Effective Email Signature

An email is probably the most widely used form of daily correspondence. It triumphs over social media by being able to deliver private, transactional messages, which result in being able to help increase customer retention. Sending effective e-mails can also help increase traffic to your website and build loyalty with your contacts and customers. Once you realize the importance of emails that are sent out daily, you will want an official format for all your staff email signatures.

With that said, Here are some very basic tips for developing a standard email signature. After reading the list, remember that rules are meant to be broken. Stay with the basic information and outline and then change it according to your needs.

Basic Contact Information 
Consider the scenario of a client or co-worker needing to contact you by phone. They know they have emails from you so they do a search… only to find that every message contains no contact info… just “Sincerely, John D.”   Make sure you have the most critical identifiers in your template:  Name, Title, Company, Email, Phone, Website.

Keep It Simple 
The purpose for the standard is to obtain consistency across the organization and define a format that services all email clients, operating systems, and mobile devices.

Height and Width
Try to limit your signature to 5 lines with no more than 80 characters each

Universally Accepted Delimiter 
Use the accepted signature delimiter (–) to help your signature get recognized as such by email clients.

Font 
Use ‘Arial’ as the standard.   If Arial is unavailable, use another Sans Serif font such as Helvetica, or Geneva.   These fonts are generally available across all operating systems and devices.

Size
Use the plain/default sized text for your email client.   If undefined, set the size to 10px-12px or 10pt-12pt.


Rich Text Formatting 
Use plain text so the signature is compatible with all email clients and devices.  Skip colors, special fonts, bold, italics, and graphics.


Images & Logos 
Do not use images or logos within the email signature.   Images can come across as attachments and appear chaotic.  Many email clients and mobile devices block the appearance of images. Images can also increase the size of email inboxes exponentially.  For those with inbox size limits, this can get annoying.  If adding an image is a must, make sure the image is hosted on a web server.

Mailing Addresses 
You may want to exclude the mailing addresses in the signature.  It can take up too much space.  If they want to know your address, they will click to your website.

HTML 
Do not include any HTML in the signature.  Nearly every email client recognizes inline HTML used in an ASCII signature.


Personal Contact Information
The signature is designed to be kept as short as possible while providing the most important contact information.  Do not include personal contact information, with the exception of mobile phone.  Only include alternate business-related contact fields (IM, Conference, Skype, etc) if you have a unique role that requires this information and and inclusion of such information is absolutely necessary.

Basic Example
John Doe
Business Manager | Company Name
1222 Side Street
Nothing, TN 37777
Direct: 333-333-3333
Fax: 333-333-3333
Mobile: 333-333-3333
Email: John.Doe@Nothing.com
  

*********************************************************************

CONFIDENTIALITY STATEMENT

This electronic message transmission contains information from Company Name, Inc. and is confidential and/or legally privileged and shall remain the property of Company Name, its subsidiaries, affiliates and parents companies. The information is intended only for the use of the designated person(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of or any other action or reliance based on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited. If you received this electronic transmission in error, please notify the sender by telephone at the numbers listed above