What is an email signature?

An email signature is a block of text that automatically appears at the end of an email message. It is used to provide recipients with your contact details such as your name, job title, phone number, and email address.

This guide is intended to show you what how to make an email signature that will stand out in a recipient’s inbox. If you get all the key elements right when you create your email signature, you will always present your brand professionally and improve the reach of your marketing and feedback efforts.

How to create a professional email signature

The best email signature examples are made up of eight key components. These then all work together to offer businesses of any size multiple marketing and feedback opportunities.

1. Ensure your contact details in a professional email signature are up-to-date and correct. Tell people who you are, what you do and how to get in touch with you.
2. Make your email signature template as consistently on-brand with your corporate logo.
3. Include a display banner to promote your key campaigns, events, and tactical offers.
4. Link your social media accounts.
5. Include an employee photo
6. Use an appropriate email disclaimer for legal compliance.
7. Showcase your credibility with certifications and award logos.
8. Quickly gain customer insight by using 1-click feedback buttons.

Let’s now look at each component individually to see how they should be used in a professional email signature.

How to present your contact information

Whenever you create a professional email signature, the main foundation are the contact details. You must include a minimum of standard contact attributes that are easy to read. You can then enhance these with additional elements such as gender pronouns, office hours, etc.

What contact details should be included?

The employee’s first (given) name and surname. You’d be surprised how many people think using a nickname is acceptable. In fact, over 30% of business email signatures don’t even include a name.

Job title. This lets recipients know what type of person they are dealing with. They may rely upon your job titles to understand the structure of your organization and the way it operates.

Company name. Having your company name in your corporate email signature is a no-brainer. This can be done using plain-text, but we advocate using your corporate logo instead.

Telephone number. This should be the main number that the employee can be reached on, be it a landline or business mobile.

Email address. Some email clients like Outlook and Gmail use display names rather than email addresses. So, when forwarding on an email, the recipient might only see “John Smith” or “Sarah Green” rather than the actual address. That’s why we recommend you include your email address in your signature and link it with a “mailto:” link. That way, a recipient can simply click the link to send an email.

Web URL. Adding a link to your company’s website is a great way to get additional online traffic, especially considering how many emails your organization sends a day.

Add a photo image to humanize email conversations

Creating a corporate email signature with a photo image can help to build extra levels of professionalism and trust with recipients. The popularity of personal photos on social media sites suggests there is value in putting a face to written communication. You can include a photo in your internal email signature, external one or both – it’s up to you!

Include your company logo and branding

Moving beyond the contact details involves ensuring your company email signature conforms to your brand guidelines. It’s important to remember that image plays a large part in any organization’s reputation. Most companies spend a long time developing their brand and taking it to market. Professional email signature blocks reflect your brand just as much as any other branded materials.

The best professional email signature examples will use corporate brand guidelines to convey the professionalism of a company’s brand. Email signature branding can then build and promote your organization’s brand awareness, particularly through the use of your corporate logo.

Add an appointment booking link

Adding dedicated calendar links to your professional email signature offers recipients an easy way to schedule meetings and demos with you.

All they need to do is click on the scheduling link and choose a time that works best for them. This avoids lengthy email conversations and makes the process of scheduling your time much easier.

Also by linking to your calendar, you can let people know your working hours. This can be used to make sure your business email signature always gives accurate and helpful information to your business contacts.

Use promotional banners to turn your email signature into a marketing channel

The middle section of your professional email signature template is the perfect location to display a graphical banner. This is used to provide a clear call to action to access new content such as a white paper, highlight special offers, etc. Even better, the signature clicks are all free.

How should you use an email signature banner?

Always go for simplicity with the design. A banner typically goes below the contact details, so it naturally carries weight and credibility. There will be no other distractions for an engaged reader. You can tone down the intensity of the design so your message lands more effectively.

Consider altering the banner messaging for different teams. For example, potential buyers could see an introductory special offer while a regional office could promote a local event. You could also bring up potential upsell or cross-sell opportunities. The sales message will be suggested rather than imposed or forced.

Use display banners for internal communications. Some examples would be for internal job opportunities, company-sponsored training, corporate events, and general office reminders. Employees will then passively read and process the message without feeling pressure to take immediate action.

Make sure your banners don’t go stale. The best email signature examples form part of integrated marketing campaigns, so don’t continue promoting expired promotions or use banners that no longer conform to your brand guidelines. Keep on top of these just as much as you would any other of your marketing assets.

Track their performance. Add tracking code or UTM parameters to the URL you embed in the email banner. This will help you better understand customer engagement and conversions via an analytics platform. You can then quantify your contacts’ interest with your professional email signature content and how likely they are to convert to the individual level.

Maintain legal compliance with an email disclaimer

Even though they are a holdover from the early days of email, disclaimers are still a matter of lawful and safe operation for many organizations.

Using an email disclaimer usually means:

• The specific content of any disclaimer text will vary according to where your emails are going and when.
• Sections of each email disclaimer may require a level of personalization such as the actual sender’s name in order to fully comply with certain rules.

As best practice:

• Place the disclaimer apart from the rest of the signature, pretty much after the logo and display banner.
• Make sure the disclaimer font is small. No one wants their email completely taken over with a massive block of text.

Implement 1-click feedback buttons in email signatures

It’s easy to turn a professional email signature into a customer feedback channel as well as marketing one. You can gain valuable customer insight by adding simple 1-click feedback buttons to your professional email signature template.

How do you use a survey in an email signature?

Each button measures the level of customer satisfaction. These buttons are then represented as universal icons like smileys or stars so that they can easily be understood by anyone.

These buttons can then be used to direct customers to different landing pages allowing them to add further comments should they wish.

As with all other corporate email signature elements, make sure these survey buttons aren’t too large and distract when you make an email signature. You want them to be unobtrusive, yet noticeable enough that people will want to click on them.

Showcase company awards and corporate certifications

Corporate certifications and company awards in professional email signatures often provide value, but they need to be managed and leveraged correctly. Putting individual achievements on email provides employees the opportunity to make a strong statement about their expertise as well as provide them with a positive morale boost.

The same is also true if you win an industry award. It tells recipients that you are the best at what you do and that your industry has recognized you for it. Creating professional email signature examples that actively promote award wins means they will be seen by thousands of recipients, thereby increasing their exposure.

Including social media icons in your email signature

Finally, use company email signatures to promote your social media profiles and your latest content to the people with the highest chance of connecting with it – the people who read your corporate emails.

Combining social media accounts with email signatures is a great way to get loads of new fans for free, improve the reach of your marketing campaigns, and increase your customers’ loyalty. Social media links are basically free marketing tools.

How do professional email signatures and social media profiles work together?

Email signatures have a strong situational element. A recipient is already thinking about your company when reading your email. This means they can probably spare a few minutes to take a look at your social media profiles once they’re done.

Social media often provides the most up-to-date information from your company. Linking your profiles to your email signatures means you’re keeping your most important clients in the know easily.

Offering recipients another way to communicate with your company. People are more likely to engage with your brand on social media if they already have an existing relationship with you. Links in your professional email signature can then be used as a subtle lead nurturing avenue; one that can work better than targeting them with ads and email communications.

However, you need to make sure that the social content you link to is relevant and up to date. Don’t add links to accounts you don’t use anymore. Recipients only want to read relevant and up-to-date content, so adding links to inactive social media profiles is just wasting their time.

Other professional email signature examples

Now that you’ve seen what goes into a professional email signature, you can start making your own. Here are some email signature examples to provide you with inspiration:

Marketing Manager email signature

This email signature example doesn’t just promote the organization this Marketing Manager works for. It also showcases her as an individual with a clear headshot photo and an appointment link to book a meeting with her.

Marketing Executive email signature

As a marketing professional, your email signature should showcase strong, consistent branding and include links to other marketing channels. This email signature example includes social media icons that will help to increase the company’s follower base.

Sales Manager email signature

When working in sales, you want to provide as many avenues as possible for customers to do business with you. If you are running a special promotion, your email signature template is a great place to promote it to as wide an audience as possible.

Head of Sales email signature

It’s always good to put a face to a name particularly if you are the head of a department. This email signature example puts the staff member front and center by using a professional headshot photo.

CEO email signature

As a CEO, you are the face of the company you run. This is why you should use a professional email signature to showcase you as an individual. Any additional marketing messages will also carry additional weight due to your position.

Founder email signature

The above email signature example uses a powerful headshot to humanize all of his conversations. It also uses simple, clean branding that doesn’t overwhelm the recipient.

Author email signature

If you’re an author looking to promote your latest book release, a professional email signature is the perfect channel to introduce it to new business contacts. Adding links to your work can then drive more conversions with every email you send.

Software Developer email signature

This simple design provides different contact information. It also includes a clear CTA directing people to subscribe to the company newsletter.

Product Manager email signature

With sustainability playing a larger part in good corporate governance, your email signature can be used to provide additional green messaging. This email signature example asks people to think about whether it is really necessary for them to print this email.

Event Specialist email signature

Whenever your company wins an award, you should ensure that your email signature actively promotes it. You can then hyperlink any award image you use to provide recipients with more information.

Summary

• Email signature blocks have more value than just providing contact details.
• Include important contact information only.
• Make professional email signatures come alive by adding centrally managed user photos.
• Build and promote brand awareness by featuring your company logo.
• Use promotional banners to showcase marketing campaigns, testimonials, events or special offers.
• Win new followers by promoting your social media channels.
• Let recipients schedule meetings and demos via a dedicated calendar link.
• Comply with international email law by including an appropriate legal disclaimer.
• Boost credibility by highlighting recent company awards and certificates.
• Gain valuable customer insight with 1-click feedback buttons.

Start creating your own professional email signature template

So, you now understand what should go into your corporate email signature template. Now, it’s time to start building one. Follow our step-by-step guides below and you’ll have a professionally branded business email signature design in no time.

• Office 365 (now Microsoft 365)
• Exchange 2019, 2016 & 2013
• Exchange 2010
• Exchange 2007
• Outlook 2019 & 2016
• Outlook 2010 & 2013
• Outlook 2007
• G Suite (now Google Workspace)
• Gmail
• Outlook.com
• Macs
• iOS (iPhone & iPad)
• Android 

For other hints and tips on how to make a professional email signature, read our 17 Email Signature DOs and DON’Ts.

Why you need to centrally manage your email signature blocks

You can’t create professional email signatures for all users if you can’t control them. From misspellings to out-of-date display banners, if one team doesn’t have overall control, email signature management can become a nightmare. Once you’ve lost control, you will inevitably incur costs in some way.

The best email signatures examples are created through the use of dedicated email signature management solution from Exclaimer. Ensure everyone in your company has a professionally branded business email signature – try it free today!