As a marketer, you’re missing out on a massive opportunity if you think your company email signatures are simply sign-offs. Why? Because your busiest business communication channel – your everyday employee email – with the right email signatures can become a mighty marketing channel that packs a promotional punch way above its weight.
The challenge is to manage email signature marketing at scale to build your brand and grow your business. So we’ve put together 10 essential email signature marketing principles, each with practical takeaway tips that go beyond the basics to help you master email signature marketing.
Email signatures should be managed by Marketing (not just IT)
If you want the benefits of email signature marketing highlighted below – from consistent branding to coordinated campaign engagement – then you need to be in control of all your employee email signatures. Your IT team might be responsible for technical email signature set-up, security and support but if you want to see real marketing results from your corporate signatures, it’s time to take charge, including selecting any email signature management software. Our Ultimate Email Signature Software Checklist highlights 15 things you need to know when buying email signature software.
Takeaway Tip: Email signatures are a marketing channel. You’re a marketer. Take control.
Email signatures are more than contact details (but it’s vital they’re correct)
What’s the primary function of a professional email signature? To make contact easy and that means clear, correct and, in some instances, clickable interactive contact details. Keep things simple and stick to the essentials. These include your full name, position, company name (if it isn’t incorporated in your logo), phone number, email address, website URL, and social media profiles, and make sure that they are all up to date. Adding headshots? Make sure staff look professional and no poolside vacation shots from social posts! You’ll format contact details correctly every time by using our best practices for adding contact information on an email signature.
Takeaway Tip: How to ensure employee details are all up to date? Automate. Use a signature solution that integrates with your Azure, Active or Google Directories to update signature details automatically.
Email signatures are your brand on email (so company-wide consistency is crucial)
As the company’s brand guardian you can’t afford for any employee’s email signature to undermine the money, time, and resources spent on your corporate identity. Centrally design a signature template to your brand guidelines’ logos, colours and fonts. If a template doesn’t meet your requirements – go bespoke! Brand consistency is key to customer trust and you’ll never achieve it if individuals are responsible for their own signatures (no matter how many guides you send them). Here are 15 ways email signature branding can boost your brand.
Takeaway Tip: Centrally create and roll-out your on-brand company email signatures and ensure they’re tamper-proof.
Email signatures deliver excellent reach, open and engagement rates (the numbers speak for themselves)
The average employee sends 1,000 emails every month. So, for a team of 100, email signature marketing opens over 1,200,000 extra engagement opportunities a year! You’re reaching a huge audience of prospects, customers, partners and suppliers, with no need to build or buy a big subscriber list. They also achieve a 99% open rate because they’re part of ongoing email conversations and so they’re always going to get opened. No need to rely on snappy subject lines. Most importantly, we regularly see companies achieving email signature marketing engagement (click-through) rates of around 9% but can reach above 20%. Check out the engagement Rocketseed users achieve in our customer case studies.
Takeaway Tip: Maximise reach and engagement by making sure all employees – from all departments – include interactive signatures on their emails.
Email signatures can open endless engagement opportunities (especially by adding a banner)
Want to make every email extra eye-catching and engaging? Adding a banner lets you feature your best brand and product imagery, as well as concise, compelling copy and, most importantly, a clear and clickable call-to-action (CTA) button linked to your key content. Email marketing banners become even more impactful if you have the ability to apply them to the top of each email so they’re the first thing that recipients’ see. They really are incredibly versatile with messaging ranging from strategic brand building and product launches to tactical sales promotions and special offers , always making it easy for recipients to click through to a landing page specifically designed to convert. Need some creative ideas? Here are 33 great email signature banner examples to inspire you.
Takeaway Tip: A/B test your CTA button sizes, colours and copy to see which drive the most clicks.
Email signatures are a true campaign channel (so start targeting, timing and tracking)
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that once your company email signature is designed, then that’s that. For maximum effect, your email signatures should reach the right audience with the most relevant messaging at the right time. That means targeting your marketing banners (ideally based on recipients’ previous email banner engagement). Take away timing worries by automating campaign start and end dates. Finally, you should track every ‘open’ and engagement to measure your signature marketing success and get the insights you need to optimise future campaigns.
Takeaway Tip: Sound stressful? Consider using professional signature management software with targeting, scheduling and reporting functionality.
Email signatures can take recipients through the customer journey (from awareness to advocacy)
Are you emailing a prospect or checking in with an existing customer? Using the appropriate imagery, messaging and CTA on your email signature marketing banner can guide recipients along their buyer journey. Building awareness? Use your best product imagery and a ‘Find out more’ CTA. Ready to make the sale? Make it easy with ‘Buy Now’ CTA that links directly to your sales platform. Future email banners can upsell or cross-sell. Finally, run a ‘How are we doing?’one-click survey banner and follow up with a ‘Please leave us a review’ with recipients clicking through to your preferred review platform – you can use the reviews as social proof on future email banners! Need more reviews? Here’s how to request (and receive) them with every email.
Takeaway Tip: Integrate your email signatures with your CRM system, such as Salesforce to help move recipients through their journey with the most relevant email banners to drive conversions.
Email signatures can communicate compliance (and showcase what your brand stands for)
If you’re a marketer in a highly regulated sector – such as finance, law or healthcare – adding a company email signature disclaimer is an essential means of demonstrating legal compliance. It’s also a great idea to add icons for industry awards, accolades and accreditations to give recipients complete confidence in your expertise and authority. These can also showcase your environmental and social responsibility (ESG) credentials. Want to show recipients that your brand is committed to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion? Additions such as name pronunciation in email signatures and the email sender’s preferred gender pronouns help convey this succinctly.
Takeaway Tip: Add phonetic name pronunciation to your company signatures – it can really increase inclusivity and help strengthen relationships.
Email signatures can amplify your other marketing channels (and do it cost-effectively)
Include clickable icons for 3 to 5 actively managed social media profiles. Build your B2B network on LinkedIn and get people talking about your business on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Want to organically grow your email marketing subscriber list? Simply add a ‘Sign up to our newsletter’ CTA on all your staff email signatures linked to your sign-up landing page. Trying to widen content distribution? Email signatures are the perfect place to promote your blog, ebook, latest short-form created videos or case study – always with a clear clickable CTA (eg.‘Watch our 1-minute video). You can also boost event attendance – both face-to-face and virtual by simply adding a ‘Book Now’ button linked to your sign-up page. Suddenly every business email is an invitation! Our blog post on email signature marketing cost effectiveness explores this in more detail.
Takeaway Tip: Integrate your company email signatures into your overall marketing comms.
Email signatures must be mobile-friendly (so design them to display on every device)
Up to 81% of your business emails are opened on mobile devices. Don’t miss out on all these opportunities with a default “Sent from my mobile device” or a signature that displays poorly (or goes missing!) on mobile. Mobile-optimise your company signatures. Think about the limited,vertical screen space. Keep your mobile email signature design simple; break up long lines; keep image file size small; use easily readable font sizes (8pt – 20pt); stick to 3 social media icons and make sure CTA buttons are big enough to press easily. Ideally, your email signature solution should mobile-optimise automatically! Read our guide on how to make your email signature mobile-friendly.
Takeaway Tip: Don’t assume your signature is mobile-optimised. Test, test, test across all devices.
BONUS: Email signatures are great for internal marketing too (so start engaging your staff)
Think of all the emails your staff send to each other every day. Email signatures can make each one an interactive internal marketing opportunity and an invaluable internal comms channel for HR to strengthen company culture. They’re a great way to keep all employees – in office and remote – informed, engaged and on-brand. Make it easy for them to click through to the latest company news, CEO video message, updated policy documents and social event details. Link new staff to the onboarding material they need and ensure existing staff engage with your latest training content. Want to increase staff engagement? Explore 7 internal marketing ideas to improve employee experience.
Takeaway Tip: Want to gauge staff morale? Add a one-click staff satisfaction survey to every internal email.
Want to make it simple? Start by using an email signature manager
As you can see, there is SO much more to your company email signatures than a simple sign-off! I hope this blog has inspired you to take control, get creative and start running email signature marketing campaigns to build your brand, grow your business and strengthen your company culture.
One final point, if you want to make email signature marketing even easier, consider adding an email signature manager to your marketing tools. It’s a simple way to manage, automate and integrate signature marketing at scale to achieve success without the stress.
Leonie van Aswegen | Marketing Manager
Connect with Leonie on LinkedIn
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