How to manage email signatures on Exchange Server Subscription Edition

Why are email signatures important?

Email signatures are important because they are your company asset. Think about how much money your company spends on branding and marketing, and how much time it spends on perfecting brand identity, monitoring brand presence, and monetizing every single marketing opportunity.

And then you have email signatures. Most companies rely on email as their basic contact channel and use it for all B2B communication and, at the very least, some B2C communication. And, for some reason, this asset is often out of any form of control.

Leaving email signatures unmonitored and unmanaged is a compliance risk the size of a small country. Here are some of the most considerable dangers you face:

1. Outdated contact details cause your Sales team to lose leads.
2. Unprofessional elements, fake job titles or broken signature layout damage your brand.
3. Lack of marketing banners makes you lose marketing opportunities.
4. Lack of certain elements (legal disclaimers or company information) might cost you.

Here’s a real-life example of how poorly managed email signatures can have a real impact on your business:

Imagine that you work on business partnerships. While evaluating a company, you notice they boast ISO & SOC certifications and other qualifications on their website. But then you receive an email from them, and another – from a different person – each with a different signature (or none at all). Wouldn’t this make you wonder if a company that fails to manage such a basic element of everyday communication is a good partner? It’s a small detail that can have a huge impact, especially if you’re on high alert after some bad experiences.

So, here are the three methods companies use to control email signatures in their communications.

Method #1: Company-wide policy

Setting up email signatures isn’t rocket science. With clear instructions and a ready-to-use template (like one of these signature examples), everyone should be able to do it, given some time and will. That’s why many organizations decide that creating a company-wide policy for setting up email signatures takes care of this matter once and for all.

You could create a clear policy that specifies each aspect of your company email signature and write guides on your corporate identity and brand management. Add this to your onboarding procedure and everyone should get a well-formatted, company-approved email signature.

In a perfect world, that would probably work. In the real world, expect a hot mess. Here’s what usually happens:

• Some users set up the signature exactly how you want them to in all email apps they use. Let’s call them “exceptions”.
• Some set up the signature right in their desktop apps, for example Outlook, but leave the “Sent from my iPhone” signature on mobiles.
• Others set up the template but leave the default contact details from the template instead of replacing them with their own.
• Some run (immediately or later) into unexpected problems and reach out to IT for assistance with a few additional “by the way” problems.
• Others come up with ideas on how to make the signature even greater. Some of those ideas (“I don’t like this font. Comic Sans is much better!”) might not be considered as great from the company’s point of view.
• The rest either forget to set up the signature or ignore the policy altogether.

Method #2: Mail flow rules

Another idea is to set up an email signature that works automatically. Exchange Server SE (just like prior Exchange versions) lets you use mail flow rules to automate email signature branding.

Here’s how it usually works:

1. Marketing comes up with the signature idea. They design a global signature template and forward it to IT.
2. IT transforms the template to HTML code and uses this code in a mail flow rule.
3. There’s a time-consuming back-and-forth between Marketing and IT. Depending on your organizational structure, Comms and Legal might jump into this conversation.
4. After testing, IT finishes setup and communicates the change internally.
5. When done, users send their emails without any email signature – at least at first glance. Exchange Server mail flow rules add a personalized email signature, compliant with the template, to all emails. It’s fully automatic and happens during email processing (after the email is sent), but this approach has some rather considerable limitations.

Step-by-step guide on how to manage email signatures with mail flow rules

Method #3: Third-party app

The first two methods aren’t completely foolproof. While they can help you manage your company’s email branding, they don’t guarantee full compliance with your brand identity. They still leave some risks that are difficult to mitigate. That’s why the third-party method comes in handy.

CodeTwo Email Signatures On-prem lets you take full control over your email branding.

Instead of making your job harder and throwing a wrench into your corporate processes, you make the process as smooth and simple as possible. How is it better? There’s a long list of reasons why CodeTwo provides the best way to manage your mail flow:

1. Central management is completely effective. You set up a signature template that gets personalized for each user automatically. End users have no way to modify your company-issued signature. Legal disclaimers are added just like Legal wants them, while marketing banners convert recipients into leads just like Sales & Marketing intend.
2. Huge time savings. IT needs to install and perform the initial setup of the tool. Then, Marketing, Legal and Comms can take over. No need for complex and time-consuming projects. And since the solution is extremely simple to use and works as expected, IT doesn’t have to spend hours on troubleshooting anything later on.
3. Need an update? Any changes to your signature’s layout can be made in a few minutes and will apply to everyone, automatically.
4. Set-and-forget. After you set up your professional email signature, our service does the magic without any action required from end-users. It works in the background, making sure to promote your brand and lead traffic to your landing pages or social media profiles.
5. And signatures are only the beginning. CodeTwo Email Signatures On-prem provides a holistic approach to helping you manage your mail flow. Extend your control with auto-reply management, easily configurable DLP policies, an unsubscribe mechanism, smart attachment control and more.

And if you are planning migration to Microsoft 365, we can lend you a hand with the dedicated migration tool and then help you manage Microsoft 365 email branding with CodeTwo Email Signatures 365.

Why CodeTwo?

This may sound biased, but there is hard proof that CodeTwo provides the best Exchange Server email signature management tool on the market.

1. Our solution is local, just like your Exchange Server. You don’t introduce any risks, external data processors or additional endpoints. Instead, you fortify your control.
2. Our products are highest-rated in their category and won numerous industry awards.
3. Whenever you run into a problem, the Customer Success Team like no other will go the extra mile to help.

CodeTwo has helped numerous companies take control of their email branding. Ever since 2007, we’ve been developing our solutions for Exchange Server and Microsoft 365, making them better thanks to feedback from IT Pros from all around the world. CodeTwo Email Signatures On-prem is the ultimate product for Microsoft Exchange Server SE.

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