The Evolution of Email Signatures

Evolution of Email Signatures

It can be all too easy to take your email signature for granted. It’s there. It serves a purpose.

However, with so many potential benefits, including brand profile, marketing growth, customer satisfaction, and improved internal comms, there is a lot more to business email signatures than meets the eye.

Discover how email signatures have evolved in recent years as we take a trip down memory lane. Plus, find out how you can ensure you can make the most of yours for maximum impact.

The basic email signature

The original purpose of a professional business signature was simply to provide recipients with the sender’s name and some basic information about them and their company. This included their job title, phone number, and company website.

Although some people added additional information, in most cases, emails were ended with a simple “yours sincerely” or “best regards”.

The inclusion of an image

The next development in email signatures was the addition of an image. Typically this involved a small profile image to go alongside the text part of the signature. This added a personal touch and allowed new clients to get to know the sender better. Unfortunately, at this time, poor-quality images were commonplace, as were unprofessional, personal photographs.

It was also common for images to be ‘referenced’ (ie. the email contained links to the images hosted on a webpage) which, by default, most email programs, such as Outlook or Gmail do not display. This resulted in images appearing as a red corner ‘X’ and requiring to be downloaded separately. To avoid this, Rocketseed embeds images by default so they display automatically on every device.

The evolution into digital business cards

Over time, professional email signatures turned into digital business cards, and companies started to add these signature blocks to the messages of all their employees. This often relied on individual employees following installation and design guidelines or IT departments setting them up individually. This was time-consuming and left the signatures open to tampering by individual employees. Rocketseed eliminated this issue completely by giving IT and marketers central control over their company signatures and making them tamper-proof to ensure brand consistency.

These electronic business cards often included a company logo and further contact details of the company, such as its address and telephone numbers. They even looked just like business cards.

The idea behind this type of email signature was to create a sense of brand unity and to improve brand recognition.

The power of marketing in email signatures

As we come closer to the present day, modern email signatures changed both in appearance and their purpose. Most notably, the electronic business card design went out the window, and more stylish, contemporary-looking email signatures started to appear.

These new and improved business email signatures became a marketing channel in themselves.

Let’s say, for example, you have an event coming up. By including an invitation to this event in your email signature, you can reach hundreds of new potential guests and even allow them to confirm their attendance.

Or maybe you want to schedule a meeting with a new client. Rather than email back and forth, you can simply include a link in your email signature for them to book a meeting. Let them access a calendar with time slots and available dates and pick the most convenient time and day for them.

Email Signature example with booking link

Other elements you may want to include in your email signature are:

  • A link to your blog or latest industry article
  • Links to your social media pages in the form of social media icons
  • A link to sign up to your newsletter
  • Information about any awards or accreditations your business has
  • A link to a new product or service
Email signature example with a CTA

Rocketseed increased email signature marketing potential further with the opportunity to feature eye-catching banners, either below the signature or at the top of every email. These banners offer a full marketing campaign channel, with the ability to be targeted, tracked and automated. This ensures that the most relevant banners are applied and reach the right recipients at the right time. What’s more, they are hugely versatile in terms of what they can achieve, from raising brand awareness and driving sales to measuring customer satisfaction and requesting reviews. These 33 great email signature banner examples show you the full range of what you can achieve with them, both externally and internally.

Good example of a rate my service email signature banner

The golden rule to make the most out of your email signature as a means of marketing your business is to always include a clear, concise and clickable call to action (CTA). This will show your recipients what steps they need to take next and will maximise your chance of converting.

The emergence of email signature software

While rare, you do still see some companies allowing their employees to get creative and design their own personal email signatures. Unfortunately, this is not a good idea.

Email signatures are an important part of a brand, and therefore, they need to be uniform in their design. However, they also need to be updated on a regular basis if you want to make the most out of them as a marketing channel. This is why the popularity of using professional email signatures software started to grow.

Essentially outsourcing the creation of your corporate email signatures to a third party, email signatures software can save you time, cut your costs, and enable you to make the most out of your company’s email signatures. There are, however, a number of things to consider when choosing email signature software for your business, and they’re highlighted in our Email Signature Software Checklist.

Make the most of your business email signatures

Long gone are the days when a professional email signature only included your name, job title, and basic contact information. Today, brands are taking advantage of professional email signatures as a highly engaging marketing channel and using them to promote their companies as much as possible.

Whether you are launching a new product, organising a big event, or you simply want to engage more with your customers, the right business email signature can transform the way in which you communicate.

Businesses are also increasing workplace inclusivity and strengthening company culture by including employees’ preferred pronouns and name pronunciation in their email signatures.

If you are struggling to create and manage all of your employee’s email signatures, then professional email signatures software is exactly what you need.

Here at Rocketseed, we have a wealth of experience in helping businesses to brand every employee’s email across every device. Offering professional design, consistent branding, marketing campaigns, and industry-leading reporting & analytics, you can rest safe in the knowledge that every aspect of your business email signatures are taken care of.

Contact us for more information or sign up to our monthly newsletters for the latest email signature news, best practices and case studies.

Janine Ferenčak  |  MD, RocketDev

Connect with Janine on Linkedin

Professional Emails Dos and Don’ts

Professional-Emails-dos-and-donts

While sending an email has become as commonplace as breathing in an office environment, many people still struggle to navigate the etiquette surrounding the most popular form of business communication.

How should you start your email correspondence? How should you sign off? Is it better to opt for short and sweet or to make each point crystal clear?

When you really think about it, the world of email is full of potential pitfalls that could be costing you more business than you care to think about. From always writing a clear subject line to never trying to be funny, keep reading to discover all the professional email dos and don’ts you need to know about.

DO use a professional greeting

If you are tempted to write “hey” or, even worse, “yo” as your email salutation, then you should know that this is never a good idea. It doesn’t matter how well you know the recipient. If you are sending a work email, you need to maintain some level of professionalism.

Instead, opt for “hello” or “hi” if you know the person very well and are on friendly terms or, if you want to be more formal, say “Dear (insert name).

In fact, whether you are writing a formal or informal professional email, it is also preferential to include the person’s name at the start of the email, as this can automatically make them feel more at ease and amenable to your request.

DON’T try and be funny

The problem with humour by email is that it is very easy for the meaning or tone to be misinterpreted. At best, this can result in an awkward exchange and, at worst, you could offend the other person and ruin your future working relationship.

As a rule, it’s best to keep humour for face-to-face meetings and phone calls, and keep your emails clear and to the point.

DO create an email signature

In today’s digital workplace, everyone should have a professional email signature. If you are currently just signing off with your name at the end of each email, then now is the time to embrace the power of a business email signature.

At the very least, you should be including your job title, contact details, and company website. You can easily get these right by following our best practices for adding contact information on an email signature. However, you may also want to add links to your business’s social media pages, links to events, and even links to your blogs or relevant brand news.

Professional email signature - Rocketseed

DON’T forget to proofread

If you have to reply to hundreds of emails a day, you can be forgiven for firing off a few without reading them through. However, if, more often than not, you are sending important emails without proofreading them first, you could be setting yourself up for a whole host of problems.

From grammatical errors to silly spelling mistakes, inappropriate language to sentences that just don’t make sense, if you don’t check over what you have written before you click send, you could be perceived as careless and even uneducated.

DO write a clear subject line

It’s the first element of an email that people see, so you need to make sure that you write a compelling, clear, and concise subject line. This is especially true if you are sending a pitch or reaching out to someone you haven’t corresponded with before.

Most businesses receive hundreds, if not thousands, of proposals each day, so you need to ensure that yours stands out from the crowd. Make sure your subject line is clear about what your email is about but that it also demonstrates what makes you different from other pitching companies.

DON’T use emojis

Everyone has received emails that include an emoji or two, and while it may seem harmless, these winking and smiling faces can actually have quite a detrimental effect on how you and your company are perceived.

Although perfectly acceptable to use in text messages or via live messaging, emojis are not professional, and they can significantly lower the tone of an otherwise professional and engaging email.

DO reply swiftly

While no one expects you to reply to every email right away, there is a specific timeframe that you should aim to adhere to, and this is 24 hours. If the email in question requires a more thorough response, then there is nothing wrong with a simple reply that states a suggested longer timeframe.

Not replying at all within 24 hours can come across as rude and unprofessional and can cost your business considerably in the long run. If there are extenuating circumstances as to why you have not replied to an email for a long period of time, you should ring the person directly to explain rather than send an email.

DON’T forget to close the conversation

All too often, emails are sent back and forth unnecessarily because neither party has closed the correspondence. Fortunately, this is very easy to fix. All you need to do is make sure you include the right phrase based on what you would like the recipient to do next.

For example, if no further action is required, you could say “no reply necessary” or “please let me know if I can be of further assistance”.
And finally,

DO sign off correctly

You wouldn’t end a face-to-face meeting without saying ‘goodbye’ so, in the same way, make sure you give all your emails an appropriate sign-off. This applies even if you have an amazing, professional email signature.

In choosing your sign-off, consider the content of the email, the formality or informality of the message and how well you know the recipient. From ‘Yours sincerely’ through to ‘Cheers’, our guide on how to sign off on an email correctly will help you get it right every time.

Email Signature Sign-Off Examples

If you can learn these dos and don’ts of creating professional emails, you’ll make a bigger impact every time you click that send button.

Sign up to our monthly newsletter for more email signature news, case studies and tips and tricks.

Shanique Brophy | Marketing Executive
Connect with Shanique on LinkedIn

Cost-Effectiveness of Email Signature Marketing

Cost-effectiveness of email signature marketing

When things get tough, the tough get cost-effective with email signature marketing. Because when you’re facing the challenge of building your brand, driving sales and growing your business in difficult economic times, cost-effective marketing is key. So how do you get more bang for your marketing budget buck, secure sales while saving time and money, and get return on investment (ROI) as well as results?

Whether you’re a marketing professional or a business owner looking for lower budget marketing activity options, there’s a cost-effective marketing channel that you really can’t afford to overlook. One that packs a promotional punch way above its weight and which you’ve almost certainly used multiple times today already.

Read on to see why email signature marketing – including interactive email signature banners – is cost-effective, delivers a wide range of budget-friendly benefits and amplifies the effectiveness (and cost-effectiveness) of your other marketing channels.

Why does marketing activity need to be cost-effective?

When economic times get tough, with budgets tightening and costs increasing, your marketing has got to be smart – and that means (ideally cheap!) cost-effective marketing strategies that deliver ROI.

Tough economic times

In tough economic times of rising costs and declining demand, the search is on for recession-busting, low-budget marketing channels that get results.

Tightened budgets

Your customers’ buying budgets are being cut and – rightly or wrongly – your marketing budget is being squeezed. If you’re going to ‘sell’ your budget to your CFO for sign-off, they’ll want to see cheaper marketing channels that can really drive revenue.

Increasing costs

Keep an eye on the real cost of your marketing. Sometimes channels that are cheap (or even free) end up costing in terms of creativity, production (both in-house and external agencies) and management time.

Return on investments (ROI)

This is the metric that matters. Is your business seeing the required return on its marketing investment? Below we’ll show you how to calculate it, and also cover some other factors to be aware of.

How do you measure marketing return on investment (ROI)?

When you want to show the success of your marketing investment (and what a cost-effective marketer you are), the best metric for the job is Return on Investment (ROI). You can also use it to show the predicted profitability of your budgeted marketing program.

Calculating Marketing ROI

ROI is a fairly easy calculation. Simply subtract your marketing spend for a set period from the revenue for that period. This is your net return. Now divide this net return figure by your marketing spend, and then multiply by 100 to get your marketing ROI.

ROI calculation formula

Marketing ROI example

Say you spend $5 on marketing and you make $30 overall, your net return is $25. Divide this by your initial investment of $5 and you get a total of 5. Multiplying this by 100 gives you 500. Your ROI is therefore 500%!

What’s a good marketing ROI?

According to Website Builder Expert:

‘Typically, an ROI of 5:1 is considered pretty good in digital marketing. This means that for every $1 you spend, you get $5 back. Marketers who want to be truly exceptional though, aim for a 10:1 ratio.’

Remember, the better the ROI, the better you’ll look and the better your chances of getting your marketing budget signed-off or even increased!

Is marketing ROI really the best performance measure?

ROI certainly shows marketing performance in hard financial terms but there are a couple of important things to remember.

Include all your costs

Your marketing investment is not simply the cost of the media or marketing agency charges. Think of the time and effort and in-house resources that have been used to plan, produce and manage your marketing campaign. Creating email marketing banner campaigns is very simple and cost-effective and, by using our email signature banners guide, can yield a sizeable return in engagement.

Consider other KPI’s

Also, whilst sales might be the ultimate desired result, not all channels can drive direct sales so you need to set realistic key performance indicators (KPI’s) for each channel such as increasing brand awareness on a budget or boosting website traffic, leads, follows, sign-ups, referrals and conversion rates. You might be surprised when you see below how many of these goals can be met using email signature marketing! 

Share marketing and sales data

To effectively measure marketing ROI in terms of sales you need to ensure that your marketing and sales teams share their data. They also need to work closely together to act on this data to focus on the marketing channels that drive sales and improve ROI. By choosing email signature software with CRM integration, it’s easy to see how email banner click-through results in sales.

Digital marketing ROI stats

According to Website Builder Expert:

  • Email marketing has the best average ROI at a huge 3,600%
  • SEO marketing has an average ROI ratio of 22:1 equating to 2,200%
  • Marketers who regularly calculate their ROI are 1.6 times more likely to secure budget increases for their marketing activities.

Why is email signature marketing cost-effective?

It might often get overlooked but email signature marketing could be the low-cost, high-reward channel you’ve been looking for. It might even become your most cost-effective marketing tactic! Here are 7 reasons why:

1. It makes every business email a sales opportunity

After all, it’s simply enhancing (greatly enhancing) your employees’ everyday emails – emails they would be sending anyway during the course of daily business. In fact, chances are, it’s your most used business communication channel. Suddenly, you can drive sales with every email, or at least reach each recipient with relevant email banner messaging to help move them through the customer journey. With email signature campaigns, suddenly everyone in your business is an active part of your marketing and sales strategy.

Email signatures that display on every device

2. It achieves exceptional reach

The numbers speak for themselves. When you consider the average employee sends 1,000 emails every month, for a team of 50 email signature marketing opens over 600,000 extra engagement opportunities a year! And over 12,000,000 annually for a business of 1,000 staff! Just think of all the different recipients. Unlike bulk email marketing you don’t need to build or buy a big subscriber list. You’re reaching a huge audience of prospects, customers, partners and suppliers etc (and every email ‘forward’ increases this audience still further).

3. It achieves a 99% open rate

How many email marketing platforms can boast that? Especially when you remember that the average bulk email campaign achieves between 10% to 30% open rates. Why is email signature marketing’s open rate so high? Because these are the emails your employees are sending during the course of everyday business, they’re part of ongoing email conversations and so they’re always going to get opened. No need to rely on snappy email subject lines!

4. It meets a huge range of marketing goals

Email signature marketing banners are incredibly versatile and with the right provider can make sure that your recipients are targeted with the most relevant banner messaging. From building brand awareness to requesting reviews, promoting special offers to showcasing social responsibility initiatives and, of course, driving direct sales, email banners can do it all. Want to see exactly what I mean? Check out our 33 great email signature banner examples.

Not only that, but as you’ll see below email signature campaigns can amplify the effectiveness (and cost-effectiveness) of your other digital marketing channels.

What-can-you-do-with-email-banners-Rocketseed-1

5. It’s prime high-impact space

Does high-profile ad space sound instantly high budget? Sure, your signature is at the bottom of your email but at Rocketseed we include top banners as email signature marketing. Because they’re at the top they’re the first thing recipients see when they open an email. It’s prime, eye-catching, high-impact space.

6. It’s personal 1-to-1 marketing at scale

Does ‘1-to-1’ marketing sound small-time, a lot of effort and the very opposite of cost-effective? Email signature marketing is 1-to-1 marketing at scale. These are the emails that build relationships. They’re not only about customer acquisition but also retention. Recipients don’t just have a relationship with your brand, they have a relationship with the individual sender – sometimes formal, sometimes informal. Either way, it’s a people thing and the familiar name and headshot in an email signature helps cement that interpersonal relationship and adds a personal trust element. These recipients, with whom you have a strong business relationship are more likely to click on your email banner than engage with a bulk email.

7. It delivers low cost conversions

We regularly see customers achieving email signature marketing engagement (click-through rates) of over 20%, whether recipients are clicking through to key content or direct to a sales platform or online store (with a clickable ‘Buy Now’ CTA on your banner).

If you want cost-effectiveness, you can’t afford to risk missing a sale or losing a customer. By choosing email signature marketing software like Rocketseed with real-time click alerts, your sales team will be notified the moment a recipient clicks on your banner or signature, enabling them to follow-up immediately. As Rocketseed integrates seamlessly with Salesforce it’s easy to attribute sales to your email signature marketing.

Other cost-effective benefits of email signature marketing

There are a number of other direct benefits that email signature marketing delivers to give you even more bang for your buck…

Makes every email look professional

What price can you put on professionalism? Your email signature says a lot about you and your company, and I don’t just mean your contact information. Clear, correct contact details are, of course, essential but for prospects especially your business email signature design can give them the reassurance that they are dealing with a reputable, reliable and professional company – and that’s worth its weight in gold. Check out our 12 Professional email signature examples: Best practice & top tips for a truly professional email signature design.

Saves your marketers and IT teams time

It’s true, time is money. The right email signature software can save your marketing and IT teams time. With Rocketseed not only can email banner campaigns be automated to start and finish according to your marketing programme but your IT team can save literally hundreds of hours by setting up and updating all staff email signatures centrally, with contact details automatically updating by being synced with your Azure, Windows Active or Google directory. So as well as understanding the reasons Rocketseed is ‘Loved by Marketing’, it’s also worth checking out why it is ‘Trusted by IT’.

Ensure a consistent corporate brand image

What do the businesses we trust most have in common? They project a consistent brand image across every channel – including brand name and logo, colours and fonts. Your business email is no different. Using a centrally-managed email signature solution gives you control over every employee email signature – across all departments – so every email they send is perfectly on brand. A cost-effective way to consistent branding company-wide!

Tracks every engagement for insights

Which email banner campaigns achieve the best conversion rate? Which recipients are clicking through most frequently? With Rocketseed’s email signature reporting and analytics platform you can cost-effectively track and analyse every recipient engagement so you can quickly measure signature marketing performance and gain valuable insights to refine campaigns for even more future success.

RS_Email-signature-reporting

Achieves cost-effective internal comms

Ever thought about internal email signature marketing? It’s an incredibly cost-effective HR solution. From onboarding and training to company news and social events, you can grab your staff’s attention with internal email banners and make it easy for them to click through to your key HR content.

How can email signature marketing amplify the effectiveness of other channels?

Choosing the best marketing channels for your new campaign will depend on your objectives, your business sector and your budget.
The cost effectiveness of email signature marketing becomes even more clear when you see how it can amplify the effectiveness (and cost-effectiveness) of your other chosen digital campaign channels. Here are 5 examples:

Amplifies social media marketing

Social media marketing can be a very cost-effective way to build a community of potential customers. Displaying your social media icons – linked to your actively-managed social platforms – on your email signature is a sure way to increase your social engagement, from building your B2B network on LinkedIn to getting people talking about your business on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Good example of a social media email signature banner

Amplifies email marketing

At its best – with a large subscriber list, strong subject lines, fresh content and clear calls-to -action – email marketing has been seen to achieve ROI of 3,600%. As a substantial organically-acquired subscriber base is essential for success, continually grow your list by simply adding a ‘Sign up to our newsletter’ CTA on your staff email signatures and banner campaigns.

Amplifies content marketing

Creating content – from blogs and infographics to ebooks and ‘how to’ videos – can be time-consuming. However, high-quality, evergreen content can be extremely cost-effective by driving high-intent engagement and conversions over a long period of time. The key to a successful content strategy is distribution and that’s where email signature marketing comes in. An email signature banner is the perfect place to promote your blog, ebook or video – always with a clear clickable CTA. It’s an incredibly cost-effective way to get a huge audience engaging with your content.

Video Email Signature Banner example

Amplifies your website and landing pages

The long-term benefits and cost effectiveness of a search-engine optimised website are clear (SEO marketing has an average ROI ratio of 22:1, or 2,200%), with more traffic and more conversions achieved by sites ranking the highest on Google. Boost your website traffic even further by always including a link in your email signature. Want to drive traffic to a specific page, maybe to build some ‘About Us’ brand awareness or a landing page for your latest promotion? A dedicated banner at the top of every employee email will soon see traffic skyrocket!

Amplifies events

Whether you’re staging a face-to face or online event, a promotional email signature banner showing subject, speaker, time and place is a highly cost-effective way to boost attendance. Make sure you have a clear ‘Book Now’ button to get recipients clicking through to your sign-up page. Suddenly every business email your team sends becomes an invitation!

What does email signature marketing cost?

Cost-effective isn’t the same as cheap, but fortunately email signature marketing is an affordable addition to your cost-effective marketing strategy.
If you’re just starting or currently have just a handful of staff then there are free email signature solutions available that might meet your basic company email signature design requirements.

However, if you’re marketing an SME or enterprise business and you want all the benefits of making your staff email signatures an integral part of a creative, co-ordinated and cost-effective marketing strategy, then you need an email signature marketing solution that can deliver at scale.

To find out the cost of a signature management and marketing solution that meets both the requirements and scale of your business, check out our product plan and pricing information. Simply move the slider to the size of your business (number of employees) and choose which product plan – Signature or Campaign – best suits your requirements.

Can you really afford not to use email signature marketing?

Ultimately, email signature marketing is about consistently branding your most used business communication channel and cost-effectively opening a huge range of engagement opportunities from every email you and your staff send.

It’s simple, affordable and delivers a great return for a whole range of objectives. as well as significantly amplifying the effective and cost-effectiveness of your other digital marketing channels.

Ready to make email signatures and banners part of your new cost-effective marketing strategy? Talk to us at Rocketseed, we’re ready to help.

Shanique Brophy | Marketing Executive
Connect with Shanique on LinkedIn

5 Steps to Christmas Email Signature Success

5 Steps to Christmas Email Signature Success

Bye bye Black Friday. So long, Cyber Monday. It’s now time to make sure your email signatures and marketing banners are ready for Christmas… and the New Year!

To help you, we’ve updated this blog post to give you 5 simple steps (plus a bonus email banner tip) to make your company email signatures Christmassy and meet the marketing challenges of the holiday season.

1. Create consistent Christmas email signatures

Don’t be an email signature Scrooge! Sprinkle some seasonal sparkle onto your company Christmas email signatures. What might make them merry and bright? Try adding some red and green colourways for a more festive Christmas email signature design, some shimmering snowflakes or maybe treat your head-shot to a jaunty Santa hat.

Christmas Branded Email Signature Example

But be sure to remember your brand. Are your staff remote working? Don’t let them go Christmas-crazy (calling themselves Santa’s ‘Chief Help Officer’ or similar). Far safer to use professional email signature software that gives you centralised control – and keep your naughty elves in check. Santa rests easy at night, knowing that his team’s signatures are completely consistent, totally secure and display perfectly across all devices.

2. Try some Christmas email signature marketing

While your Christmas email signature gives you a seasonal sign-off, just like Santa, your marketing message deserves top billing! So for more immediate impact you need an eye-catching Christmas email signature banner campaign to put your ‘Merry Christmas’ message at the top of every email and promote your seasonal special offers. With clear, clickable calls-to-action on your banners you can drive traffic directly to your online shop, booking engine or promotions page. And with Rocketseed’s sophisticated email signature analytics you can see exactly who’s engaged with your email banners over the Christmas period, and which Grinchy ones haven’t!

Christmas Sale Banner Example

3. Add Christmas opening hours in your signature

For some, after Christmas it’s straight back to business, for others everything shuts down until the New Year. Featuring holiday opening and closing dates in a banner at the top of your email is the ideal branded way to remind your customers, suppliers and partners in the run-up to Christmas. Far better than leaving them to find out via a chilly ‘out of office’ automated email reply.

Christmas Closing Date Email Banner Example

4. Donate to charity with Christmas email signatures

Supporting a charity this Christmas? An eye-catching company Christmas email banner campaign will drive extra donations. It’s the season of goodwill so, with a clear ‘Donate Now’ call-to-action button, recipients can easily click through to the charity’s own website or your own charitable donations page. After all, Christmas is all about giving, not receiving.

5. Get back to business with New Year email signature banners

Nothing says Happy New Year like New Year sales. So, just like your decorations, make sure your Christmas banners are taken down on time and your New Year banners are up and running – ready to do business. Showcase your best New Year sale deals and link straight through to your online shop.

New Year Sale Email Banner Example

Bonus tip: Schedule seasonal email signature campaigns in advance

Stressed at the thought of managing your festive banner campaigns in the run-up to Christmas when you’re rushed off your feet? Or worried about uploading your New Year banners during the Christmas break? Relax, with Rocketseed email signature software you can schedule all your banner campaigns’ start and stop dates in advance so they’re automatically applied and run right on time!

Need assistance with your Christmas email signature and banner marketing?

Please get in touch with us – we’re here to help.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas, from all of us at Rocketseed.

Shanique Brophy | Marketing Executive
Connect with Shanique on LinkedIn

How to Sign Off on an Email Correctly

Email sign off guidelines

Have you ever thought about how you sign off your emails? Do you always write “Yours sincerely”? Or perhaps, you prefer “Best regards”?

If you’ve not spent much time considering how you should be signing off your emails, you may be shocked to find out what some of the most common sign-offs really say about you and the company that you work for.

In this blogpost, we will tell you exactly how to sign off any email correctly. Plus, the common email sign-off pitfalls that you should avoid at all costs.

Always include a closing

If you are ever tempted to simply finish the main body of your email and press send, then you should know that this is extremely unprofessional. You should always include some form of closing. This is the case even if you have an amazing, professional email signature.

Think about it this way. Would you end a face-to-face meeting without saying “goodbye”? Of course not; it comes across as rude and unthoughtful, and the same goes for emails.

Whether you add a simple “looking forward to hearing from you” or something more specific such as “please respond to my request by {enter date}, every email needs to include a closing sentence.

Think about the recipient

While many people use the same sign-off for all their emails, this is not the best idea. For example, if you always write “yours sincerely”, even to close colleagues, then you might come across as overly formal and aloof, and you could alienate friendly contacts.

On the flip side, if you use a less formal closing such as “thanks” on every email that you send, you could risk coming across as unprofessional to new clients.

Avoid unprofessional email sign-offs

Even if you consider yourself to be friends with the recipient, if you work with someone in a professional capacity, you should never close an email with a phrase such as “see ya later” or “XOXO”.

This is completely unprofessional, and you never know who your email may be forwarded on to or referenced in the future.

Use your full name

Nicknames have no place in a professional email, even if you are sending one to a close colleague. Instead, always use your full name so that there is no confusion about who you are.

Again, this is still the case even if you are using a professional email signature after your sign-off.

Which email sign-off delivers the highest response rates?

Boomerang conducted a study and proved that a little thanks goes a long way. They looked at closings on 350,000 emails and found that gratitude sign-offs received the highest response rate.

‘Thanks in advance’ came up on top with a 65.7% response rate, followed closely by ‘Thanks’ at 63% and finally a 57.9% response rate for ‘Thank you’.

Email sign off statistics

Professional email sign-off examples

If you are not sure if your current email sign-off is showcasing you in a professional light, then the below examples of formal email sign-offs should help.

  • Best regards
  • Best wishes
  • Kind regards
  • Regards
  • Yours sincerely
  • Sincerely yours
  • Thank you
  • With appreciation
  • With gratitude
  • Looking forward to hearing from you

Semi-professional email sign-off examples

For times when you are emailing a close colleague or someone you work with but are also friends with, the below semi-professional email sign-offs can be used.

  • Faithfully
  • Yours truly
  • Many thanks
  • Thanks
  • Best
  • Warmly
  • Cheers

Professional email sign-off examples from manager to employee

If you are a manager communicating with an employee, there are several other email sign-offs that you may want to consider.

  • Keep up the great work
  • Thank you for your hard work
  • Thanks for the update

Professional email sign-off examples from employee to manager

Knowing how to close an email to a superior or your manager can be a minefield. While you don’t want to come across as unprofessional, you also don’t want to appear too impersonal. Try the below options:

  • Thank you in advance
  • Respectfully
  • Sincerely, Yours sincerely or Sincerely yours
  • I will keep you updated, best regards
  • Please let me know how you would like me to proceed

Email sign-offs to avoid at all costs

While most of us have been guilty of using one of the below email sign-offs at one point or another, these are not a good idea if you want to maintain professional integrity.

  • Love
  • Talk soon
  • See ya
  • Hugs
  • Thx
  • Any emoticons

We’ll be taking a look at some of the strangest email sign-offs (and some are really bizarre!) in a future blog post.

Unprofessional email sign-offs

What is the best way to sign off your emails?

If you are still unsure about which phrase to use to sign off an email, ask yourself the below four questions:

  1. What is the message of the email?
  2. What is the emotion that you want to convey?
  3. Is the email formal or informal?
  4. How well do you know the recipient?

Once you have answered these questions, you will be in a much better position to choose the right sign-off for every email that you send. You can also check out our 7 etiquette tips to help you write more professional emails to ensure you get every aspect of your emails just right.

Sign-off with a professional email signature

Just as important as using the correct email sign-off message is having a professional and eye-catching business email signature to communicate your contact details, build your brand image and open promotional opportunities.

The simplest way to manage business email signatures at scale

Here at Rocketseed, we are experts in professional email signatures and can help ensure your signatures engage with your clients, generate new leads, and up-sell your products and services.

Contact us today to see how our business email signature software can revolutionize the way you sign off your emails.

Shanique Brophy | Marketing Executive
Connect with Shanique on LinkedIn

Create a Culture of Inclusivity With Name Pronunciation in Email Signatures

Culture of Inclusivity With Name Pronunciation in Email Signatures

How do you say your name? Does it get pronounced incorrectly every day by customers, colleagues and other work contacts, making you uncomfortable, annoyed – even offended – and determined to make sure it never happens again? Or have you struggled to pronounce a person’s name and been too embarrassed to ask the correct pronunciation? If so, we’re here to help.

“When you have an unusual name or when people are used to pronouncing it in a certain way, you get used to hearing it mispronounced. There is a certain creativity to how people choose to call you – I’ve had such a range that I would be almost excited to see what comes next! In reality, it would be so much simpler to ask politely what’s the correct sound just the way we ask what’s the correct spelling. All of us know that we have names that are unusual or difficult to figure out so it does not come as a surprise to us, when asked, but it does make us feel an effort is being made to be inclusive – through the name, we also acknowledge the heritage we bring, the back story. There’s a lot in a name that can help organisations be mindful, to recognise and accept differences and make staff welcome. I love that my organisation is diverse and we have people with different backgrounds – they bring richness and creativity to our approach to problem-solving and how we engage with our market. Calling them by their correct name is the least effort to thank them for their work.”

Dana Denis-Smith | CEO | Obelisk

Everyone deserves to have their name pronounced correctly. However, name pronunciation – alongside the hot topic of personal pronouns – can be challenging. In the workplace it is especially important both as a key part of Individual employee identity and in helping employers increase inclusivity.

It’s time to be practical, proactive and professional about overcoming these problems and start adding name pronunciation to email signatures..

In this blogpost I’ll show you

Let’s get started…

What is name pronunciation?

It might sound like a simple question but to ensure a focus on inclusivity, we like the clear, helpful definition given by Joseph Aninakwa, Inclusion and Diversity Consultant at Inclusive Employers.

“Name pronunciation is simply being able to pronounce a person’s first and last name as they would prefer it to be pronounced in its original intended form. This means without deviating or shortening for ease.”

While some names are undeniably more straightforward (being pronounced exactly as they are spelt), for those names that are more uncommon in your country (or the country you are communicating with) additional effort with name pronunciation is required.

With that in mind, let’s explore just why correct name pronunciation is so important.

Why is name pronunciation important?

Firstly, let’s be clear, name pronunciation is important. Here’s why…

Names are linked to personal identity

Our names are key to who we are. As Jane Bryan, of the University of Warwick’s ‘Say My Name Project, notes in The Times Higher Education supplement “Our names are entwined with our personal identities, often chosen with care and laden with meaning” – meaning that spans all kinds of personal, cultural and symbolic associations as well as reflecting our family, ethnicity and heritage.

“Names are so pivotal to people’s identity, but so many people find that the majority cannot be bothered to try and say names that are different in any way. I’ve struggled with this my whole life. My full name is Mousumi, (pronounced Mow-shoo=me). At school teacher’s refused to try and say it so I used Mo, and then when I started working I found that a career in sales meant spelling my name all day to people as they couldn’t be bothered to try and say my surname either which is pronounced exactly as it’s written. Shortening people’s names for them, mispronouncing them or refusing to say a name are all forms of microaggressions which can cause people distress, frustration and irritation. It can damage a person’s sense of identity and completely alter the meaning of a name. We now see that many people add the phonetic spelling of their name in email signatures, and platforms like LinkedIn have a function to record how to say your name. We always encourage people to try and say people’s names or ask people how to say their name instead of shortening it for them. It’s such a fundamental thing to get right for people, and crucial to help people feel they belong.”

Mo Kanjilal | Co-creator | Watch This Sp_ce

Correct name pronunciation shows respect

Someone taking the time and making the effort to pronounce your name correctly – or even asking how you prefer to be addressed – is a simple sign of respect to you, your race and ethnicity.

Correct name pronunciation signals inclusion

As names are often linked with ethnicity and culture, their correct pronunciation, or asking the correct pronunciation, is an act of acceptance and can open opportunities to discuss name heritage and promote inclusivity.

“As a professional with a non-anglicised name, when meeting with new contacts my name inevitably leads to conversation. My first name I’ve never taken any offence over, and do find it endearing if anyone correctly rolls the ‘r’. Also, refusing to Anglicise it as a child has been a wise decision, as it has inevitably been a talking point, and often memorable for people. Regarding my last name Atijas, unfortunately the ‘j’ remains an ongoing challenge for all non-phonetic language speakers. I may very well remove it in future, and simply keep Atias. If I had a dollar every time someone asked me if Darko was my real name, I would be a wealthy man”.

Darko Atijas | CEO | True Altitude

But… mispronunciation can cause lasting damage

Name pronunciation is also so important because mispronouncing or misusing names can have the reverse effect, undermining personal identity, disrespecting the individual, leading to feelings of alienation and causing more harm than many realise.

A prime example was highlighted in a recent article in Metro “Mispronouncing African names is not a ‘harmless’ mistake – it creates lasting damage”. This contrasted the rich religious, spiritual, family and poetic significance of African naming traditions with first-hand experiences of having names mispronounced, refused, abbreviated and mocked, and the offence caused.

The numbers speak for themselves with Race Equality Matters citing a recent poll in which 73% of respondents from more than 100 organisations said they’d had their names mispronounced and consequently felt ‘not valued or important’, ‘disrespected’ and ‘that they didn’t belong’. 88% of respondents thought a phonetic name spelling campaign would help tackle race inequality and so the #mynameis campaign was launched.

As a company that has always had a strong African presence in terms of offices, staff and customer-base, it’s a topic close to our hearts and highlights the importance of correct name pronunciation in the workplace.

Diversity and inclusivity in workplace

The benefits of correct name pronunciation in the workplace

While correct name pronunciation is important in all aspects of life, it’s especially important in the workplace, with the often complex relationships between colleagues, customers and other day-to-day business contacts.

There are clear benefits as correct name pronunciation can:

Create a more relaxed working environment

Correct name pronunciation engenders mutual respect and reduces annoyance making for a more relaxed working environment for everyone.

Create an inclusive and relaxed workplace

With research showing that name mispronunciation can lead to alienation, saying names correctly increases people’s sense of belonging within an organisation.

Help recruit and retain staff

From job interviews to performance reviews, correct name pronunciation can get working relationships off to the right start and show staff they’re valued.

Improve customer interaction

A culture of correct name pronunciation extends respect and goodwill to customers, suppliers and other business contacts through getting their names right in all interactions.

Boost brand image and commercial performance

With businesses increasingly looking to deal with, buy from and invest in inclusive companies, name pronunciation can have a positive impact on your brand and business performance.

This all sounds great, but to achieve these benefits employers need to create a culture in which correct name pronunciation is promoted and normalised. So, how can you actually make it happen?

Demonstrate compliance

Ensuring correct name pronunciation company-wide is a key step to meeting diversity and inclusivity compliance standards.

How to create an inclusive work environment through name pronunciation

How do you create a workplace culture where correct pronunciation is the norm? We suggest starting with some guidelines…

Workplace inclusivity

‘Say My Name’ Project Guidelines

An initiative that has caught our attention is the “Say My Name” project undertaken in 2021 by the University of Warwick’s Community Values Education Programme. Focusing on the importance of names to feelings of inclusion in organisations, its findings resulted in the following invaluable guidelines for handling people’s names with respect and sensitivity and boosting their sense of belonging.

Focus on pronunciation

Never assume you know how to pronounce a person’s name – ask.

Listen to the individual

Emulate their pronunciation and then invite them to correct you.

Model correct name use

Make an effort to greet everyone by name – research shows their brand ‘light up’ when you get it right!

Prepare in advance to use names

Proactively check pronunciation ideally with the name-bearer, or use websites such as NameShouts.

Question your assumptions

Don’t assume someone’s ethnicity or gender from their name or that their name is pronounced as it is spelt.

Normalise awareness of correct pronunciation

Create a culture that cares about name pronunciation including through audio name badges or pronunciation guides in email signatures.

Pay attention to the details

Note exactly how people introduce themselves or sign their emails.

Help others get it right

If you hear someone’s name being mispronounced in their absence, offer the correct pronunciation if you know it.

You can find more information about the “Say My Name” project here. There’s one other common question to consider…

Should you correct others on name pronunciation?

This can be a sensitive issue. People aren’t perfect. Whilst most mispronunciation will be unintentional (albeit it lazy or careless) and can be resolved with polite correction, intentional malicious mispronunciation is a different matter, possibly constituting harassment that needs resolving officially with HR support.

You might also find it difficult to correct people who mispronounce your name, especially if they’re your boss, a longstanding customer (the customer is always right?) or even a close colleague but the truth is, the longer the mispronunciation continues, the harder it becomes to put right, so polite correction at the outset really is the answer!

These are great guidelines so how might you promote them across your organisation? Here are a few suggestions:

Correct name pronunciation in the workplace

How to promote name pronunciation across organisations

Lead from the top

Those in leadership positions need to set an example, following best practice, making an effort to pronounce names correctly and being open to correction.

Make it an HR priority

Whose responsibility is implementing these guidelines and championing the values? In most companies this falls to HR. As our own Head of HR says:

“Correctly pronouncing someone’s name not only demonstrates respect but also helps to create an inclusive workplace. There are various statistics available showing the impact of diversity and inclusion initiates in the workplace. From an HR standpoint, it’s important to build an inclusive workplace culture as it empowers employees to be innovative and collaborative. When employees feel valued and empowered, it has a positive impact on their performance, which overall improves the business performance. It might seem small or unimportant to address an employee by correctly pronouncing their name, but this is a great first step in creating an inclusive workplace.”

Robynne Simmons | Group HR Manager | Rocketseed

Include in training

Make sure that the importance of name pronunciation is emphasised in equality, diversity and inclusivity training.

Internal marketing

Whether it’s internal email newsletters and email banners or simply mentioning it at a company social event, remind staff about the importance of correct name pronunciation.

Add into social profiles

Encourage staff to use audio name pronunciation in their social profiles where the platform allows, for example LinkedIn.

“I find it to be a best practice for professionals to adopt the usage of pronouns and phonetic name pronunciation wherever they can – email signatures, social media profiles, et cetera. It creates a more inclusive environment for everyone that you’re interacting with when you make it commonplace.”

Christina Stokes | Senior VP of Talent Acquisition | Rubenstein

Include in email signatures

On every email you send, there’s an opportunity to show how your name should be pronounced. There are a number of factors that make email signatures the ideal tool to show correct name pronunciation…

Why are email signatures the ideal tool to show name pronunciation?

Email is your most used business communication channel (The average employee sends 1,000 emails a month) so it’s a huge opportunity to show customers, colleagues and contacts your correct name pronunciation.

Adding name pronunciation to your email signatures is the ideal solution because:

Pronunciation in email signatures

They’re personal

Even when you have a company email signature, the contact information shows your personal details – your name, qualifications, job title and pronouns – so it’s the ideal place to show your correct name pronunciation.

They’re practical

By regularly sending emails to a range of recipients not only will your name pronunciation reach a wide audience but with the more emails they receive from you, the more likely your name pronunciation is to stick in their memory.

They’re professional

A key aim of email signatures is to make you look as professional as possible. Showing your name pronunciation in the context of a well-designed on-brand email signature adds to the professionalism that correct name pronunciation implies.

They’re promotional

An email signature with name pronunciation promotes the values of your brand to the outside world. It’s clear to your key audiences that your brand is actively inclusive.

They’re proactive

It’s likely that you’ll be emailing somebody before having a call with them. Your email signature therefore provides a proactive way of showing people how to pronounce your name so they get it right the first time they speak to you.

So how do you add name pronunciation to email signatures?

How to show name pronunciation in your email signatures

There are two main ways to add name pronunciation in your email signatures.

  • Add a phonetically-written form of your name in the signature
  • Add an audio file of your name to your signature

Let’s look at both options.

How do I write my name phonetically?

There are two options here:

1. Spell your name as you pronounce it

This keeps things simple and is especially helpful for long names. Simply split your name into syllables and spell out all the sounds in each to help correct pronunciation (this may involve using letters that are not in the actual spelling of your name). You can also capitalise the letter sounds to be emphasised when pronouncing your name correctly. Here’s an example…

Email signature example with name pronunciation phonetically

This is the approach taken by Deloitte UK.

2. Use the International Phonetic Alphabet

Whilst there are 26 letters in the alphabet, there are 44 sounds in phonetic transcriptions to show the pronunciation of vowels, dipthongs (the sound formed by the combination of 2 vowels in a single syllable) and consonants. Writing and reading the international phonetic alphabet also requires the understanding of special phonetic symbols and is therefore realistically too complicated for effective everyday email signatures.

Add a link in your signature to a recording of your name

By linking a recording of your name to your email signature, you’ll be sharing your name with the world in your own voice so there’s no reason for any email recipients to mispronounce it! See how you can easily record your name using Namedrop.

Email Signature example with name pronunciation as an audio file

The recording can then be linked to your email signature and displayed by your name as a clickable speaker symbol next to your name or, even more clearly, with a ‘hear my name’ call-to-action button.

Name pronunciation as audio file in an email signature

How can Rocketseed help?

Worried that adding name pronunciation to company email signatures will crowd their design? Or concerned that letting individual employees add name pronunciation in different ways might make for inconsistent branding? Rocketseed makes it easy to add name pronunciation to company email signatures.

Using our signature creator or professional signature design service, it is easy to create an email signature template incorporating a field for a written pronunciation guide. Alternatively a clickable speaker icon or ‘hear my name’ call to action button can be added to your signature linked to the recorded audio file of your name.

With Rocketseed you can be certain that your pronunciation guide will display and work correctly on all email clients and devices.

Rocketseed also enables you to centrally control staff email signatures company-wide so that the format used is consistent and in keeping with the brand look and feel of your signatures. Unless it is company policy for all names to include pronunciation details, employees can be offered the choice of whether they want name pronunciation included in their email signatures.

Finally, Rocketseed’s email signature marketing banners can be used on all HR and internal emails to promote the understanding of the importance of name pronunciation and its significance for diversity and inclusivity in the workplace. With banners linked to detailed content about pronunciation and inclusivity, recipients can simply click-through to learn more.

Email signature banner example promoting colleague name pronunciation

Here’s what our customers say…

“Our names are central to our identities, and pronouncing them correctly is a sign of respect. Rocketseed’s capabilities to include name pronunciations within email signatures is a very important step to fostering inclusion for all GLAS employees.”

Samantha Dinnan | Marketing | GLAS

Everyone deserves to have their name pronounced correctly. Adding name pronunciation guides to employee email signatures is a simple step that can make a big difference both to protecting individual employee identity and creating a company culture of diversity and inclusivity.

To find out more about adding name pronunciation to your email signatures and how Rocketseed can help, contact us today.

Damian Hamp-Adams  |  CEO

Connect with Damian on LinkedIn

Why is Rocketseed ‘Trusted by IT’?

Rocketseed Email Signature Software trusted by IT

In our article Why is Rocketseed ‘Loved by Marketing’?, we delved into the first part of our brand strapline and showed you what marketers, like CMO Marcie, love about Rocketseed email signatures.

However, while marketers like Marcie can champion the adoption of email signature software for their own marketing goals, they know that they need the company IT department on-side if it’s going to be signed-off. Because even when IT aren’t the initiators of new company email signatures, then chances are they’re the gatekeepers.

And while marketers might echo the immortal words of The Beatles, ‘Love is all you need’, when it comes to choosing and using the right email signature software, IT teams need something more objective – trust.

So let’s take a look at the second part of our strapline and show you why Rocketseed is ‘Trusted by IT’.

7 reasons IT teams trust Rocketseed

Meet Todd. Todd is in IT.

In fact, he’s been working as a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for several years and is well-versed in all the technical processes in the company. So it was Todd who the CEO turned to, to introduce new professional on-brand email signatures across the business, with central control, time-saving automation and marketing functionality that CMO Marcie’s team could manage.

Todd always strives to find the most effective solution. He can’t afford to have software installed that doesn’t work correctly. His priorities are different from CMO Marcie’s. He wants stress-free signature software that saves his team time and effort, especially as there aren’t many people working in his IT team. At the same time he’s wary of outsourcing and prioritizes security and support.

Here are the 7 reasons why Todd (and CTO’s just like him) trust Rocketseed:

1. He TRUSTS that the implementation process is simple

Rocketseed is simple to deploy, integrating securely with the company mail server, and the browser-based interface requires no installations or additional hardware.

2. He TRUSTS that all email signatures are 100% secure

Security is Todd’s main concern about all email signature software but he’s got no security worries with Rocketseed. Rocketseed meets the highest industry security standards. All mails are sent using SSL (Secure Socket Layer) and are TLS (Transport Layer Security) encrypted. All newly released security updates are automatically applied.

3. He TRUSTS that Rocketseed is optimized for all major mail servers

Rocketseed integrates with all major mail servers including Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and Exchange,  so even if Todd’s company migrates to a new mail server in the future he trusts that Rocketseed will remain optimized in its performance.

Mail servers

4. He TRUSTS that employee signatures are tamper-proof

With Rocketseed, Todd knows that his team have central control over all employee email signatures which not only means that they’re consistently branded company-wide but also that his team don’t have to train or ‘police’ individual employees to manage their email signatures correctly. No matter how tempted employees might be to get ‘creative’ with their own signatures (such as by adding quirky quotes) they simply can’t – Rocketseed email signatures are 100% tamper-proof!

5. He TRUSTS all email signatures will display perfectly on every device

With over 80% of all emails now opened on mobiles, it’s essential that company email signatures display perfectly. Rocketseed is mobile-optimised so you can trust that all email signatures and banners will display perfectly on desktop, laptop, tablet and smartphone every time. Find out more about our mobile friendly email signatures.

Branded email on multiple devices

6. He TRUSTS that Rocketseed will save his team time

With Rocketseed, not only can Todd’s IT team make company-wide signature updates instantly, but can also benefit from specific automation capabilities.

One key time-saver is the syncing of Rocketseed with the company’s Azure, Windows Active or Google Directory, so that any data updates made to employee contact details in the directory are automatically updated in their email signatures. At no point do the IT team or individual users have to manually update the contact details on individual email signatures.

Azure, Windows Active & Google Directory Sync

7. He TRUSTS that Rocketseed is always there to help

And we are. If Todd’s team needs help they don’t need to search through FAQ’s or knowledge base (although we have these too). Whatever the question, Rocketseed are on-hand with 24/7 emergency support.

Looking for email signature software you can trust?

When it comes to what you need to know about Rocketseed our strapline says it all. For IT, it’s all about delivering a professional email signature management solution you can trust completely, making your life easier and getting the results you require.

Of course, trust doesn’t happen overnight, trust has to be earned. When it comes to email signature management success, we’ve earned the trust of some of the biggest brand names across a host of industry sectors worldwide.

So if you are an IT manager looking for email signature software you can trust completely, it’s time you talked to us. We’d love to show you what you can achieve with Rocketseed.

Janine Ferenčak  |  MD, RocketDev

Connect with Janine on Linkedin

Why is Rocketseed ‘Loved by Marketing’?

Why Rocketseed is loved by marketers

Have you seen it on our homepage, social media profiles or (appropriately) email signatures? It’s always there – ‘Loved by Marketing. Trusted by IT’.

In this blog I’ll go behind the first part of this simple strapline and show you why – as a marketer – there’s a lot for you to love about Rocketseed email signatures.

It’s all about you – our customers

While it might seem we’re shouting about our strapline, it’s not about us, it’s about you. Because, while email signatures can be used by everybody in an organization, our research and experience shows that when it comes to choosing a corporate email signature solution, the decision rests with 2 very different audiences. You’ve guessed them – Marketing and IT, and they have different – albeit overlapping – agendas.

On the surface the differences are obvious.

Marketers look outwards to see how email signatures can present their company brand and engage their various email recipient audiences, especially customers, while not being so concerned about ‘how’ the signature software features actually work.

Conversely, IT teams look more inward, concerned about how email signature software fits into the existing company technology set up, how simple it is to deploy and, essentially, how secure it is.

What they both have in common is wanting business email signature software that makes their lives easier!

What do marketers want? Meet Marcie…

Marcie’s a marketer.

In fact, she’s worked her way up to be the Chief Marketing Officer CMO of a multinational finance company. She’s up to date on the latest marketing trends and always looking for new engagement opportunities and solutions that will make marketing in the company more effective, and ideally as automated as possible.

Since her responsibilities include both attracting new customers and managing the company’s brand, she’s turned her attention to the business’s everyday email as a key channel. After all, she’s surrounded by colleagues sending thousands of emails every week and knows a great engagement opportunity when she sees one.

She’s looking for a corporate email signature solution that looks professional, is consistently on brand, delivers engagement opportunities, that shows success – including direct sales – that she can ‘sell’ to the board when presenting the marketing plan and securing budget.

So why do marketers like Marcie love Rocketseed? Here’s 7 reasons

‘Love’ is a strong word, but it’s true. Our demo team has seen some hard-nosed marketers fall in love with Rocketseed at first sight! Marketers are often the first to see Rocketseed in action and they realise quickly that there’s a lot to love.

1. She LOVES our professional email signature design service

She’s been worried about the professionalism of employee emails and has had doubts that, for a large business, a standard email signature template doesn’t cut it. So whilst she has creative people on her team who could easily use Rocketseed’s range of email signature templates, she loves that Rocketseed’s expert designers will work to her exact brand requirements to create the perfect email signature design that she knows will be on-brand, look professional and always display perfectly on every device.

Branded email signature on multiple devices

2. She LOVES the guarantee of consistently branded email signatures company-wide

Marcie’s prime concern is to build a strong brand for the business. Keeping staff signatures on brand has always been a challenge. Nothing undermines the brand more than branding errors on employee email signatures. All the money, time, and resources spent on brand and corporate identity… out the window. Rocketseed puts her marketing team in complete central control to create, update and manage all employee signatures so company-wide brand consistency is guaranteed.

3. She LOVES the endless engagement opportunities

Marcie loves the social media and website links that can be included in the email signatures but when it comes to increasing email engagement for the business it’s all about the banners! Rocketseed email banners are prime promotional space at the top or bottom of every email – eye-catching, interactive and opening endless engagement opportunities.

Use your best imagery, most compelling copy, add animation and, most importantly add one or more clickable calls to action to get recipients clicking through to your website or promotional landing pages. Need some banner inspiration? Here’s 33 great banner ideas you’ll love.

Email-Banner-Examples-Branded-email

4. She LOVES the ‘campaignability’ of email banners – on message, on target, on time

Marcie’s not interested in running random email banners. She needs to know that the right recipients are receiving the most relevant messaging and content links at the right time. With Rocketseed email signature software, she’s got that covered. Rocketseed turns email banners into real campaigns with the ability to target by recipient group or sender, create specific audience segments and schedule banner campaign start and stop dates, even re-market to customers based on previous banner engagement.

5. She LOVES that she can measure email signature success down to the last click – including direct sales

Marcie’s real love is marketing data. In Rocketseed’s reporting dashboard she’s found her perfect performance-measuring partner. From sender statistics to every recipient engagement, it’s all tracked and analysed down to the last click. On top of that, there’s the capability to A/B test banner elements to optimise future campaigns.

And there are two features that keep the sales teams happy. Firstly, Rocketseed’s real-time click alerts mean that they can follow-up immediately on any interest. Secondly, by integrating with Google Analytics and CRM systems (such as Salesforce) Rocketseed tracks the whole customer journey from first banner click to sales conversion.

Email signature reporting2.fw

6. She LOVES that it drives results and ROI that make it easy to ‘sell’

Marcie is always worried that the implementation of a new solution will take a lot of time and money and the results will be risky.

What’s not to love about a 99% open rate? Because Rocketseed signatures and banners are on every business email that’s how much they get seen. And the click-through is impressive too at 20%+.

And when it comes to seeing real results, our customer case studies show the real power of Rocketseed email signatures.

7. She LOVES that there’s support at every step

Marcie knows all too well that state-of-the-art email signature software is useless if her staff aren’t trained to use it. She didn’t even have to raise this with Rocketseed as interface training is included in the account set-up and she was immediately reassured by the introduction of a dedicated account manager on-hand to help every step of the way. In fact, Marcie knows that, if required, she can hand the company’s email signature marketing over to Rocketseed to manage if required.

Like the sound of email signature marketing?

We’d love to show you what you can achieve with Rocketseed.

Leonie van Aswegen | Marketing Manager
Connect with Leonie on LinkedIn

Corporate branding ideas and tips for your business

Corporate branding ideas and tips for businesses

Faced with so many challenges, competitors, consumer choices and marketing channels, a controlled, consistent corporate brand is essential to your business’s success (and even its survival) more than ever before. But, in a climate of targets and time pressures, it’s easy to lose sight of.

That’s why, in this blog post we’re going ‘back to basics’ with corporate branding to help your business make a positive, authentic, emotional and memorable connection with your customers who are paying more attention to corporate branding than ever before.

Along the way, we’ll also show how your business email signature can help meet your corporate branding goals.

Quick Links: Click to jump straight to that section.

What is corporate branding?

Whilst there are a huge variety of definitions, The American Marketing Association says…

“A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that identifies one seller’s goods or service as distinct from those of other sellers”

Corporate branding is how a company promotes its brand name, identity and message, in contrast to solely focusing on the products or services it sells. But it’s so much more than that… it’s the philosophy and values on which the business is built and how these are communicated to make an emotional connection with its stakeholders and to target relevant customers.

There can also be a lot of brand jargon to navigate (so, like us, you’ll find the Branding Glossary from How Brands Are Built extremely helpful.)

Why is corporate branding important?

Social media and the digital consumer space have played a critical part in the importance of corporate branding for businesses. Customers digest more information about companies than ever before, and the demand for transparency is rising rapidly. Customers care about what corporate brands represent, so it’s vital to make corporate branding a fundamental part of business strategy.

How to create a corporate branding strategy

The corporate branding process enables businesses to develop a consistent and transparent identity in the market. There are several steps to take, which ensure your message is authentic and communicated appropriately to your target audience.

Take a look at this branding checklist from Theresa Depasquale to get you started.

Look deeper at your audience and identify your customers

People are pickier than ever when it comes to choosing where to buy products and services. Long gone are the days of the ‘one size fits all’ offer. With a clearly defined target customer audience, you can hone in on your branding and messaging. Consumers want to feel immersed in a brand and see that it fits their lifestyle. Do this effectively and you’ll get better conversions and a loyal following. We found these 5 Steps to Identify Your Ideal customer from Audience Ops helpful when we were developing our ICP (Ideal customer profile).

Themba Nkuna, a South African sales coach, author and speaker stated that understanding your customer is the new competitive advantage:

Show authenticity

The branding buzz-word of our times – ‘authenticity’. It’s about connecting with people through your brand’s back-story, heritage and core values. The trick is in bringing a human touch to your corporate branding through messaging that sparks emotion and conversation. Use everything from your ‘About Us’ page to your email marketing strategies to speak directly to your customer. Just because you are interacting with your customers through technology and screens, it shouldn’t mean the human interaction and touch disappears. Tyllah, @MarketingBully_, advocates for authentic branding on Twitter:

Be more than a logo

That’s not to say your logo isn’t important. It’s a vital part of your brand identity (and the starting point of most email signature designs!). The most successful brands though are more than just a well-known logo. Show your customers the brand behind the logo. People want to see what brands can do outside the parameters of products and services. Show your values and share your passions as it creates a personality and brand purpose.

Successful corporate branding ideas

Once you’ve established the foundations, it’s time to develop corporate branding ideas.

Look at your current corporate branding

Has your business’s brand moved with the times or stayed still for years? The first step in changing it is to look at what you already have. Start by auditing every aspect of your branding, including marketing and visuals. Ask yourself whether your identity matches your overall messaging. In many cases, this will highlight any inconsistencies that you can work on changing.

When auditing your corporate branding, your business email signatures can be quite revealing. Does your brand logo look up to date? Are you featuring your social media channels? Are you missing opportunities to feature a bold brand statement or link to branded content?

Email Signature on multiple devices

Try something new

Many brands are dubious about trying something completely new, but it can be a game-changer. Look at your current industry and identify where you can fill the gaps. Brands don’t have to go ‘all-out’ to differentiate themselves. Look at simple changes such as redesigning your website or creating an app. Or perhaps overhaul your customer services with more innovative ways of engaging with customers, say email banners on your everyday email.

If you’re looking for some brand-building email banner inspiration, take a look at our 33 Great Email signature Banner Examples.

Utilize social media

Social media marketing should be a fundamental aspect of any corporate branding strategy. It’s one of the best places to interact and engage with customers and puts a person behind the brand. It can be hard work continually creating new unique content, responding to reviews or promoting and hosting webinars but it pays off in brand profile and engagement. You need a consistent brand image across all your social marketing channels and your email signature can be your link to social success.

Show you care

You really can’t afford to overlook your brand’s social responsibility. Customers want their favourite brands to share their values so you need to introduce a corporate social responsibility plan in your company. There are many ways brands can give back to the community both on local and national scales, from charity events and community projects to educational and environmental initiatives. But be sure to be authentic as there’s a huge price to pay for contradicting your own corporate brand values!

All on the same page

For effective corporate branding you need everyone to be on-brand, from the CEO to the newest recruit, from sales and marketing to HR and operations. And that means building a strong corporate culture – ‘the way we do things here’. From onboarding and team-building to your everyday communications and work environment, use every opportunity to strengthen your company culture through ‘internal marketing’ – a task that internal email banners can help with.

Keep in control

If you want consistent corporate branding, you need to keep every element under control. Whose job is that? Do you have a Head of Brand, maybe it’s your marketing head? Whoever it is, it’s all about ensuring a clear, consistent brand message across your business and to all your stakeholders.

For a consistent brand on email company-wide, the solution is simple – centralized control.

The benefits of corporate branding for businesses

Naturally, there are several benefits of successful corporate branding. Some examples include:

  • Improved awareness and recognition in the public eye
  • Easier customer purchase decision-making
  • Customer retention and loyalty
  • Attract and retain talented staff throughout the company
  • Increased productivity as everyone is on the same page
  • Clear and consistent internal decision-making
  • Stronger negotiating powers
  • Opportunities for innovation and growth increase
  • Improved relationships with the media and government institutions

These are just a few benefits of developing a corporate branding strategy, and the investment is substantially worth the time and input needed to create streamlined processes. Alice Pettey recently highlighted the benefits of brand strategy and identity on her Business, Branding and Life podcast.

Listen to “2 – Benefits of Brand Strategy & Identity” on Speaker.

Corporate branding helps define your business and delivers everything your customers are looking for. Don’t forget this is an ever-evolving business strategy, and what works well now may not in a few years. Keep learning and innovating with your audience to keep your brand responsive and relevant.

Best resources about corporate branding

  • Brandingmag: The original branding magazine, featuring branding thought leadership from across the globe.
  • How Brands are Built: A blog and podcast where branding professionals get into the detail of what they do and how they do it.
  • Branding Strategy Insider: A leading source of inspiration and innovation, giving readers key insights into the critical areas, tools and techniques shaping brand management.
  • BP&O: One of the longest running design blogs to offer a unique view on the very best in branding.
  • Branding Nerd: A blog site aimed at placing the spotlight on brilliant ideas that brands have executed anywhere in the world.

Need to brand your business email?

Businesses across the globe trust Rocketseed to give them clear, consistent corporate branding on every email their employees send. Our case studies are full of creative corporate branding examples and to see how we can help you build your brand on email today simply contact us for a personalized demo.

Shanique Brophy  |  Marketing Executive
Connect with Shanique on LinkedIn

To see, or not to see? That is the email signature question

Rocketseed Signature on Compose Microsoft 365

Introducing Rocketseed Signature on Compose for Microsoft 365.

Do your staff need to see their email signatures every time they write business emails? Or would you prefer all your employees’ company email signatures to be branded only after they press ‘send’? With Rocketseed’s new Signature on Compose for Microsoft 365 the choice is now yours.

To help you make the right choice for your business, in this blog post I’ll show you what Signature on Compose is all about – what it does, how it works and why it may, or may not, be the best fit for your business email signature management requirements.

Let’s get started…

What is Signature on Compose?

The name says it all. Signature on Compose is a Rocketseed-developed Outlook add-in which allows you to see your email signature when you are composing your email, as opposed to your signature being applied after you have pressed ‘send’. Your signature will also appear on your ‘sent’ emails.

Why have we released it now?

We’ve developed Signature on Compose in response to requests from select customers with specific requirements for their employees to see their signatures before sending, and to have a record of their signatures in their sent items. While meeting their requirements perfectly, for others it’s an option to consider and isn’t designed as a standard one-size-fits-all email signature solution.

How does it work?

With Signature on Compose, when you compose your email, Rocketseed connects to the Microsoft 365 Signature API which allows us to pull the signature from Rocketseed and insert it into your Microsoft 365 user account.

Within your business, the Signature on Compose plugin is installed by your Microsoft 365 Administrator and then becomes available to the users specified by the Administrator within the Microsoft 365 tenant.

Rocketseed Signature on Compose Example

Who can use it?

Signature on Compose is available to users of Rocketseed for Microsoft 365.

What does it cost?

There are no additional fees to use this functionality on a Rocketseed account.

So is it right for your business?

Signature on Compose was developed to meet demand from select customers, with specific reasons that you might share.

It might be your company policy for all email signatures to be visible when they are sent and remain viewable within sent emails, giving a ‘record’ of the signatures that were sent.

Maybe, it’s simply a case of personal preference and a sense of reassurance that the right signature is always seen to be sent.

There are however some limitations that you may wish to consider if Signature on Compose is right for your business email requirements.

Perhaps most significantly, with Signature on Compose individual employees are able to amend their own email signatures. In other words their signatures are no longer tamper-proof, which may jeopardize the consistency of your brand ‘stamp’ across all your company email.

Also, any banner campaigns assigned to run at the top of your team’s emails will not be visible in the compose window (being separate from the signature) but of course will be applied by Rocketseed, as currently, once the emails are routed to the Rocketseed server after pressing ‘send’.

Finally, the Microsoft 365 Signature API isn’t available for mobile devices and so signatures cannot be seen on compose when using them. Rocketseed does, however, still brand these mails in the usual way when the mail is routed via the server.

Conclusion

To see, or not to see? It’s always good to have a choice and that’s what Signature on Compose is about.

Is it right for your business? As you can see there are a number of important factors to consider – from company policy and personal preference to ensuring your staff email signatures are consistently branded company-wide.

Ultimately, the biggest question is how much control do you want individual employees to have over your brand on your business’s number one communications channel? As one of the first ever companies to generate an email signature, we remain steadfast in our opinion that a central admin should control the brand, not every employee.

Interested in adding Signature on Compose to your Rocketseed account?

Janine Ferenčak  |  MD, RocketDev
Connect with Janine on Linkedin