Marketing Mistakes to Avoid – #2 Poor Use of Email Signatures

This series is for budding entrepreneurs and start-up businesses. If you have more time than money, these tips are for you. If you have made any of these common mistakes, don’t worry! With each posting, I will tell you how to quickly and inexpensively fix the problem. (Originally posted Feb. 21, 2012. Updated Apr. 19, 2015.)

Common Mistake #2 – Poor Use of Email Signatures

I see this one ALL the time, and it drives me nuts because it is so easy to correct!

I want you to think about your email signature text in a new way. Consider it as a FREE ad about your company that is included with every single message you send.

1) Does it include all the right info including such basics as: name, title, company, address, phone, fax, website, social media links?

2) Does it look professional? Is the text easy to read? Make sure your formatting looks good.

3) Are you reminding people about what services you offer or what you do? It is easy to summarize this information and have it automatically included in every message.

4) If you work for a company with more than one employee, are all the company email signatures consistent to help reinforce your brand? I often see strange adaptations of this info for people at the same company and it just makes me shake my head.

5) Are you requesting referrals and/or asking contacts to post reviews about your business? You can easily add links to your Google Places page, facebook page, or other places you want to “drive” your reviews.

6) If you reply to emails using your phone, please avoid any non-professional language in the email signature for this, as well. I doubt you will want to recreate your normal email signature for this application, but please refrain from creating something that detracts from your professionalism.

If you need inspiration, just go through your inbox and look at all the messages you receive and see what email signatures you like. Please don’t copy, but use them for inspiration to develop your own unique signature.

How to Change Your Signature in Outlook

Select “File”

Select “Options”

Select “Mail”

Select “Create or Modify Signatures”

Type in your info and save it. Test it until you get it right! (If you are using an older version of Outlook, click the “?” icon for help.)

Because I send out emails on behalf of various clients, I have several email signatures I use. You can create as many as you need.

You can also use a “signature” to create a form letter you use on a regular basis. Just type the entire letter in the signature area and close with your normal signature. You simply select this signature option whenever you want to use the letter. It is a quick and easy way to send out standard letters.

If you found this article helpful, please be sure to check out my entire series on Marketing Mistakes to Avoid and How to Fix Them and also read my series on Free Marketing Tools!