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Digital marketing is a big cake that must have the right ingredients; otherwise, the prospect will sputter it off, never to respond again. You primarily need to draw prospects' attention at the beginning through a great subject line.
Also, telling them who you are must be done stylishly to keep them glued to the email conversation. Making it engaging by sending them a customized video is critical in getting them glued.
But that is not all. They probably forgot who you are when they read the last sentence. In the worst-case scenario, the prospects get the notion that they have been reading an automated email sent to thousands of people.
This should never happen when you know how to finish your cold email with something that announces your brand identity in the simplest possible way- A business email signature.
It is the ultimate icing on your cake, and when done correctly, email recipients are more than ready to take the next big step. Their trust in you is at peak levels as they know who they’re dealing with is a reputable partner.
Master email signature best practices for 2023 with this essential guide, elevating your professional image and maximizing impact.
It's the signoff part of an email whereby the sender provides further information on his/her identity, such as their name, contact details, and company position. You’ve probably seen it hundreds of times and never thought it mattered.
Well, as simple as it looks, it can significantly help you boost conversions, as we’ll find out below. The simple professional email signature features just the above three details. But is this enough in a cold email message?
We’ll look at that in detail later, but first, let’s see why it really matters.
There have been remarkable changes to the overall structure of cold emails as marketers try to become more innovative. Nonetheless, this is just too much unnecessary, and all you simply need to do is stick to the basics to avoid offending the prospect or appearing unprofessional.
Simplicity is the email signature best practice. So what are its core components?
If you missed the chance to introduce yourself in the email body, this is one last opportunity to tell your prospect who you are. Provide your name in full. Besides, since this is what the prospect will first see when they peak at the signature, make it conspicuous and readable.
You can put it in bold to make it stand out from the rest of the content. Also, remember some know you from another business name different from your official name. Therefore, include the alias at the end of your full name.
Finally, never use another person’s business email signature, even when sending a message on their behalf. If the prospect unmasks this, you’ll be in big trouble as it’ll erode their confidence in your company.
Your name is half the journey in a cold email signature. Who are you in your company? In split seconds, the prospect will subconsciously ask themselves this the first time they read your name.
So provide your job title/department and the company after your name. Again, don’t lie about your position or try to sound too crucial by providing posts you don't hold or even exist in your firm.
It should read something like this:
John Doe
Assistant Manager, HR,
Blue Springs Internet Solutions.
Does the company name matter? Yes. It's actually far more important than the department you work in because, in its absence, you have yet to tell the prospect where you work. Again, there are no complexities to the company name.
Just keep it simple and easy to read.
You succeeded in providing the prospects with captivating personal and company information.
But how will the email recipient reach out to you? They may have feedback on what you just told them in the email body or some questions they'd like to ask.
Others are more confident speaking to an agent over the phone as it is the easier way to ask all they want about the business offer you’ve just given them. So provide your personal or work VoIP extension.
Make sure not just to give them a telephone number that everyone in the company uses as it could prove a big ordeal trying to speak to you directly.
After getting the basics right, it's time to add some flair to your email signature by incorporating more details that make it attractive. But before we look at the details, here is a disclaimer.
Don’t overdo things; a cluttered email signature will do your campaign more harm than good. It projects you as overly salesy and unprofessional and just makes everything untidy.
If you provide too much information, the recipients' attention is divided, and they’ll be confused.
Think of it this way. You’re reading a cold email and are interested in what the sender offers. But on reaching the email signature section, they realize that the sender has provided five contact emails and four mobile numbers.
So which is which?
Simplicity is art; therefore, the email signature's best practice is to include aesthetics that are simple, necessary, and easy to decipher at a glance. We’ll explain this in detail below.
A simple professional email signature image can add more glamor to your ending, making it appear more professional. It also goes a long way in reinforcing the customer confidence in you and your company.
You can include it as GIf or a simple low-size image file. Nonetheless, while an email signature image can boost your sales campaign, it could also be your Achilles heel if you’re not careful about how you use it.
Where are you located? The client would like to check out where you’re based, and therefore they will refer to your provided address.
But why is this necessary? Well, it's also a way prospects will use to sieve scammers from those who truly are genuine.
Scammers don’t have a physical address and don’t want you to know where to find them. And because you’re definitely not one of them, capture your company’s location perfectly.
You can also hyperlink the address to a Google Maps link to make it easy for them to find you.
Mobile numbers can go a long way in helping your prospects reach out to you quickly. Interaction over the phone is also effective in setting up meetings for further engagements with the prospect/client.
But it's not the ultimate cold email marketing holy grail, as it could be why your emails are constantly marked as spam. It’s unclear how this happens, but some email services will practically send anything with numbers to the spam box.
Probably because they think you’re coercing prospects to reach out.
Besides, including your contacts in the email means you’re spammer's fodder. Expect to receive calls from persons who are just out to prank you. They may come thick and fast, depending on your email volume.
So here’s our take. Test first to see if including a number is designating you as spam. If it does, then you better not have it as part of the email.
A meeting link is another pretty important cold email signature ingredient because it sets the ground for future contact. So make sure to naturally apply it to your signal so that it appears as part of it.
You can include different colors if you have multiple clickable links on the signature. Does it always work?
It is perfect if the prospect is serious about setting up a meeting. But there are instances when some just schedule meetings they are not ready to attend.
So it can be actually futile in some instances, and thus you need to gauge if it works for your case over time.
If your company is on social media, you can give it more social proof by embedding different pages- Twitter, Facebook, name it.
Clients could want to see how other people think about your company, and there’s no better way to highlight this than by directing them to your pages.
Again, scammers don’t go to such an extent as they basically have no social proof to lean on. So by including your pages, you’ll have won the accreditation battle.
Moreover, when prospects follow you on social media, they can receive regular updates about your company.
Let's now see some of the hacks for writing email signatures that are distinctive, easy to read, and have professional elements.
Avoid sophisticated designs as they are, at best distractive, and don't contribute to what you’re trying to sell.
If you want to be innovative, then you need to go the extra mile of testing every format to see that it’s optimal for every email service you’ll be sending to.
This will cost you a lot of time, so why not stick to the basics? A few lines that capture all the basic info and a few additions, like the logo or your headshot, are enough.
Links and images on your email signature are good for show, but they can mess up everything.
For instance, avoid the allure of adding the entire email footer as an image because it will likely not load up on slow internet. Also, some email services are not optimized to open images even with good internet.
Multiple links are overly salesy and could cause the sending email to be flagged as spam—so the lesser the number of images, the better.
We cannot underestimate what a direct and precise cold email signature does to your marketing campaign.
You appear quite confident when you limit your signature to just a few words, but ensure you capture all the basic details we covered in the previous section.
It doesn’t make it worse if you add one or two additional components but don’t emphasize them because, as we said, some might affect your emails. Here’s a simple format that you can use.
Drew Madden
Sales Agent, SEO Labs LLC
Maddenforyou@outlook.com
Our example is simple and to the point. Also, every detail is visible at a glance, and by including just one contact avenue, we make it easy for the client to know that this is the primary communication channel.
You can personalize it to spice things up by including your headshot. But, test first to see if these additives affect the email’s deliverability.
Remember that some clients don’t have the font you use on your email signature. Therefore, if you send emails to such individuals, they’ll have to read from the fallback font, which may result in losing the right visual impression.
So confine your email signature and other parts of your emails to standard fonts like Verdana, Times New Roman, and Arial.
Also another mistake that most people make is to mix fonts. Don’t do this. Instead, add more clarity to your professional HTML email signature by bolding the parts you want to be highlighted.
You can also tinker with the font size, but the general rule is that you should never mix fonts as it significantly affects the outlook.
Including a disclaimer to your email signature is essential as it primarily means you are operating a legal framework. Also, it serves to communicate additional details of the deal you’re offering the customer.
In some countries, such as the UK, this part is mandatory, whereby the term conditions include offering the email recipients an option to opt-out. But you must keep this part concise.
It’s among the least important details to take space in the email signature. So why not just include a link where the client can read to access the full details of the disclaimer and legal terms?
Cold email signatures matter, as we have highlighted in this guide, but more than any email footer is needed.
You must include pertinent details in this part for it to perfectly serve its cardinal purpose- to tell the client more about you. The general rule is to remain professional and keep things concise.
Also, less is better here as long as you capture everything necessary that should be in your footer. Finally, although we advocate for images in email signature best practices, they should only be a small part so they don’t affect page loading capacity.