You’re in IT. You’re responsible for managing your company’s Office 365 email signatures. And you’re fed up. Fed up with the limitations of Office 365 and Exchange online. Fed up with the hassle of trying to keep employees from tampering with their signatures. And fed up with the marketing team always on your back (something about email signatures being an engaging campaign channel, but can you please help set it up for them)? Whatever happened to the idea that managing email signatures should be simple?

Thankfully, with Rocketseed it is. We understand the challenges that Office 365 email signatures cause IT managers. Why? Because we get just as many enquiries from IT managers like you as we do from marketers.

So here are the 7 questions we get asked most by IT managers – an IT FAQ if you like of Rocketseed email signatures for Office 365 – and we’ll start with the big one…

1. How does it work?

Rocketseed Office 365 email signature manager is an SMTP relay with a secure, access-controlled, web-based user interface. Connectors within Office 365 route your emails to the Rocketseed server, which applies the signature and any banner campaign required), and the branded email is then securely resubmitted to Office 365 via a closed SMTP loop. This means that even though your email is being branded by Rocketseed, it doesn’t leave the secure Azure cloud environment before final delivery to the recipient. So the ‘mailflow’ looks like this

2. How easy is it to set up, and how long does it take?

Using an SMTP relay centralises the whole process, making Rocketseed for Office 365 very easy to set up. Unlike plug-in solutions, there’s no need for every user to download software to set up their signature. As for setup time, you can get started with Rocketseed in just days. Rocketseed can be enabled for individual senders or groups during testing and then easily extended to the entire organisation.

3. How secure is it?

It’s super secure! The user interface has role-based access levels using secure (https) connections and all email conversations are TLS encrypted between Office 365 and Rocketseed. Once installed in your Azure cloud it should be emphasised that at no point can we at Rocketseed view any of your email content.

You can rest assured that the Rocketseed Azure-hosted branding appliances are kept up to the most recent patch levels, and the software is security audited and penetration tested regularly. Throughout the installation and maintenance process we will only undertake work with approval from your information security team.

4. Who’s in control?

That’s up to you. IT? Marketing? Multiple administrators? Whoever it is, on-brand email signature consistency across your company requires full control. Rocketseed Office 365 email signature manager gives administrators central control via our browser-based interface (no installations or downloads required).

Admins can update employee signatures at the click of a button, whether it’s one, a hundred, or ten thousand, ensuring individual employees can’t ‘creatively personalise’ their own off-brand signature. It’s easy to assign signature variants to different departments and individuals when required. By synching with Azure Active Directory, any changes to employee details are automatically updated in their email signatures.

5. Does it work on mobile devices?

Of course. Rocketseed email signatures perform perfectly when email is sent or received on any device. Our signature templates use responsive HTML mark-up, so signatures are sized automatically, ensuring easy readability and consistent design when viewed on PC, tablet or smartphone. Rocketseed Office 365 email signature manager can embed all branding images so there’s no danger of them being blocked, appearing as corner red-crosses. What’s more, we continually test to ensure that email signatures render correctly on the broadest range of email clients and on the most popular mobile devices.

6. Will it keep the marketing department happy and off my back?

Oh yes. For two main reasons…

Firstly, by giving them an ‘administrator’ role with central control of your Office 365 signature management, they can be effective ‘brand guardians’ again, ensuring all email signatures are professionally on-brand, consistent and compliant company-wide.

Secondly, by choosing Rocketseed you’re giving your marketing colleagues the new ‘hero’ marketing channel. After all, it’s a noisy world out there and effectively-branded one-to-one employee emails cut through the noise – achieving real engagement, with click-through rates that bulkmailers can only dream of!

7. Once it’s set up, am I on my own?

Not at all. Something that really sets Rocketseed apart is that we take our support service (and we mean real ‘human’ support) very seriously. We give you full training on the Rocketseed interface so that you can get the most from the tool and there’s 24-hour technical support with a real expert to speak to. What’s more you’ll get a dedicated account manager (Here’s 7 reasons why they come in handy) who can take care of your design, updates and campaign management. So whether it’s IT or marketing, you’ve got the Office 365 email signature support you need.

So there you are. An Office 365 email signature management solution that’s simple to deploy, super-secure, saves you time and effort and gives you complete control and great-looking results. Your marketing department will thank you for it (and stay off your back).

Want to get started? Let’s talk. Simply contact me to arrange a demo and see exactly what Rocketseed signature management for Office 365 can do for you.

Oliver Howe | IT Director

Connect with Oliver on LinkedIn

Some signature providers make a big selling point of the fact that employees can see their signature on every email before they press send. But beware. By adding signatures ‘pre-send’ you risk not seeing the bigger picture – email signature security.

If you’re searching for an email signature solution, you’ll notice that no two providers are quite the same. And these differences can throw some dilemmas into your decision making, for example…

Pre-send vs post-send: technically speaking

Some solutions work by inserting your signature when you compose a new email. The signature is the first thing added, and it can be edited the same way as any other text. You can remove or alter it as you see fit. This requires the signature solution be installed individually on every device – each user’s PC, tablet and mobile phone must have the software installed to get consistent branding.

Rocketseed works differently. Signatures, legal disclaimers and banners are all added once you’ve pressed send. Rocketseed is situated between your mail provider and your email recipients, so all branding applied to emails from your company can be controlled centrally.

Who cares?

We do, and you should too. Because when you consider that the right email signature software will not only give you consistent branding but can drive thousands of visitors to your website and social channels for very little investment, you need to know the risks of  visible (and therefore editable) email signatures.

Ironically, most employees don’t seem to care. It’s not an attitude problem, it’s because they’re busy people each sending up to 1,000 emails a month who see email signatures as a hassle. “Email signatures? Someone in marketing deals with all that” – and that suits them just fine. They don’t need to see their signature on every email before they press send, so why take the email signature security risk?

So what is the ‘pre-send’ visible email signature risk?

That’s simple. Because when it comes to employees and email signatures…

Don’t risk your brand

Your people and your brand are your biggest assets. So take the worry of email signatures away from your employees to let them get on with what they do best, and give it to the “brand guardians” in your marketing department. This control of centrally applied email signatures gives you company-wide consistency. It’s Branding 101.

If employees can alter their signatures before sending then consistency is immediately compromised. With ‘post-send’ centralised control you can update employee signatures at the click of a button, whether it’s one, a hundred, or ten thousand, secure in the knowledge that your brand is consistent company-wide.  If you are making a company wide change, such a a re-brand or office move, you don’t need the additional hassle of relying on all employees making correct and timely amends. Rocketseed manages this for you.

Don’t risk the temptation to tamper

While ‘email signature security’ is the big issue, we like the phrase ‘tamper-proof’. It’s more evocative of the small but significant changes that individual employees might be tempted to make, which your business and brand can’t afford: everything from genuine mistakes to the mildly mischievous and, in some cases, the downright malicious.

Can you afford to have individual employees adding one of their favourite ‘motivational quotes’ to their signature? Giving themselves a phoney promotion with a jumped-up job title? Replacing the company’s social media links with their own personal ones? Or meddling with the email legal disclaimer?

Applying signatures ‘post-send’ takes tamper temptation out of the equation. Changes can only be made centrally. You’re in complete company-wide control.

Don’t risk your investment

Professional email signatures are the result of time and money invested. This covers everything from the creation of your brand’s logo, selection of  fonts and colours, through the layout of your email signature (you can see our email design guidelines here) and the legal expertise that drew up your disclaimer. Your investment needs to be secure. Just like a ‘post-send’ email signature.

Don’t risk your marketing channel

Adding an interactive banner to your email signature transforms it into a marketing channel that can deliver real engagement. But it needs to be smart.  Rocketseed brands each receiver’s email individually. Our smart segmentation and targeting rules let your marketers apply the right banners to the right emails at the right time to drive recipient click-through and conversion.

‘Pre-send’ signatures limit this targeting and engagement. For example, if an email is addressed to multiple receivers, a banner applied ‘pre-send’ will be the same for each recipient. With  Rocketseed ‘post-send’ applied banners, each recipient will be sent the banner most suited to them, based on the advanced segmenting and targeting rules. Therefore to run a really compelling campaign, it’s got to be ‘post-send’ every time.

Don’t risk your results reporting

You’ve created a compellingly-clickable signature for your company with a clear call-to-action (you’ll find plenty of top CTA tips here). You need to know how recipients are engaging with your employees’ email signatures so you can measure performance and gain actionable insights. You’re going to want to know who clicked what, and when. You need precise click reporting and real time engagement alerts. By applying signatures ‘post-send’, Rocketseed can report on exactly who clicked on which link. That’s not possible in tools that apply branding before the Send button’s pressed.

Want to see your signature?

No problem. Just because your signature is applied ‘post-send’ with Rocketseed, doesn’t mean you can’t check up on it whenever you want. Any individual user can see exactly how their signature appears to recipients at any time. Just send a mail to our test address, and check your inbox .You’ll receive an email back that will show your signature, just as it appears on every email you send.

Big brands in safe hands

Doubtless the ‘pre-send’/’post-send’ email signature debate will continue. Now a blog isn’t the place to big-up our own brand but the reasons above are exactly why companies such as Dell, the DMA, the Ritz and British Red Cross choose Rocketseed. You’ll find plenty of client success stories and testimonials on our website. Mehul Boricha from Tech Arrival says “Email signatures are not only used to solidify the brand of the entire company but it can also be used to create brand recognition” – we couldn’t agree more!

Email signatures are not only used to solidify the brand of the entire company but it can also be used to create brand recognition

If you’ve got any questions about email signature security, contact us today!

Mitchell Talisman  | VP Engineering