Particularly for B2B communication, email signatures play an important factor in underscoring how serious a company is. At the same time, they are ideal for communicating marketing messages in a subtle way. Read more here about what your options are.
Email signatures: essential part of professional business communication
In a business email, the closing is usually followed by the signature of the sender, including their contact details, company job title and other business information. This is standard, enabling the recipient to identify as easily as possible who the sender is and to get in touch with the sender in ways other than directly responding to the email.
All email programs give you the option to create this signature just once and then have it automatically added to each new email you write. The following information should appear in the signature of a business email:
- Ful name
- Job title
- Business phone number (incl. mobile phone)
- Company name and legal form
- Registered address of the company
- Registration office and commercial registry number
- The names of all managing directors if applicable
- The names of all Executive and Supervisory Board members for corporations
- The company logo if possible
- A link to the company’s website
What’s more, the linked icons of the most important social media sites, on which the company is present, are good to include in signatures too.
Signatures can be mandatory
Such an email signature is not just nice to have in many instances – it is often also mandatory, in particular when the email serves as a business letter. This includes all messages sent to people outside the company that are in writing and which have business-based information. The concrete form is irrelevant in this case.
An exception are advertisement emails to a general group of individuals, as well as emails which are sent to existing business relations. In this case, it is not necessary to repeat the mandatory information. Should companies not comply by leaving out the mandatory information, they may receive a warning or even be fined.
Email signature marketing: grabbing attention with personal information
Moreover, a signature can also be part of the corporate communication and leveraged as a marketing tool. To achieve this, the company’s corporate identity, and particularly its corporate design, should appear in the signature too. The following measures can help to generate attention within the email signature for all kinds of your company’s offers:
- Implement a call-to-action button or an eye-catching banner that links to a new blog article, for instance, or to the download of a white paper
- Refer to case studies or customer review portals
- Advertise free additional services or limited offers
- Mention job vacancies or announcements about trade show appearances
- Add awards or certifications
- Include a professional photo to give the recipient of the email a personal picture of the sender
Ideally, the content of the signature showcasing offers should be tailored to the recipient, with the aim to increase the likelihood of a conversion. Emails from sales employees, for example, are sent to a different target group than the electronic post from a management system for existing customers. Two examples: A hint to discounts can be used for customers who have been latent for a while in order to inspire them to return. Or events can be advertised toward the recipient in a targeted way to motivate them to register.
Especially when implementing graphical elements, you should pay careful attention to ensuring these can also be shown in their desired form on mobile devices.
If you need external assistance, or simply would like more inspiration to get the most out of your signature marketing options, you can team up with a professional service provider who focuses on email signature management, for instance Exclaimer or Software Advice.
