Make Sure You Have the ‘Ultimate Email Signature’

Don't let your email signature be a 'blind spot' for you.

It actually really can make all the difference in building your business.

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DO YOU NEED HELP WITH YOUR EMAIL SIGNATURE?

CALL 08 9439 2820 NOW OR SIMPLY FILL IN THE FORM BELOW

If at a minimum, this helps you get more click throughs to your website, and that's from qualified people. So they're likely to stay longer and visit more web pages.

You get brownie points from Google. And more likely to get new business too. I'm Peter Butler, Smarter Websites.

Here's how you can make sure you have the ultimate email signature.

Question, is your email signature done badly?

Is it damaging your reputation and possibly getting new business?

Or at a minimum, it's making it hard for people to do business with you.

Like so many business owners totally blow this. And in my mind it's bordering on business negligence. It's actually not that hard.

In this blog post, there's literally no sale, nothing to buy, but hopefully lots of takeaways.

Just simple stuff that you can do yourself to get better leverage. And to me it's all about leverage.

Everything we do, we want to get more than one thing out of it. So, the short story here, is we're gonna do seven quick reviews with a mix of great things that you should do, things you most definitely should not do ... With a summary of takeaways you can do yourself.

Now I chose these business owners simply because I've been masterminding with them for years. Or, they've been a strategic part of my business growth for years.

Really sorry to anyone who feels left out but these people also represented a great range of pros and cons in email signatures.

So let's go with the first guy I've known for years, Evan Kolbe.

Now Evan helps business owners implement systems to free the business owners from their day to day grind in their business. He's a really savvy operator. His email signature is very simple, it is actually due for an update ... Sorry Evan. He's got his phone contact details, address if that's important to you, they can find it online. It's all about maximizing the real estate here. Now Evan has two business fronts, now those links are pretty close together, so I would recommend that he help define those. So it's clear to the visitor. Logo, state of practice, and a link through to Facebook. He's not really telling anybody to click through to there, but it is quite obvious.

Now there's also no, what he's missing is what I call BURPS. Most people call the USP, unique selling position.

BURPS stands for 'best unique resonating position statement'. Just as the actual acronym, this will be transcribed to you'll be able to grab that from there if it's of use to you.

Evan has a disclaimer, great, and he's minimized the size of that, so that's good.

The next one we'll review is Mark Fregnan.

Now this is a very sexy signature, Mark runs Axia Accounting Franchise. Very clever man, very savvy operator, really good marketer. Beautiful layout, lots of info but it's clean. Two main colors, beautiful. He's got a fantastic USP or burps. Brilliant statement there, also support by his five great reasons to choose Axia. Now he's also got his links, we'll look at those in a minute, um, but here he's got his web link. Now this is a graphic, this whole graphic here is actually one big link, but he's made it very obvious that it's a link to his website, so that was really well thought out, well planned.

Interestingly enough, these aren't direct links though to his social platforms, they're actually a link, I'll just show you those ... They're actually a link through to a web page and it's a really good idea. It's really clever Mark, well done. So have a read of that, the link is up there. So have a look at that online, but yeah brilliant concept very clever.

Okay back to the signatures themselve...

The next one lined up is Tracy Loubser. Tracy runs Confident Cashflows.

She's my cash-flow queen, she's my financial performance consultant.

Lots of great stuff here, absolutely brilliant, however, it does need formatting because it's become very busy over the years. And this happens for all of us, you know, we add stuff, improve stuff and then we need to sort of stand back sometimes and reevaluate.

So she's leveraging from as seen in the media which is absolutely brilliant, goes to credibility, goes to authority. One of the things she has done, these are links through to her actual website. So although these articles are posted on other magazines, it's was a wise move for her to post those on her website with links from their to those media exposures. Because you never know when those media exposures may change and you don't want to be having broken links and things like that. So, wise move.

There is ... So lots of credibility, memberships, affiliations, awards, all of those sorts of things. Absolutely brilliant. Now, if you look really hard you'll be able to see the separate divisions, so there's one business front that Tracy runs and this is a second business front that Tracy runs. Now it's not really that obvious so that's one thing I would recommend. But certainly is massive credibility and authority here.

One thing that could probably be eliminated from the mix is the email address. You're sending this email, so the email address is here, none of us need our email address in our email signature. So that can be removed, so with a little bit of formatting and also adding you burps too Tracy. Because it's not really clearly stated here.

Okay the next one is Vanessa Moore.

Now Vanessa is a great business coach. Vanessa's been on my team for a number of years now. Helps me to strategize better, manage things better and make mark improvements in my business.

So the elements of Vanessa's email are great photo, fantastic for making it personal, and especially in this genre as well. You know, really high trust factor. She's leveraging from the action coach branding which is a wise move. Contact details are good. I'm not sure about the postal details whether they're required ... They may well be ... There may be a reason to have that but people can find those online. Link through to the website ... I'd probably encourage an update to tell people what to do. Just having a website link is all very well and good, but tell people to go there. And you know, make it a bit of a traffic driver, because that's how we're gonna get our business. All of our marketing is around getting people to go to our websites to get them engaged to you know, put us in front of those people even more.

The awards is fantastic, down here, so that's absolutely brilliant, and also the disclaimer. Now for some people a disclaimer's important, I don't use it, but each their own. If you're gonna have to have one, for whatever reason, then you can minimize the size of the text, it doesn't need to be the same size text.

Okay next candidate is David Osborne.

Now David is a fantastic operator, excellent at helping business owners get the right people the first time around. Really good at what he does. Again, this signature is outdated but there's some elements in it that I wanted to showcase. So again, photo is good for trust and credibility. Photo is a bit old though, you need to work on that. Your reviews, this is what really stood out for me with this, you know ... Having testimonials, you know what other people say about us is infinitely more powerful than what we say about us. So incorporating testimonials into your email signature is a really good move. I would just recommend maybe looking at the layout, again, no need for the email address. Contact number great, link to the website as I said before, you know, tell them what to do, visit our website.

You know, perhaps put a graphic in there. Again you could minimize this, the size of this text to get a better layout.

Okay that's that one, next one on the list is me. So, my signature, photo again, for credibility, for trust. My USP needs to be updated I'm doing that with a business group that I'm working with at the moment so that's about to be updated.

One of the things that I really want to drive is reviews. So I've got a special webpage, something that we can set up for people if you're interested. That's the link you can go and check it out, I've got a link here, I'll just quickly show it to you. So we direct people to here, so after we've done business, again as I said earlier, what others say about us is infinitely more powerful than what we say about us. And we get to make it easy for people to give reviews.

So people get directed through this webpage, if they've logged into their Google account they can click on there. Give us a review on Google, Google reviews are gold, like seriously. Same as Facebook reviews and true local as well.

They're the top three's, because they actually show up in the search results, so you know, really important to do that. So this is actually a whole system, right from when you finish doing business with a client to handing over to say hey thanks for your business, whatever, you send them this, because they're at their highest emotive state. That's when they're more likely to give you a review, so it's a fantastic system so ...

Shout out if you want to know more.

If they're not any of those platforms, we've also incorporated so they can give it to you on your website. So if that's of value certainly give us a shout out and we can talk you through it. The other thing that's been a big time saver for me is having an online booking system. I won't go to the link but people can click on that link rather than this email bantering, what's good for you? Wednesday, great, Wednesday, afternoon or morning? Okay what time in the afternoon, seriously.

I need to have a life. So basically it's click on that link, they can make a time that suits them, I get a notification that's entered into my calendar, done. So that's a really valuable business add on.

And as I said, you know, earlier, we've got to tell people what to do, I've had web links but my click throughs were quite low. But I've now learned that by just telling people, visit our website, just that simple statement, I've improved my click throughs. So 'cause I'm telling people what to do, same as any call to action. Connect with us socially, I'm getting more click throughs, it's quite amazing. And our software, when we send out email campaigns track that, so I know I've had an increase.

But as well as that I send a lot more emails one to one direct from outlook, and so I know that you know, I've had a massive boost in click throughs.

Okay next up we have an anonymous person.

Now this person I was trying to connect with digitally. I'd sent this email and they responded, this was their response. Now I knew that we were going to be a good match, it was going to be a good strategic relationship. I was going to be able to pass work to them, they were gonna be able to pass work to me, and I got this email response from them, there was no contact details at all and basically the meeting never happened. It just became too hard, we all get busy, if we don't make it easy for our prospects, our clients, our colleagues, our friends to get a hold of this, same thing's gonna happen. That's what this is all about. So there's a classic case.

Now the next review, last one is Philip Platcher.

Now Philip, I have permission from Philip to use this. Now this is a classic whoops from a graphic person. So Philip is a legend in HRM Compliance, he doesn't operate that business anymore, he's got a new focus in life. And I do have his blessing on showcasing this.

The photo is great, absolutely brilliant, trust factor again, contact details, whatever needs to be there, that's your choice. But here's the classic mistake. Connect with us on social media. Well, that's one big graphic. With those little social media icons built in. They're not clickable links. Connect with us, well you know what, I can't. There's a web address link, I can't click on that to get though to his web address. So, you know, with this graphic, it wasn't easy to be able to connect.

A few other points that need to be made.

Do you still use a service provider email like Gmail or Hotmail or the like?

Yeah... No! You need to stop that, seriously you need to move on.

I'm not saying get rid of the account and such, set it up as a forwarder or whatever. But just don't do business with it, it just doesn't look professional. Plus, if your email signature's not setup correctly with a link to your website, I can't read your email address to find out what your web address is.

I often check a person's website based on the domain email. If they have a bad email signature with no link to their website, I look at their email, check the domain extension, and I go and check them out online.

So, you know when I get promo emails with a service provider, yeah nah ... Not likely to do business with you... your bad.

Question, do you have multiple email accounts?

Here's a scenario, you want to pass on a referral. This is a true story, you send an email to both people.

==========

Hey John, meet Scott, and Scott meet John. (These are real names used to protect no one)

Scott is a stellar copywriter, feel confident in referring him to your business colleagues.

Best Regards, Peter Butler.

==========

John does his due diligence, checks out Scott's web address from the domain email he used. It's an old website and the email address is the old one. Big whoops. He has since relaunched his business with a fresh domain and a website that reflects his business better. But he's still using the old email. Whoops.

And his other email account is an at Gmail dot com. Yeah no, fail.

John was not impressed and Scott basically didn't get the referral or any subsequent work as a result, first impressions count, so big whoops. Moral of the story, if you have multiple email accounts, make sure you're using the best one.

So wrapping this up.

STATEMENT of FACT

Every marketing piece should call someone to take an action. This getting your name out there and branding talk as a standalone justification is crap.

Your marketing work needs to invoke and outcome, a result, same for your business.

Be a marketer first and foremost and take charge.

ANATOMY of a GOOD EMAIL SIGNATURE (Summary Here)

So I'm going to run through now the anatomy of a good email signature.

Now this is gonna be listed so you can listen if you like or you can just look through the notes, the transcription.

So graphics and design, have no links in a main image unless it's your main web link and it's obvious it is.

Like Mark Fregnan's in the video that I showed earlier. Your images, make sure they're sharp, not blurry graphics. The size of the graphic, not too big, not too small. Mugshot, I recommend your photo for personalization and confidence, the trust factor. No links in the graphic, did I mention that already?

Your catch try, or your burps or USP. Don't use too many colors, you can see in some that we've shown, probably too many colors, too bold, too bright. Make it gentle on the eye.

Sectionize your signature.

So, it's easy to follow.

Contact details, but not your email address.

Links , tell them what you want them to do.

Great to have a link to your website and social media platforms. But you will see an increase in click throughs if you tell them what to do. Visit our website, then the link, connect with us socially, then the various links. Which is quite clever.

Reviews and testimonials, I don't have them but I think it's a great idea. I've already shared with you our idea for getting more reviews and testimonials online, so you can see that at smarterwebsites.com.au/smarter-reviews.

Memberships or affiliations, only use that which is actually going to help prospect confidence. Or give you some sort of leverage. Things are gonna benefit.

Booking appointment software, if this is gonna save you time, absolutely just do it.

And I will have another blog post about different software that's becoming available now. So that's quite useful.

Here's a classic, too.

New messages and replies, forward settings. So, most people use Outlook, and you can have your replies and forwards set to not carry your email signature. Some people do that, I don't, I always have my email signature. Look I can understand why some folk would deactivate it. If you have a lot of internal business email traffic, but, then again, maybe another way of communicating internally would be a better option. My recommendation is have the extra email signature turned on for both new messages and replies forwards.

Disclaimers, make the text smaller. If you really do need to have one. And a little bit of white space between the bottom of your signature and the disclaimer.

Outcomes, here's the thing, anything that is setup properly from the get go will deliver consistent results. Even if it's only marginal, it's worth doing because you only have to do it once, so just make it happen.

Here's the raw outcomes, you will get more traffic through to your website, to your social platforms, and your calendar bookings page. When I send out those broadcast emails from our email marketing software, we do track all the click throughs and I do see the free traffic that we generate from using a well set up email signature.

It just works. So that's the free traffic like I said, that we're just getting from an email broadcast. Plus I send a lot more emails one on one direct from Outlook.

As I said earlier about marketing, always have a call to action so what's my call to action here?

What do I want you to do?

If this post and this video added value to your business, please comment and share.

That's it, it's that simple.

So I really hope this added value to your business. Please do comment and share this.

So that's Peter Butler, Smarter Websites, so go market smarter. I hope that helps.

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DO YOU NEED HELP WITH YOUR EMAIL SIGNATURE?

CALL 08 9439 2820 NOW OR SIMPLY FILL IN THE FORM BELOW

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