Business Email Signature

To ensure consistency across your organization, you should use an email signature template. An HTML email signature template puts together all the elements you want to be included in the signatures of the emails sent out from your business, and your employees can then add their customizations to their email signature templates.

But before you invest in software or spend time building your templates, you need to decide what you want in your business email signature. Note that you may need to use different templates for different email programs — the email signature format for Gmail, for example, tends to be different from the email signature template Outlook. However, you don’t need to worry about that during the design phase.

At this point, you just need to think about what elements you want to be included in your business email signature. You can look at free email signature templates to get ideas or search for phrases such as “email signature templates free download” or “free email signature templates for Gmail.” Keep in mind that the best email signature templates include key details about your business and the person sending the email.

You need to include your business name and logo, the name of the employee, and their role in the company. Contact information including your website and social handles are also important to include. You can also use the signature to move email recipients further down the sales funnel. For instance, you may want to include links to pages of your website you want them to visit, a call to action to buy your product or call a sales rep, or a special offer on a new product. You can get creative ideas about email signatures at the Terminus Resource Hub.

Professional Email Signature

A professional email signature is a business tool. It expands awareness of your company, lets people know how to reach you, nurtures leads, and takes buyers further down the sales funnel. This is a big job for a small element that sits at the end of an email, but as you start looking at creative email signatures, you’ll see how they accomplish this goal.

The email signature format of this example shows exactly what you should include on the top half of the signature if you want to follow email signature etiquette 2020, 2021, and beyond. The top half is the part of the signature that readers see first, and it should include your employee’s name, their direct phone number, your company name, and logo-based links to your social sites.

If you’re creating a bilingual email signature, most of these elements don’t need to be translated, so you can keep them as is. Then, you can use the bottom half of the signature as a sales and marketing tool, and this is the section that needs to be in the language of your recipient. For instance, if you send emails out to both Spanish and English-speaking recipients, you may want to set up your signature template so that your employees can choose which language to use on the second half of the signature as needed. To get more ideas, check out this resource on the anatomy of a successful email signature.

Professional Email Signature Design

The second half of the email signature is called the banner. In professional email signature design, the banner usually consists of a colorful block of text and images, and it’s very similar to a banner ad on a website. It also works just like a banner ad on a website in that you’re using it as a marketing tool.

When trying to develop your email signature design, you should think about what you want the banner to accomplish, and keep in mind that its objectives will change over time. You will need to come up with different email signature design ideas as your goals change, but that’s easy with the right software.

For instance, you can use a banner to promote a virtual or in-person event, to promote a new product or service, to build general brand awareness, or to promote content such as new blog posts or ebooks. In addition to using the email signature banner to talk about different special offers and events, you may also want to develop different banners to target different email recipients.

Someone who has just interacted with a sales rep for the first time will probably need a different banner than someone who has been a loyal customer for years. With the first recipient, you’re trying to nurture the lead and encourage them to ask more about your company, but with the second recipient, you should use the banner to foster your existing relationship.

Once you decide how you’re going to use your banners, you can start to think about the finer points such as the email signature design size. The email signature size needs to be scaled to appear correctly on both desktop and mobile devices, and an HTML email signature design will help with that effect. There are tools online that can help you with this part of the process including email signature design Canva and resources on email banner designs from Terminus.

Email Reply Signature Etiquette

Email reply signature etiquette dictates that you need different signatures for emails from individuals than you do for emails from a business. This email signature etiquette is not just about following arbitrary rules — it’s about ensuring that you have the most effective signature possible.

As you develop your ideas, make sure that you look at templates that apply to your situation. For instance, if you’re trying to develop a signature for an individual, you should look at personal email signature templates, but if you’re trying to develop a signature for a business, you should use different ideas. Similarly, if you’re trying to develop an email signature format student, you need to focus on email signature ideas for students.

Personal email signature ideas usually include your full name, your email address, and your phone number, but they may also include a professional headshot and links to your social channels. However, you need to customize the signature based on how you’re using your emails.

For instance, if you’re applying for jobs, you should include a link to your LinkedIn profile, but you shouldn’t include a link to Facebook or Snapchat where you primarily post personal stories and commentary. On the other hand, if you’re simply sending emails to friends and family, you may want to include your contact information and something fun like a photo of your pets or children or an inspirational quote in your personal email signature format.

How To Make A Business Email Signature

Now that you understand the differences between a personal email signature and a business email signature, it’s time to get into the nuts and bolts of how to make a business email signature and a personal signature.

A personal email signature is fairly straightforward, and most people usually only need one or two designs for personal use. You can search for instructions on how to create an email signature in Outlook, Gmail, or whichever email program you use, or you can simplify the process with an email signature generator.

The best free email signature generator is a tool that lets you plug in the elements you want in your signature, and it’s really easy to use. You should check out options like the Canva email signature generator, the HubSpot email signature generator, and the Exclaimer free email signature generator.

Keep in mind, however, that while these tools are great for personal email signatures or even for creating professional signatures if you work on your own or with one or two team members, they are not the right option when trying to scale a template across your entire company.

Businesses need to look for a more robust email signature maker than the above mentioned tools. The best email signature generator for businesses is something that lets you build, manage, and scale email signatures for all employees across your entire company, and it’s usually best to purchase software that can help you with that process.

These tools help you develop a signature template that can be used across your organization. They make it easy to customize elements as needed — your employees can customize the signatures with their name and contact information, but you can also easily update elements such as the banner at the bottom of the signature depending on the objectives you’re trying to meet with each email. These tools help you create brand consistency, and they turn every email from your organization into a sales and marketing tool.

Use Of Signature In Email

The use of signature in email is not new, but leveraging the signature as a marketing tool is a relatively new concept and you need to check out email signature ideas if you want this part of your business emails to be as effective as possible. Look at multiple examples, note what you like, and don’t like, and consider creating a file of the visuals you like the best.

The best email signatures examples can show you different ways to use a signature for marketing. Creative email signature ideas also help you narrow in on the best layouts, colors, and visuals for your email signatures. As you look at different ideas, think about how they would affect you if you received the email. Would certain signatures make you more likely to contact the sender, follow a link, or take a certain action? If so, you may want to include those elements in your final design.

If you’re looking for the best email signatures 2020 or email signature ideas 2021, you may want to check out a publication full of email signature ideas from one of those time periods. Similarly if you’re looking for ideas that resonate during a certain time period such as holiday email signature ideas or even COVID email signature ideas, you should just search for examples of signatures that other professionals have used during those times. Once you have looked at some ideas, you’re ready to start playing with the software and generating high-quality email signatures for your business.