Time comes and goes, but email marketing tends to stay as one of the most powerful yet cost-effective marketing tools for businesses and specialists. Statistics showed that email marketing has the highest return on investment rate (ROI) compared to all other digital marketing channels.
But to do that, you need to get every detail of the email right. You can’t just randomly send an ill-designed email and expect to nurture the target audience or maximize sales. Your customers have a very busy inbox and your message may get lost in an instant.
The devil is in the details, and the email signature is indeed one of the commonly overlooked elements, but it can significantly boost your business’ professional image and help make a good lasting impression.
Read on to discover how you can create the most professional email signature and the best email signature examples to learn from.
What Is an Email Signature?
With every “Dear B”, there is a “Best regards, A”. An email signature is like the sign-off at the end of your letter, except that you can customize it to leave more details about yourself or your business.
Think of the email signature as a digital business card so you can include contact details like name, phone number, job title, address, etc; and brand elements such as the brand colors or logo. Since the email is digital, you can even feature links like social media accounts or CTA buttons to increase click rates.
How To Make Your Email Signature Professional?
Just like any other marketing tool, you can create an email signature strategy to have the maximum effect on the recipients. A well-thought signature can convey professionalism and create more opportunities for interaction. All the following elements are essential to represent your business or yourself in the email signature, but you don’t have to incorporate everything, just consider what is most important.
Professional information
If you are sending an email as the representative of your company, make sure to include information like your job title, department, and the company’s name. The level of detail may depend on the industry, but enough information with a well-designed layout can do magic in showing professionalism.
Tip: If you use your job title, it should match the one on your LinkedIn profile (which you may include a social account link, too). If the title is vague or unmatched, the recipients can get confused and, even worse, consider you not trustworthy.
Real name
What is more trustworthy than showing that you are a real person with a real name? Your full name should be on the top line of the signature so recipients know exactly who they are interacting with. You can also use only your first name if that is a more informal touch to you.
Your name should be somewhat stand-out with a bold or semi-bold format. If the name is hard to pronounce, you can mention the correct pronunciation as well. Another nice little tip is that you can add your name to the email’s subject line to increase the personalized feel.
Contact information
How can your recipients reach out after receiving the email? Your email signature can include contact information such as phone number or another email address or any other ways for people to get in touch. However, if you send your email to a large list of people, consider the phone number you leave carefully since this can be a data exposure breach. You can promote your website as a better way to contact if that is the case.
Social media links
The email signature is a subtle yet effective section where you can include many links to your social media pages yet doesn’t annoy the recipients. Remember that your website can be another way to contact you. How about adding more channels to reach out like Instagram, Twitter (X), Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and others?
Design your social media links as icons so people can quickly recognize the channels. Our brain is hardwired to recognize visual presentation, so images are much more engaging than a list of URLs. These clicks can make a big difference in your business’ engagement rate going forward.
Photo
What is even more representative of you than your full name? A profile or headshot photo so that people can recognize and memorize you better. Each industry can have a different standard for personal image, so keep that in mind.
For example, a traditional headshot can work well in the financial sector, but if your business is in the creative field, your profile photo can show more personality. Understanding your target audience is the key.
If you are sending emails from your business accounts, you can add the company logo or a photo of the store to promote the brand. Sharing these photos with your recipients can boost the organization’s visibility significantly.
Legal information
This element is often a company legal disclaimer, which is important in some sectors. The legal information block can contain confidentiality notices or other legal notices that viewers should know about. You can also include warnings for potential malware or viruses that your organization doesn’t have control over.
Call to action
Last but not least, you can also include call-to-action (CTA) buttons in your email signature as a part of the strategy. For example, you can promote an upcoming sales campaign, include a link to the latest content, or let recipients schedule an appointment (online or offline). These may seem small, but just like the email signature itself, they can work wonders on any marketing tactic you want to employ.
Email signature tip: With an email editor, you can update your CTA buttons regularly, and even customize them based on the recipients’ reference to match the business strategy for different groups of customers.
World-Class Professional Email Signature Examples
Now, let’s see some real-life examples of professional email signatures that can inspire your next email batch.
1. Business email signature example
Most professional email signatures look like this one, simple, clean, and just enough information to represent the sender. If you are looking for a signature that can create an on-brand look yet doesn’t blend into the rest of the email, this is a great place to start.
You can also opt for a heavier business touch by including a brand logo, brand photos, or links for other business purposes such as the image above. This design looks like a real business card placed at the end of the email, highlighting your professional image.
2. eCommerce email signature example
For eCommerce, the email signature should focus on providing channels that suit the customers. If you know that most of your fans are from Instagram, the signature can include a preview of the latest posts – which will bring out the strongest marketing platform to the email.
To an eCommerce store, email marketing is an essential tool to engage with customers and increase returning customers. So don’t just stop at the email signature, take advantage of customer data synchronization through your website to your POS system to create better email marketing campaigns for loyalty programs, rewards points, order tracking, embed survey, etc.
3. Influencer email signature example
Influencers need to leave an impression, and the email signature is no exception. Besides the common strategy of including social media links to maximize reach, you can also create a little snippet of your upcoming content. Don’t just include a link, try playing with a dash of creativity to let your audience know something exciting is on the way.
Also, if you show that you are a powerful influencer with a niche and a sizable audience group, you may also land some deals on partnerships. If you already have, make sure you show them in the signature as well and show why brands should work with you.
4. Real estate email signature example
When it comes to showing professionalism for real estate agents in the email signature, you can showcase the recently listed properties or recently sold ones to boost credibility. Of course, your name, photo, and job details should still be put first, then you can embed the listings at the bottom.
5. Entrepreneur email signature example
When you need to make yourself more memorable as an entrepreneur, nothing beats getting a handwritten sign-off as the email signature. This is a touch of authority and personalization that makes your email feel more personal while welcoming the recipient’s interactions.
In entrepreneurship, a strong personal brand is very important, so you need to show your personality. Handwritten signatures can immediately catch the reader’s eye and remind people of the more traditional letters. You can also add more contact information so people can reach out when they need to.
6. Freelancer email signature example
When you are a freelancer, you have much more freedom to showcase your professionalism with a personal touch. So why not stand out with a fun and bold typography to capture the reader’s attention like in the example above? To balance the layout, pair the headings with a profile photo and use a simple font for other information, while the overall design stays rather minimal.
You can also add a link to your freelancer portfolio and recent works, which will be a lot helpful to clients when they decide whether to work with you or not.
7. Retail sales representative email signature example
When you are a sales representative, every email is an opportunity to increase the sales number for your retail business. Take the image above as an example. The design is easy on the eye with soft and complementing colors that match the business logo, yet the details are still highlighted in the right way, especially with the “Sale: 15% off”. The CTA button goes with a high-quality image that encourages the viewers to click to find out more.
A quick tip: More than the email signature, if you want to create effective email marketing campaigns to nurture buying customers, consider using a retail POS system that connects with your payment gateways to sync customers’ data from all channels and manage buyer preferences in one place.
Professional Email Signature Best Practices
Here are some email signature tips that you can use to keep the design in line with your branding while showing what you have to offer in an effective way so that recipients won’t feel too overwhelmed.
Have a suitable size
The size of your email signature depends on two aspects: the dimensions and the weight.
– Dimensions: The optimal height for the email sign-off is 150px – 200px, while the optimal width is 300px – 600px. Apply and you will have the best amount of space to contain information and still make the signature accessible across multiple devices.
– Weight: In general, an email should be as lightweight as possible to have a quick loading time. So your signature should be less than 100kb to make sure the email is easy to access for all recipients.
Choose the right font and color
Google, Outlook, and Apple all have requirements on the fonts that you can use, so follow them for a web-friendly email. When it comes to colors, you should stick with only two to three options, and remember to follow the brand guidelines on applying colors.
Use high-quality logo
Your brand is recognized by your logo, so it should be consistent and identifiable on all channels. The logo image should have high quality with a width of 150px – 300px, while the weight is optimized for the web.
Optimize your images
Speaking of optimization, here are some aspects of including great images in your email signature:
– Makes sure the image has high-quality
– Use clean images without a distracting background
– Keep the dimensions small enough to view but don’t lose the quality. 50px – 100px is plenty.
– Use alt-text to describe images to make sure of the accessibility
– Try to find royalty-free images since you are using them for a commercial purpose.
Have a good design hierarchy
Great design can go unnoticed without you realizing it, while a poor design can cause an immediate annoyance. A well-created design hierarchy will help guide the reader’s experience and let them know where to look. For example: Your name should have the largest or boldest font, while the job title should be in a smaller font.
Think mobile first
Did you know that 4 out of 10 emails are opened on mobiles? Smartphone users should be top-of-mind when you create emails or email signatures. Make sure your email can be read and clicked on mobiles with enough white space between elements.
Conclusion
Email signature is a simple yet effective way to provide more information and increase the reach for promotions. You can choose whichever format you like – from a minimal sign-off to a more interesting design that showcases personality, as long as you remember to not send an email without an eye-catching and professional email signature ever again.
