Enhancing brand impact with branded email signatures: A comprehensive guide

Introduction

An email signature is a simple yet powerful way to boost your brand’s credibility and visibility. It immediately tells recipients who you are and what you do, creating the right impression for the rest of your email.

In this guide, we'll explore the realm of email signature branding, underlining its importance and how to optimize it for business. You'll get top advice on the best email signature options.

What is email signature branding?

So, what exactly is email signature branding? It's the practice of aligning your email signature—the block of text at the end of an email message—with your overall brand image.

A branded email signature can include a professional headshot, company logo, contact information, and social media links that reflect your unique brand.

It offers several benefits, such as improving brand consistency and professionalism, while making it easy to share your contact details. Think of it as a digital business card that accompanies every email you send.

The role of brand identity in email signature branding

Why bother incorporating brand identity into an email signature? Your brand represents who you are and what you stand for as a company or individual—a cohesive, consistent representation across all touchpoints ensures greater recall and recognition from customers.

You can strengthen the perception of your brand by integrating specific design elements. Aspects such as logos, colors and fonts, with appropriate legally compliant content, can be woven into every bit of external communication.

How to implement powerful email branding

Developing effective branded signatures involves combining technical skills and creativity.

Start with identifying objectives behind implementing them, whether it's promotion or simply disseminating contact information.

Align those with visually appealing design aesthetics represented through company logos or mottos on different platforms, including websites or print media. Explicit planning boosts brand power.

The role of email signature management platforms

Automation involved in email signature management platforms helps ensure uniform employee emails are sent daily.

These programs allow easy changes, reducing individual effort and establishing a solid brand presence. With a professional setup and your organization's backing, an email signature management platform positively influences client perception.

The top 10 tips for email signature branding

Bear in mind that establishing powerful email signature branding also requires adhering to certain rules.

Check out our Top 10 tips for email signature branding to create a branded signature that’ll impress your email recipients.

1. Do treat emails like all other forms of corporate communications 

Professional email signature branding is designed to reflect a company’s ethos and credibility. When a signature is designed well, it promotes your brand positively. 

We recommend using one email signature template and varying your branding according to the sender’s department. In other words, give customer services one signature and the sales team another. 

2. Don't let everyone design their own email signature 

Create an email signature policy, so everyone uses the same email signature branding. Otherwise, you risk end users presenting incorrect contact information, using their own personal branding, or doing reputational damage to your organization. 

If in doubt, use a dedicated email signature management solution, so users can’t modify the design. You’ll then be assured that all employees will always have the right email signature branding. 

3. Do use brand guidelines to inform your signature design 

Any email that reaches someone who isn’t part of your company gives an immediate representation of what you stand for. The quality of your email signature branding plays a large part in this. A bad design will reflect badly on your organization. 

Having a branded email signature accompanied by your company logo and contact information makes you look legitimate and helps build brand recognition among your contacts. 

4. Don't use custom fonts 

You should always choose a font that closely matches the message body of your emails. If your organization uses Verdana, this should be the font you use in your signature. 

Choose a clean font that’s easy to read, such as Tahoma, Arial or Sans-Serif (no Comic-Sans!). Also, don’t make the font size bigger than 12 points to ensure easier visibility. 

5. Do code signatures properly 

Make sure you use a web designer to code your branded email signature template in HTML. However, be aware that signatures don’t work like a web page, so should not be designed in the same way. If you run a small business and no one knows HTML, create a plain text signature instead. 

Also, make sure to do lots of testing before deploying the signature companywide. An email signature in Gmail might not necessarily look the same in Outlook or on an iOS device. 

6. Don't use a full image for your branded email signature 

Unless you’re using email signature software, don’t design your signatures as a full image. A branded email signature design like this can cause messages to get marked as spam due to the image-to-text ratio being too low. It’ll also cause you numerous problems when you need to update the template later. 

Images also increase the file size of an email, which increases the time it takes for a recipient to open your messages. This could cause complications if some of them have slow internet connections. 

7. Do embed or host any signature images 

If you want to include images, such as social media icons, either embed them directly into the design or host them externally. Don’t just copy and paste them directly into your template.

If you aren’t sure which method to use, consider how your recipients view the messages you send them. If a large percentage use email clients like Outlook, then use embedded images. If, however, you know that many recipients view emails on mobile devices, use hosted imagery instead. 

In either case, never forget to add the appropriate Alt Text for all images. This way, if a recipient is unable to view them, they’ll at least know what they represent. 

8. Don't forget about mobiles 

Your branded email signature needs to be optimized for smartphones and tablets. If a recipient can’t easily put their thumb on a link in your email signature, your message might get deleted. 

Also, reading speed on a mobile tends to be slower than on a computer. This means you’ll want to use a font with a point size of 11 to 14. Usability must take precedence over design. 

9. Do keep your email signature branding simple 

An email signature doesn’t have to be complicated. It just needs a clean design, look as professional as possible, and be easy to read. Once you’ve got this right, you can include additional elements, such as display banners for marketing campaigns and social media icons. 

10. Don't include irrelevant information like quotes 

Email signature quotes should be used sparingly, and only if they're representative of your brand strategy and values. 

It’s important to note that not all people’s values align with your own, so try to avoid quotes. 

Unlocking the secrets to a successful branded email signature

Understanding the potential within email signatures can revolutionize your email marketing strategy. A well-planned, professional, and aesthetically pleasing branded email signature helps set you apart.

Whether it's driving traffic to your latest blog post, promoting your social media profiles, or simply ensuring consistency across all company communications—a branded email signature is a subtle yet powerful brand reinforcement tool.

Using platforms like Exclaimer, you can streamline the process of creating engaging and uniform email signatures across your whole organization.

The design interface allows you to seamlessly integrate all critical components—logos, contact details, legal disclaimers— while automatically syncing them without requiring any IT intervention.

Push your branded email signatures with Exclaimer and claim a free trial, or speak to us and get an online demonstration.