If you are a business owner, you probably know that in order to become successful, you often have to play more than just one role. This is especially true for small or new companies: a good business owner must be partly a marketer, partly a salesman and more. Because of that, a good, professional email signature for business owner must include many elements. This way, owners will be able to make the best use of every business opportunity. In this article, I will present how to design a professional email signature for business owner, along with some examples.
Remember, there is no single email signature design that will guarantee the success. However, there are several guidelines which will boost your chances of creating a unique, interesting email signature. Such a signature will become your personal business card, inviting its viewers to click every link included in it. Here are some tips you should follow:
Grab the attention
Grabbing the attention is one of the most crucial, and at the same time, the most difficult properties of an email signature. If the recipient of your message is not interested by your design, they will be unlikely to click any links you may provide, or even remember the name of your company. It is also very easy to overdo it. In this case, instead of awakening curiosity, the signature will leave a feeling of distaste. Therefore, it is crucial to focus on this aspect first, as it determines the final formatting of the email signature.
The whole email signature design depends on the kind of business you own. You can choose a neutral design, and still create an attractive email signature. However, if you manage to input graphics which immediately show your recipients what business you have, you will surely attract an interest of the right crowd. You should also remember that when you input any graphics, you should also change font colors so that everything fits together. Do not put too many different colors into your email signature, or some which are too bright. It increases the chances that your email signature will only irate others.
Use a simplified email signature whenever possible
Although there is lots of information and there are many elements you could and would like to insert into your email signature, you should remember that it is extremely easy to overwhelm others with too much content. It is especially valid when you have already provided your client or shareholder with all data. Therefore, you should create a second email signature design for the purpose of replies, forwards, and communication with your regular clients and business partners, whenever you are sure that the disclaimer is not required. The simplified version should be similar to the complex one, with regard to the design and the colors used, in order to strengthen the branding value of your email signatures.
Juggling various email signatures without specialized email signature software might become a bit of a hassle. Still, it is definitely worth it, as the alternative is often an annoyed client. Having a specialized software gives the same or even better results, minus the hassle.
Help others remember about your company
You should insert your company data in your emails. This is important for more than a single reason. If you are going to send business offers via email, you might be obliged to include detailed information on your company. Apart from that, providing clients with your address makes it easier to place you in the context and use your emails as a reference tool. Because of that, it strengthens your identity and helps people remember you. The way you format those pieces of information, and where you place them, depends on the whole project. In most cases it is good to place it somewhere in the middle, right after your personal information. If you put it to far, probably nobody will even look at it. If put it first, people might get the impression that it is not a person who writes to them, but a company.
Include your photo, contact details and logo
Not everyone realizes that including their photo in an email signature is worthwhile. Not only does it grab clients’ attention, but also decreases chances of the email being treated as a spam message, sent in bulk. People are more likely to trust a face, which proves that there is a human being involved in the conversation, than an image or a logo.
It does not mean that you should get rid of your logo! On the contrary, nothing builds corporate identity like a well-designed logo. Where exactly you implement it depends on its dimensions and design, but it should be well exposed. If you also add a hyperlink to the image, you will save some space, while ensuring that your clients have the opportunity to visit your website.
Use hyperlinks
Although it is quite obvious, many people forget to use hyperlinks in their email signatures. It is a shame, as each link gives you a few benefits. Linking to a catalogue will likely directly increase the number of your clients. Linking to your website or blog will increase the number of visits, maybe just enough to increase your SERP ranking. Finally, you can link to your social media profiles and gain some likes or subscribers.
Include a disclaimer
Disclaimers are a very important element of every professional email signature. An email signature for a business owner should definitely include one. Although most email signatures tend to be lengthy, you do not have to worry that your email signature will become overwhelmingly spacious because of them. That is because it is common practice to use a smaller font for disclaimers. If you want to know more about benefits of using disclaimers in your email communication or if do not know what to include in your own disclaimer, please consult this article.
Below, I will present two examples of how to make use of the guidelines from the article above:
Complete email signature for business owner
This is a great example of an attention grabbing email signature. All elements are kept in similar colors in order to create an attractive whole. The banner in the middle is simple but effective. You would see that any additional element would make the whole email signature overcrowded. The call to action text should give the recipient a hint what does it lead to: a catalogue, latest case study, your blog… anything you like.
If you look closely, the email signature carries a lot of potential for using hyperlinks. If any client is interested in learning more about your business, social media accounts you choose to include in here will provide all they need. Thanks to such an email signature, you greatly increase the benefits of all of your marketing actions.
The disclaimer is an example which includes a lot of information. You can make it shorter or simply cut it out entirely, as advised above. You can make a good simplified version of the email signature by simply cutting out the banner and everything below it. Then, you could line the social media icons vertically, more closely to the rest. You will still have an attractive design with a lot of possibilities for hyperlinks insertion.
Simplified email signature for business owner
This design is simple but powerful. It is perfect for you if you choose not to reveal your face to others but still want to impress your recipients with a professional email signature. In fact, most email signatures are based on some kind of grid or table. The example you see above is a perfect example of how to make a good use out of it. It is clear that there are no images in the signature, which gives you a few benefits:
- You can implement your signature in html code with no linked content. It means that your clients will see the signature the same way and no elements will be blocked.
- The stripes can have any color, which suits your business and liking best.
- Stripes can be moved freely, you can add more or limit yourself to one or two. Either way, you will not risk the layout becoming chaotic.
If you like, you still can include photos and social media icons in the email signature. Thanks to the stripes implemented in HTML code, it will be easy to place them exactly where you want. You can also modify the font style to a fancy one, just remember – in most cases it is better to stick to the common ones. That is because you cannot be sure that the recipient will have your super fancy font installed. This may lead to serious display issues. You can solve this problem by providing a backup font in the inline CSS code of your email signature.
If you want to have a highly professional email signature design in almost no time, be sure to try this email signature generator out.
The bottom line
Designing an effective email signature for business owner is a complex, yet rewarding task. If you do it well, every email helps build your brand. However, you have to remember that it does not only apply to you, the business owner, but also to your employees. You will get the best results if your whole team has unified email signatures. Achieving that gets harder, the more employees are in your team. To make this task easier, you might want to use a program which will easily unify email signatures in your company.
Click the links to learn more about the specialized software for Office 365, Exchange Server and for various email clients.
