00:03 Welcome to another session of Smarter Business Tips at Ten. And today's session is going to be on Do This One Thing to Make Doing Business with You Easy. If these business tips have value, give us a thumbs up. That's awesome. Love it. Spread the word.
00:22 So, you're with Peter Butler of Smarter Websites.
00:26 So, what is Do This One Thing to Make Doing Business with You Easy? It's the simplest thing ever, but seemingly the most overlooked in making it easy for people to do business with you. It's your email signature. And it absolutely does my head in. Now I'll just zoom over to this particular post which I did way back in June last year. How to Have the Ultimate Email Signature. And what I'm going to do now is I'm going to go through and review what not to do. Now, I have Phillip Pletcher's blessing on this.
01:11 So, these are the things you don't do. Now, check your own email signature as we go along. But there's no point in having your email address in you email signature. There's actually just no point. Why would you do that? It's coming from your email address. Dumbest thing ever.
01:29 Now, can anybody spot the fundamental issue with this beautiful graphic? There's the web address. Great. That's a good idea. There's some social media links. Fantastic. All things that I would strongly recommend. There's some elements that support the creditability of this particular business. But the one fundamental flaw here, is that this is one big graphic. So, none of these links are actually clickable links. None of them. So, that's the one thing that can make a big difference in your business, is that all these links are clickable and they direct people through to your website, or your social media platforms. It just make sense.
02:16 So, if I zoom over to my signature you'll see that I've got my normal sign off. I've got a score your website. Now this has brought 13 clicks in the last month. Now, I didn't have to do anything after this initial set up and this is why I go on about it. It's because when it's done, it's done. You know, you only have to do this once. Whatever you decide to put in your email signature is your choice, but there's things that can just generate traffic for free. Why would you not do that? So I've actually generated 13 clicks through to that audit which is going to generate business for me. I have chosen to have a request for reviews. Other people have testimonials. I'll go through a shortlist shortly. This particular link gets used a lot for people who want to do regular catch ups with me. They know to go to my email signature, click on that, and it goes through and they can actually make an appointment with me online without checking with me. It checks in with my diary.
03:26 The other thing is that you've got to tell people what you want them to do. It's all very well, if we go back to there ... It's connect with us. Call to action. That's okay. That's good. And if we go back to here ... So, I'm telling people visit my website. Connect with us socially. So I'm encouraging people's call to action. So if I go back over to ... there are so many windows open. So this is a blog post and a video I did and I actually critiqued six different email signatures so Mark [inaudible 00:04:08], Tracy Laubscher, Vanessa's, David Osborne. Now this was done about a year ago so their email signatures have evolved since that time but I've got some rules about using emails, Gmail or Hotmail in business. Like seriously? Really? You want to protect your branding, not to ... yeah. Not good. Get a domain email account.
04:32 And so this goes through ... now there's actually a link in this particular blog post and I'll put these links into the Facebook thread. Shall I do it now? No, if I do that you're going to click on it and you're going to stop watching me. So no, don't do that. So I'll go over to the anatomy. So this is a summary of the anatomy of the good email signature. So, no links in the main image unless it's your main web link so the whole image is a clickable link. That's acceptable, but not as I just showed you. Make sure you use sharp images, not blurry graphics. The size, get that right. Have a quick look at my signature again, you'll see my mugshot is the size of a business card. It doesn't have to be exactly that size, but make sure it's not too large or too small.
05:26 Go back over to here. Mugshot. All this, I believe it's a good idea to have your photo in your email signature because if the person hasn't met you they know what you look like if they're going to meet you. The other thing is the trust and the credibility factor. So it just adds that element of personalization and confidence. No links in the graphic. Did I mention that already? Your catch cry, your claim to fame. Don't use too many colors, make it gentle on the eye. And sectionize your signature as well. That's really important, because I've seen some signatures that actually have all of the right elements in there, they've got testimonials, they've got links, they've got their memberships and accreditations and all of that but there's so much information in there. Having that much information is fine as long as it's broken up so that as you're viewing it it's easy to absorb. So it's really important to sectionize your email signature. Put your contact details, but not your flippin' email address. It's such a waste.
06:33 Links. Tell them what to do. I discussed that. Call to action. You know, visit your website, connect with us socially. Testimonials. I don't have them but I think it's a great idea. Absolutely. I do have a link through to where my reviews are, or I did have. Now I'm actually asking for reviews. Your membership or affiliations. Booking appointment software. So I've done that. I mean, that is such a massive time saver. I should actually do a segment just on that, this booking software for those who need to make it easy for their clients to make appointments with them. It's just a massive time saver. All this email back and forth. Tuesday's good for me. Morning or afternoon? Oh, morning. But I can't. Really?
07:26 Now, the other thing is that I notice a lot of people ... with your email signature, when you send an email ... If I went to our link and send an email it'll insert my email signature. But there's also a setting, and I use outlook, where your replies and your forwards, you can include you signature or not. I personally do because I don't see any reason why I wouldn't. It just makes it easier if that person wants to respond, they scroll down, they see my phone number, pick up the phone, phone me. And that's why I sort of go on about this, is because quite often I get people communicating with me and their contact details just aren't there and then I've got to go and hunt for it and then I get an interruption and I don't get back to them that day. And, well, you know what? They're making it hard for me to do business with them. And that's just dumb.
08:20 Any disclaimers that ... and a lot of people use disclaimers, but look, it doesn't have to be a bloody billboard. You know, make the text smaller. It just, I don't know. Overkill.
08:33 Outcomes. Here's the thing. When it's set up, it's set up. And it delivers consistent results, and it doesn't have to be massive results. That's where a lot of people, I think, don't connect the dots here. You know, when it's done it's done, and if you get five, ten, clicks through to your website per week, per month, per whatever, you're not having to do anything to get that traffic. Why would you not do it? You'll direct through to your website, through to your social platforms, your calendar bookings page, it just makes sense.
09:09 So, there's a blog post. So this is a summary of all of that. So I hope that helps. Now, that's going to be a wrap for today but here's the thing. Your mobile phone signature. Now this is where a lot of people totally blow it. Now, in a mobile phone your email signature, all you do is you go to your phone, your app, go to settings and look for signature. And all you want to do in your mobile phone email response is add your phone number. You don't want the full sexiness of an email signature like that with all the graphic. It's not going to work on a mobile. But at least have your contact details because you don't know how people are going to be ... what platform they're going to read your response on and quite often I'm mostly on my PC. I get response from a mobile phone and, again, the contact details are not in there and it says something like, 'Get Outlook for Android'. Right, so you're advertising Android's or Outlook's via your email signature. Why would you do that? What's that doing to your branding? Is it making you look professional? Yeah, no. So, have a look at all of this because it does make a difference in your business.
10:27 Okay. That's it. So if there's no questions. If there's no points to make. Does anybody have anything to say on this?
10:37 Hopefully it adds value and will make a difference for you. If you want to join our group for more business tips, that's Smart Tank Mastermind. I'll put a link in the comments thread. I will also put a link through to this blog post, which I did over a year ago. And I'll put another link to this anatomy which is just a very short check list. So, if you think a friend or colleague will benefit from this, give us a thumbs up, that's awesome, love it, spread the word. And I'll also load this video along with a transcript to my website. So just go to smarterwebsites.com.au
11:20 I hope that helps. If you need any help at all, give me a shout out. That's Peter Butler from Smarter Websites here. Go and work smarter.