Your Email Signature is Costing You
Many of us are guilty of low-quality email signatures. “Do they even matter?”, I hear you ask. Well, you may be surprised to know that your email signatures (or lack thereof) may be hurting your business.
To better illustrate what I’m talking about, your email signature might look something like this:
… or, if you’ve tried a cheap paid service:
… as of 2018, “about 3 in 5 consumers check their email on the go and 75% of Americans say they use their smartphones most often to check email.” — Fluent, The Inbox Report, 2018. Heaven forbid your email signature may even be doing this on all those mobile devices:
This is unacceptable. Email signatures can be so more than just an afterthought. Instead, they can become a tool for growing your company.
An email signature is like a business card.
I’d like to make the argument that an email signature is like a business card — only cheaper and you can’t fiddle with it in your hands. Not everybody has one, but everyone should own some.
They serve as a tool to improve communication, and act as a vehicle for better communicating who you are and what you do.
It is important that this card is professional, consistent across your team, and aligns well with your company or organization.
Emails are often a first impression.
First impressions matter, even in the digital world — and emails are often the first point of contact you will have with someone. Studies show there is no slowing down, with a 37% impression rate for emails. First impressions are crucial, imagine for a second showing up to a networking event with that first email signature.
Try settling a $20,000 deal with that hot pile of garbage. Now, unless you were an ironic design agency, this probably wouldn’t fly. To understand why responsiveness is important, imagine half of that business card’s information was cut-off and missing.
Good luck with that call-back when the design is unprofessional and/or the information you provided is incomplete. People will take notice.
Inconsistency hurts everyone.
What’s that? Your team members don’t share similar email signatures? Hold the phone.
I’m sure we all have emailed organizations where we’ve gotten several different email signatures from different staff, or no signatures at all!
Let’s imagine for a second you’re back at that very same networking event, and this time your team was now handing out aesthetically different business cards. This communicates to your audience that they cannot expect a consistent experience from your organization.
At first glance, one would have a difficult time discerning that these two people even work for the same company. You wouldn’t permit such a thing in real life, would you? Please tell me you wouldn’t. Please.
Accenture found that 65% of customers expressed frustration over inconsistent experiences, yikes.
Email signatures are an extension of your brand.
In the same way that your handwritten signature is an extension of your personal persona, an email signature could be considered an extension of your organization.
For example, imagine you are planning on working with a high-end lawyer to perform some important legal matters for you. If you discovered his signature looks like a 6-year-olds library card, you will probably begin to second guess a lot of things.
It is important that all divisions of your brand align with what you are trying to communicate through organization’s look and feel. Otherwise, you risk losing the trust of your client.
There has to be a better way.
To summarize:
- First impressions are important, therefore it is crucial to use thoughtful, professional materials.
- Inconsistency hurts your clients and customers, therefore everyone must use consistent design.
- Your signature is an extension of your brand, therefore it is important to reflect your organization’s level of professionalism in all facets of your brand.
Luckily, there’s an easy solution. Check out Signet — professionally designed, mobile-friendly email signatures.
Our designers will work with your business or organization to create a look and feel that matches your brand. Step aside, inconsistency.
Signet also provides a fool-proof signature creator, allowing you can create all the signatures your heart desires — without having to bother your IT department.
Bad email signatures deserve to be a thing of the distant past, let your email signatures do the heavy lifting so you may build trust and confidence with your audience.
