Virtual Assistant Tasks

Signature Solutions: How to Create a Professional Email Signature

Shaurya Bedi

Jan 9, 2024 • 12 min read

Email marketing is a game-changer for marketers and branding experts, offering a seamless way to engage audiences and boost sales effortlessly. With a staggering 124.5 billion daily emails, it's evident that emails are a cornerstone of business communication.

Yet, the dilemma of choosing between "Half" and "Full" signature formats often goes overlooked. Many neglect the potential of email signatures as a chance to assert their identity, facilitate accessible communication, and provide a gateway for further exploration.

Like Wonder Woman deflecting attacks with her bracelets, your signature can deflect generic greetings and introduce yourself on your own terms. Use it to highlight your expertise, achievements, or even a quirky quote that embodies your personality.

Whether navigating the professional landscape or representing your business, we're here to help you choose the optimal signature format that aligns with your needs.

Email Signatures: Definition and Importance

An email signature is a snippet of text at the end of an email that provides crucial details about you and your business. A good one typically features your name, job title, company, phone number, address, and website link.

Consider adding your photo, company logo, social media icons, and a call to action for a truly professional touch. But the potential of an email signature goes beyond these basics. Let's explore its definition and significance.

Benefits

Create a lasting impression

A simple yet powerful benefit lies in making a lasting first impression. First impressions matter, and an email signature conveys professionalism, signaling that you and your business are to be taken seriously.

Drive website traffic

You can use email signatures as a business advantage to drive traffic to your website. Daily email exchanges allow you to include a link to your website, attracting thousands to learn more about your business.

Build brand awareness

Brand awareness is the key to sustained success. Introduce your brand effectively through your email signature by incorporating your company logo and website link.

Support your sales team

Empower your sales team with a signature that exudes professionalism—track prospect engagement by monitoring clicks and providing valuable insights into their interest levels.

Looking for a quick and easy way to enhance your social media following? Add interactive social media icons to your email signature, link to your actively managed profiles, and witness a follower surge.

What to add in an Email Signature?

First and Last Name

This is, of course, a no-brainer! Clearly state your identity for immediate recognition in your email signature.

Your Job Info (Job Title and Department)

People who receive emails from you will be curious about your position. Hence, provide context about your role and affiliations. This will foster credibility and seriousness in your message.

Secondary Contact Information

Include alternative contact details, such as phone or fax, ensuring multiple avenues for communication.

Showcase your social media presence with recognizable icons, reinforcing your brand and encouraging followership.

Call to Action

Elevate your email with a non-intrusive, updated call-to-action aligned with your business goals.

Booking Links

Simplify meeting arrangements by including a calendar booking link in your signature, streamlining communication.

Legal Disclaimers (if required):

Include necessary legal disclaimers, particularly when dealing with sensitive information.

Green/Eco Messages (if applicable):

Express commitment to environmental values if your business aligns with eco-friendly practices.

Branding Colors

Maintain a sleek, modern appearance with consistent branding and complementary base colors, ensuring a neat and professional aesthetic.

How to Make Email Signatures?

Here are the steps you need to take to create email signatures:

Start by emphasizing essential elements such as your name, affiliation, and secondary contact information

Your name takes the lead, serving as the primary identifier in your email signature. Following your name, highlight your affiliation, including your job title, company, school, or any organization important to your recipients. Incorporate a popular brand name or logo to capture attention and establish credibility, ensuring your message is taken seriously.

Then, include your secondary contact information, recognizing the importance of providing alternative ways for people to reach you. While personal phone numbers may be private, use this space to promote your website. This is a passive yet effective means of opening communication lines without overwhelming yourself with unwanted outreach.

Example:

Imagine an email signature: Your first and last name is prominently displayed, accompanied by your affiliation with the University of Connecticut. To enhance visibility, you need to include the university's logo. You also need to your website, offering recipients an additional avenue to explore your work and contact you for more information.

Use simple colors

Regarding your email signature, simplicity and consistency in colors are key. Effective branding relies on maintaining a uniform appearance; this principle also applies to your email signature. If you incorporate colors, keep it straightforward—opt for one or two shades in addition to dark text.

Email signature example:

Think of using a professional and clean design with a base color like blue and an accent color like grey. This ensures a polished and cohesive look for your proper email signature. The goal is to make it visually appealing while maintaining a sense of harmony with the overall branding.

Use visual hierarchy

Visual hierarchy is a concept that may sound complex but is quite straightforward. The idea is simple: make the most important information stand out.

In your email signature, strategically apply font size, color, and bolding to emphasize and distinguish different pieces of information. Line dividers can also be useful for organization. Now, what's the visual order you should follow?

Start with your name—it's typically the largest and boldest element in your email signature. Following in the hierarchy are your job title and company. Lastly, include your contact details to complete the structure. This ensures that your recipients easily grasp the key details in a well-organized manner.

Incorporate tracking links

Include tracking links in your email signature to monitor the effectiveness of your links. The Urchin Tracking Module is a useful method that helps identify and track traffic generated from clicks on your campaign or signature in email.

To assess whether the links in your signature are garnering clicks and making an impact, it's crucial to make them trackable. This allows you to gather valuable insights, similar to tracking other links in your emails.

Use space dividers

Incorporate space dividers in your email signature to effectively break up different types of information, such as your logo, name, and contact details, or a call to action. A standard and simple divider is the glyph divider, represented by the vertical bar symbol (|).

While it's important not to overcrowd your email signature with excessive information, using space dividers allows you to organize and present a lot of text in a compact area without compromising the overall design.

This technique helps maintain a clean and structured appearance, particularly when separating distinct elements like your name and contact information, logo, calls-to-action, or disclaimers.

Add an international prefix to your contact number

When listing your contact phone number, including the international prefix for your country's code is essential, especially if you collaborate with people globally. Many individuals may need to pay attention to this detail if they're not accustomed to dialing international prefixes.

Including the international prefix in your contact number is particularly helpful for your international colleagues and clients. If you need clarification on your country's code, you can find a list of country codes for reference.

Make it mobile-friendly

Mobile screens have limited space, so keeping your signature simple and focused is best. Include essential details like your name, title, company, and contact information.

To ensure a positive mobile experience, prioritize readability and clickability in your signature design. Pay attention to the scale of your text, making it large enough for easy reading on small screens.

Also, ensure that links and buttons are adequately sized and spaced, allowing users to tap them effortlessly with their fingers.

Use email signature generator

If crafting your email signature seems challenging despite trying various approaches, there's a simple solution – use an email signature generator. These tools take the complexity out of the process.

Instead of grappling with colors, fonts, and email signature layout decisions, an email signature generator offers multiple pre-designed combinations. You need to input your details, add photos and links, and select your preferred colors.

Once content with the result, easily integrate the generated signature into your email account. It's a hassle-free way to achieve a polished and professional email signature without the guesswork.

How do you create a signature in Outlook?

New Outlook version

Go to the View tab, then click on View Settings.
Go to Accounts and choose Signatures.
Create a new signature by selecting New and giving it a unique name.
Type your signature in the editing box below the name, formatting it with the desired font, color, and styles.
Save your changes when you've finished.
With your new signature highlighted in the list above the editing box, access Select Default signatures
Choose if you want to apply the signature to new messages, replies, and forwards.
Save your preferences once more.

Classic Outlook

Open a new email message in Outlook.
Navigate to the Message menu and choose Signature > Signatures.
The place of the Message menu and Signature button may vary based on your Outlook window's size and whether you're composing a new message or a reply/forward.
Select Signature from the Message menu, or choose Signature in the reading pane for a reply or forward.
Under Select signature to edit, opt for New, and in the New Signature dialog box, give your signature a name.
In the Edit signature section, compose your signature, adjusting fonts, colors, and sizes. Use Word to format a more advanced signature with bullets, tables, or borders, then copy-paste into the Edit signature box. You can also use pre-designed templates by downloading them in Word, customizing them, and copying them into the box.
Customize your professional signature for emails with links, images, social media icons, or pre-designed templates using the mini formatting bar under Edit signature.
Set default signature options under Choose Default Signature.
Select an email account from the E-mail account drop-down box. You can use different signatures for each email account.
For new messages, select a signature from the New Messages drop-down. Choose (none) if you don't want to add a signature to new messages automatically.
For replies/forwards, select a signature from the Replies/forwards drop-down or accept the default (none).
Choose OK to save the new signature and return to your message. Note that Outlook doesn't add the unique signatures to the message you opened in Step 1, so add it manually for that message. Future announcements will automatically include the signature. To add it manually, select Signature from the Message menu and choose the created signature.

How do you create a signature in Gmail?

Computer

Open Gmail.
Click on Settings at the top right, then select See all settings.
In the "Signature" section, type your signature text in the provided box. You can format the message by adding an image or changing the text style if desired.
Tip: Remember, your image contributes to the character limit. If you encounter an error, resize the image.
Once you are done, scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes.

Android

Open the Gmail app on your device.
Tap on Menu in the top left corner.
Go to the bottom and select Settings.
Pick the Google Account to which you want to add a signature.
Tap on Mobile Signature.
Enter the text you want for your signature.
Finally, tap OK to save your mobile signature.

iPhone

Open the Gmail application on your iPad or iPhone.
Click on Menu at the top left, and then go to Settings.
Under "Compose and Reply," find Signature settings.
Turn on "Mobile Signature."
Add or edit your mobile signature as needed.
To save your changes, tap Back.

Examples of the Best Email Signatures

Here are some email signature templates:

Email signature with sales offer

Straightforward email signature

Email signature with logo (signature email template)

Email signature to showcase your artistry

Email signature with Contact Information and Socials

Pro Tips for Creating an Email Signature

Ensure your full name takes center stage in your email signature. This is the primary identification if you want the best signature for email.
Incorporate a clear and relevant call to action. This guides recipients on the next steps you want them to take.
Enhance your online presence by adding social media icons. This provides easy access for others to connect with you on various platforms.
Personalize your signature by including a professional photo or your company's logo. This adds a visual element to your email.
Skip adding your email address directly in the signature. It's redundant and unnecessary.
Don't overcrowd your signature with excessive information. Keep it concise and focused on essential details.
Design your signature to be responsive, especially for mobile users. This guarantees a seamless experience across different devices.
Provide necessary contact details, such as your phone number and company information. This ensures recipients can easily reach out.

Virtual Assistance for the most incredible Email Signatures

Virtual assistants play a pivotal role in optimizing and perfecting business email signatures. They ensure a seamless and professional email communication experience through various tasks:

Evaluate how the signature appears across various devices

Virtual assistants verify the appearance of the email signature on different devices, guaranteeing its consistent and appealing display regardless of the platform.

Verify the accuracy and functionality of hyperlinks

They meticulously confirm that all hyperlinks embedded in the signature are accurate and functional, preventing potential issues or inconveniences for the recipients.

Save or implement the signature for new email usage

Virtual assistants save users time by applying or saving the email signature for future use in new emails, streamlining the communication process.

Account for mobile responsiveness to maintain a uniform appearance

Considering the prevalence of mobile usage, virtual assistants prioritize the mobile responsiveness of professional email signatures. This ensures a consistent and professional look across various screen sizes.

Revise the signature when there are changes in information

Virtual assistants promptly update good email signatures in case of any change in contact information or other details, maintaining accuracy and relevance.

Opt for straightforward designs to enhance clarity

To enhance clarity and readability, virtual assistants avoid overly complex designs in email signatures, focusing on simplicity for effective communication.

Conduct a trial by testing the signature with a personal email

Before implementation, virtual assistants conduct tests by sending a sample email to ensure the signature's proper functionality and appearance in a real-world scenario.

Get feedback from colleagues to refine and enhance the signature's appearance

Lastly, virtual assistants actively seek colleague feedback to refine and polish the email signature, ensuring it aligns with professional standards and preferences.

Wishup: Creating Ultimate Email Signatures

Wishup aims to simplify people's lives by managing their daily tasks, letting them concentrate on more crucial matters. The company asserts the reliability of its virtual assistants through a stringent verification process, ensuring the confidentiality of sensitive information.

Remember Carl Fredricksen's cluttered house? Wishup Virtual Assistants are like Russell, helping you declutter your life and prioritize what truly matters. (Just without the talking dogs and flying house, hopefully!)

Here are some benefits you need to know!

Collaborate with the most elite 0.1% of skilled professionals

Collaborate with highly skilled professionals, ensuring top-tier assistance for your email management.

Effortlessly integrate your virtual assistant into your workflow within a day

Experience a swift and efficient onboarding process, allowing you to integrate virtual assistants seamlessly into your workflow.

Cut down on training expenses by eliminating the need for a training budget

You can enjoy the advantage of a proficient virtual assistant without the necessity of allocating resources to extensive training.

Enjoy the advantage of Wishup's outstanding replacement policy with no questions asked

Experience peace of mind with Wishup's policy, providing a hassle-free replacement.

Evaluate the capabilities of your virtual assistant with a risk-free 7-day trial

Evaluate the services risk-free for seven days, allowing you to make an informed decision about the suitability of Wishup's virtual assistant for your inbox management.

Conclusion

Overall, did you understand how to make a professional email signature or how to write an email signature? Discovering the ideal email signature format that balances professionalism, information delivery, and visual appeal is a journey worth undertaking.

Experiment with different elements and with signature for email examples to create a signature that reflects your brand effectively. Wishup stands ready to assist you in this endeavor, offering top-tier virtual assistant services.

With Wishup, you can streamline your tasks, enhance productivity, and benefit from skilled professionals. For personalized guidance and a deeper knowledge of how Wishup can elevate your email signature game, contact us through a free consultation.

Alternatively, you can talk to us via [email protected]. Make your signature a testament to your professional excellence with Wishup's support.

FAQs: How To Create A Professional Email Signature

How do I craft the perfect email signature?

Creating the perfect email signature involves emphasizing key elements like your name, affiliation, and contact information. Use design hierarchy, maintain simplicity, and ensure mobile responsiveness for an effective and professional look.

What constitutes the best signature for professional emails?

The best professional email signature highlights your name, job title, and company affiliation prominently. Incorporate a call-to-action, include social media icons for connectivity, and maintain a consistent color scheme for brand coherence.

How can I add a signature to my professional email?

To add a signature to your professional email:

Access your email client's settings or signature options.
Enter your desired signature text, format it for visual appeal, and save the changes.
Ensure correct hyperlinks and test the signature on various devices for optimal performance.