Just Make it Professional: Email Signature Best Practices

As Steve Jobs said, “Details matter,” and, in email, it’s more than true. The impression you make on your subscribers can and will influence their opinion of your company as well as their purchasing decisions. That’s why it’s essential for your emails to contain the elements that don’t simply represent your brand, but also sound memorable for your subscribers. In this article, we’ll run over some of the best practices for email signatures — a detail that may influence your image.

The structure of an email signature

An email signature is a block of content at the footer of an email that may contain text and images. Similar to a business card, an email signature serves both as a source of information for a user, and as a portrayal of a company or a person. An email signature may give off different vibes ― from serious and corporate to fun and friendly ― it all depends on the signatures content and design.

There are no strict rules about the elements of an email signature, but we recommend adding

• name and family name;
• position in the company;
• name of the company;
• contact details;
• photo of a person.

This information will be helpful to establish personal contact and become closer to your audience, especially if you use a high-quality photo of the company representative. Based on Instagram research, photos with people’s faces get 38% more likes and 32% more comments than any other images.

Best practices for email signatures

To show you some good options of how to make your email signature more memorable and suitable to represent your company, we’ve taken a look at several professional email signature examples from various brands. We found several email signature best practices regarding the signature’s  strategy, content, and design. Check out the information below and learn more about email signature best practices.

Get straight to the point

The most common way to create an email signature is to include your name, position, company name, and possibly a photo. It’s neutral and clear enough for you to play it safe and look professional.

Professional email signature examples illustrating this option, are simple and minimalistic with their content and their appearance. For instance, LinkedIn Premium representatives use their photo and only their first name to avoid formalities and come off as friendly and approachable. However, if you want to follow their example, just make sure that people in the photos you choose for your email signature are smiling and look like they are open to conversation.

Meanwhile, Bring representatives, include a little personal message in their email signatures based on the topic of the email. For instance, the email below was presenting the new functions of their product, so it was relevant for the Data Scientist to ask for feedback from the users.

Use personal signatures and add social media icons

You don’t have to use images when you can simply replace them with the actual signatures of your team members. An email signature best practice from Yes Marketing proves that an email signature that includes a name, job title, and a real signature of the person looks minimalistic and elegant.

However, compared to the previous professional email signature examples, here, you can also find the links to the official Yes Marketing social media accounts. They are usually displayed with the corresponding icons colored in some neutral shades like grey, white, or black. When it comes to social media links, we recommend that you first make sure you update your social media pages regularly so that people won’t just stumble upon a “frozen” account.

Be a team player

Another email signature best practice is to try out a company signature, where you introduce yourself as a team or as a company and provide contact details as usual. This is a good option for those who are not yet ready to represent individual employees.

Look at another example from VSCO. The company not only placed their logo and social media links in their signature but also added a brief description, which serves as the representation of their mission. It looks neat and doesn’t distract users from the main content of an email.

A good example that illustrates being a team player and a few previous practices is this email from HelpScout. The company added a handwritten signature at the end of their email, which makes it look more personal.

Get closer to your audience

To increase loyalty and build strong relationships with your audience, talk to them the way you would talk to your friend, be open and friendly. Don’t be afraid to show your face.

Adidas shows us a great signature that humanizes one of their editors. Their editor of their GamePlan A digest, whose photo subscribers may also see in the signature, greets their community, provides a little intro, and asks users to reflect on the topics presented in the email. This option helps the company win people over and keep them engaged. Despite lots of text, the signature is readable due to the wise use of typography.

You can also use an email signature to thank your audience for their interest in your products and content. For instance, Tentree co-founders Kalen and David express their gratitude and focus on the brand’s mission to save the planet, further providing by social media links and all necessary contact details. The minimalistic dividers make the overall look of a signature light and tender.

If humor is your thing, why not use it and lift your subscribers’ spirits? MeUndies underwear brand used humor in one of their emails by placing a little joke and social media icons in their signature — simple but catchy.

Sometimes digest emails from bloggers may actually have two signatures. The blogger may use the first signature to introduce themselves while giving a short description of what’s new and what you can expect from their email, then provide the main content, and finish up with another signature.

Lisa Bryan, a founder of the Downshiftology website and YouTube channel, sends out regular emails with healthy recipes. First, she introduces herself and writes a short intro.

After the recipes, she provides links to her social media, adding a logo and contact details at the end of the email.

Stimulate curiosity

Another email signature best practice is motivating recipients to scroll through your email till the end ― stimulating their curiosity. For example, TheMuse adds a career coach “tip of the day” in their signature, and, it’s different every time. Notice that this example is one of the few where the color is used.

Be mobile friendly

The on-the-go nature of mobile allows users to always be online and check their inboxes more frequently, posing another challenge for email marketers ― to need to adjust their emails for mobile.

According to Adobe, 81% of users regularly use a mobile phone to check their email, and 74% of desktop users check their email using their computer. Your emails must look great on any device. Here we recommend that you use responsive templates. Always make sure that your signature isn’t overloaded with images or a complicated design, factors that may make it too long on mobile.

In the signature of Instapage emails, you won’t find a long signature. Instead, you can see the representative’s name, position, photo, and social media icons. The name is written in bold, which makes it the first thing you see after the photo.

Choose a design suitable for your brand

Even if, in general, we advise against using too many fonts and colors in your signature for fear they may make it too distracting or chaotic. Remember that your signature should always correspond to the style and brand guidelines of your company.

Here’s a minimalistic and classic signature from Davy’s Wine Merchants. It presents a logo that already contains a lot of details and curves, so there is no need for any extra decorations in the text.

Lily’s Kitchen took a different approach and made a banner-like signature. It contains their logo, social media icons, phone number, as well as useful links to their store locations and instructions on how to choose pet food. There are four main colors used, yet they are all neutral and fit together just right.

How to create an email signature with SendPulse

You can easily create an email signature from scratch with SendPulse. Just go to the “Drag and Drop Email Builder,” click “Add new section,” and choose the layout you want to use. You can add as much information as you wish ― based on your goals. Then, you should drag the content you want to see in each part of the signature.

After that, add pictures, contact details, social media icons, and any other information you want your users to see. The signature will be responsive and will adjust for desktop, mobile, and tablet users.

Now it’s your turn

An email signature can influence how users will perceive your brand, how long they remember you, and if they fall in love with you. So, never neglect this small, but important detail. Follow these email signature best practices to make the most out of it for your brand:

1. Strategy. Do your best to give your signature a purpose, including all the information your audience needs, and try to add something funny and interesting, so people remember you.
2. Copy. Make sure you sound professional but friendly so that users will feel like they can always contact you and share feedback that will be heard. However, don’t overcrowd your signature with inspiring quotes and other irrelevant information that may look “cheesy.”
3. Design. Don’t mix too many colors and fonts, highlight the most important information, try out banner-like signatures, and give your audience a smile with positive photos.

Use the SendPulse Drag and Drop builder to create your professional email signature quickly and easily.