Compliments of Sean MaCentee

Sadly, many email marketers never given much serious thought to the signature that appears below the content in emails they send to their lists, and far to often they treat it as more of an after thought.

One reason why using an email signature is important is it shows that you are serious about running a legitimate business. Plus, it can help provide important clues about how the person became acquainted with you – just in case they have forgotten.

There is lots of conflicting thoughts on what to include in an effective signature.

Here’s our general thoughts on it…

• Your signature should have about four lines, but no more than six lines in it, with a maximum of 72 characters per line to keep in compliance with various email programs.
• To be most effective, it really should say something important or even descriptive about you, and your business, and provide some alternative contact information.

How To Construct Your Email Signature Line

• Begin with your name…after all it IS a signature.
• Below your name there should be your title and the name of your business.
• Include a tag line if desired..
• Add your contact info and a link to your website. (While we gather a mailing list on multiple websites we tend to just feature our primary domain on our newsletter signature).
• You can condense some things down into one line by using breaks.

Here’s an example  of an email signature line:

–

To Your Success,

Craig and Leisa Watkins
Co-founders of Wealth, Wisdom and Success Enterprises
Where We Help People Successfully Navigate Through Life & Business

Phone: 801.895.2894 | Website: http://wealthwisdomandsucccess.com
–

Here’s a few more things to keep in mind…

• We don’t recommend using images in your signature as it increases your chances of being blocked by the SPAM filters.
• Be sure to check that those links actually work. It would be sad to send out hundreds of emails using that signature and find it it doesn’t work.
• To make it easy to see where the email ends your signature could be separated from the body of the email with a single line (like: ——) or a double line (like: =====). Although a simple — is all it really needs, and the — is accepted as standard.
• Don’t include a bunch of extra information in your signature.
• We don’t recommend including links to your various social media profiles unless it is appropriate for that topic because it fragments possible actions in the readers mind.
• Skip the mailing address. While it is required by SPAM laws as an alternative way for people to unsubscribe don’t make it a part of your signature. Your auto-responder service likely adds it anyway. The exception is if it is require by law where you live. Some European countries, laws dictate law requires some businesses to include the address and VAT number in the signature. If you live in Europe you can learn more by visiting this UK government website.
• Keep the contact info simple. Pick one central contact phone number and bag the rest.
• When including links spell them out rather than hyper-linking some text. Start with a http:// to make sure it displays as a link when the recipient opens it.
• Don’t include HTML formatting as it often doesn’t display the way you want it to in your readers email program.

Go ahead, go craft your email signature. Take action.