone of voice you want, it will create a perfect email for every need.
At the same time, it takes a few seconds to compose, rather than 30 minutes or longer, saving you precious time to spend elsewhere on your business. It’s also free. What do you have to lose? Sign up today with AImReply.
Author, Expert in Email Strategy and Artificial Intelligence
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