Professional email signatures: Top tips & 20+ examples
13 May 2024
0 min read
Discover the significance of professional email signatures in this comprehensive guide. Learn expert tips to elevate your email signature's impact in an inbox. By mastering these essential components, you can enhance your brand's professionalism, extend your marketing reach, and boost feedback effectiveness.
What is an email signature?
An email signature is a powerful tool for professionals looking to enhance their communication and branding. This customizable text block automatically appears at the end of your emails, acting as a professional sign-off.
A good email signature includes essential details like your name, job title, company name, and contact information. You can also add your business logo, social media links, or marketing materials to increase your brand visibility.
A professional email signature boosts your credibility and makes it easier for people to contact you. It's an easy way to share key details, promote your services, and boost engagement. Whatever your job role, a good email signature helps build trust and keeps your online image polished.
Why’s a professional email signature necessary?
Professional email signatures are essential for creating a strong impression and adding credibility to your messages. They not only showcase the sender’s credentials but also provide clear and valuable contact information. Think of a professional email signature template as a modern-day digital business card for your brand.
When designed thoughtfully, professional email signatures can do much more than share basic details. They can help promote your brand identity, highlight key marketing messages, and ensure compliance with legal requirements.
What to include in a professional email signature
A professional email signature block should be eye-catching yet simple. It should contain key personal and business information, including contact details, website links, and other valuable materials.
Businesses should also consider the visual elements of their signatures for email. These include, logos, banners, certifications, awards, and a legal disclaimer.
The best email signature examples are made up of many vital components. These all work together to offer businesses of any size multiple marketing and feedback opportunities.
Now, let’s break down each part to understand how to use them in a professional email signature.
Ensure your professional email signature is up-to-date
Contact details are the foundation of any professional email signature. All business emails must include a minimum of standard contact details that are easy to read.
What contact details should you include?
1. The employee’s first (given) name and surname
You’d be surprised how many people think using a nickname is acceptable. Over 30% of business email signatures don’t even include a name.
2. Job title
This lets recipients know what type of person they’re dealing with. They may rely upon your job titles to understand the structure of your organization and the way it runs.
3. Company name
Having your company name in your corporate email signature is a no-brainer. This can be done using plain text, but we recommend using your corporate logo instead.
4. Phone number
Use the main number the employee can be reached on, whether it's a landline or business mobile.
5. Email address
Some email clients like Outlook and Gmail show display names instead of email addresses. When forwarding an email, the recipient might only see “John Smith” or “Sarah Green.” Include your email address in your signature with a “mailto:” link instead.
6. Web URL
Adding a link to your company’s website is a great way to get additional online traffic. This is especially true considering how many emails your organization sends daily.
Use photo images to humanize email conversations
Creating a signature for email with a photo image can help build extra professionalism and trust with recipients.
Personal photos are popular on social media, showing that adding a face can make written communication more effective.
You can include a photo in your internal email signature, an external one, or both – it’s up to you.
How to use images in email signatures
Personal images can be a powerful tool for connecting with the recipient. Here’s how to use them effectively and professionally in signatures for email:
High quality refers to the image quality – which should be high-resolution – and the image itself. Professional email signatures aren’t the place for party pictures or social snaps – instead, include professional headshots.
Consistent in design – professional signatures for email should be minimal, sharp, and consistent in their design, including personal images. This means formatting the image in a shape that blends with the broader design – this is often a 1×1 square headshot.
Friendly and approachable – email signature images should invite the recipient to continue the conversation. A headshot that includes a warm smile encourages engagement compared to a frown or a cheesy grin.
Incorporate appropriate email signature quotes
Including a favorite quote in your email signature can effectively add personality, spark conversation, and even convey information.
Quotes are popular additions to personal email signatures. Just remember to keep the quote professional – think of an industry leader, expert or respected figure.
Place these in the white space below the sender’s contact information and social media links.
Use calls-to-action
Calls-to-action (CTAs) can be included as part of a professional email signature. These can include social media and website links, feedback surveys, or marketing assets like videos or commercial links.
The key to a compelling email signature call-to-action is to make what the user needs to do clear. Encourage them with eye-catching images or incentivizing copy.
This could include an Instagram logo that clearly signals a gallery of images. It might also feature sales copy like "*Exclusive Email Offer: Get 25% off your order*."
Include your company logo and branding
Images play an essential role in any company's reputation. Consistency and familiarity are critical to a company’s identity. Always remember that signatures for email must conform to your brand guidelines.
Most companies spend a long time developing their brand and taking it to market. Professional email signature blocks reflect your brand just as much as any other branded material.
The best professional email signatures follow brand guidelines to show a company’s professionalism. Adding your corporate logo helps build and promote brand awareness.
Let recipients easily schedule meetings with an appointment calendar link
Add calendar links to your email signature to make scheduling meetings or demos easy.
All they need to do is click on the scheduling link and choose a time that works best for them. This avoids lengthy email conversations and makes scheduling your time much more straightforward.
Also, by linking to your calendar, you can let people know your working hours. This can be used to make sure your business email signature always gives helpful information to your business contacts.
Use promotional banners to turn your email signature into a marketing channel
Professional email signatures are a great way to share marketing material without triggering spam filters. Add eye-catching banners with great design and compelling sales copy.
The middle section of your professional email signature template is the perfect location to display a graphical marketing banner. Here, you can provide a clear call-to-action to access new content like white papers, highlight special offers, access exclusive discounts, and more.
Even better, all clicks free, unlike with many other marketing channels.
How to use an email signature banner
Always go for simplicity with the design. A banner typically goes below the contact details, so it naturally carries weight and credibility. There will be no other distractions for an engaged reader. You can tone down the intensity of the design, so your message lands more effectively.
Consider altering the banner messaging for different teams. For example, potential buyers could see a special offer, while a regional office could promote a local event. You could also bring up potential upsell or cross-sell opportunities.
Use display banners to keep employees updated with the latest internal communications. Examples include internal job opportunities, company-sponsored training, corporate events, and general office reminders. Employees will then passively read and process the message without feeling the pressure to take immediate action.
Make sure your banners don’t go stale. The best signatures for emails form part of integrated marketing campaigns. Don’t continue promoting expired promotions or using banners that no longer conform to your brand guidelines. Keep on top of these just as much as you would any other of your marketing assets.
Track their performance. Add tracking code or UTM parameters to the URL in the email banner. This helps you track customer engagement and conversions through an analytics platform. Use this data to promote successful designs and calls to action over less effective ones.
Maintain legal compliance with an email disclaimer
Email disclaimers are the legal copy included at the bottom of signatures on emails. They protect the sender against any legal consequences associated with how the recipient uses the content of the email.
This is where businesses usually include their legal details, like their name, address, and registration info.
Email disclaimers may be old-fashioned, but many organizations still rely on them for legal and safety reasons.
Using an email disclaimer usually means:
The specific content of any disclaimer text will vary according to where your emails are going and when.
Parts of an email disclaimer may need to be personalized to meet specific rules..
Email signature disclaimer best practice
Place the disclaimer apart from the rest of the signature on your email. This is ideally after the logo and display banner.
Make sure the disclaimer font is small. No one wants their email taken over with a massive text block.
Gain customer insight by using one-click feedback buttons
Turning a professional email signature into a customer feedback channel and a marketing one is easy.
You can gain valuable customer insight by adding simple one-click feedback buttons to your professional email signature template.
How to use a survey in an email signature
Adding an intuitive and non-invasive customer survey to professional email signatures is easy. These typically feature happiness or satisfaction scales, with buttons represented as universal icons like emoticons or stars.
With just the click of a button, customers can offer essential feedback. These buttons can direct customers to different landing pages to add further comments.
As with all other elements on signatures for email, ensure these survey buttons aren’t too large and distracting. They should be discreet yet noticeable enough that people want to click on them.
Showcase credibility with certifications and award logos
Corporate certifications and company awards in professional email signatures often provide value. However, they need to be managed and used correctly.
Adding achievements to email signatures highlights employees' expertise and boosts their morale.
The same is also true if you win an industry award. It tells recipients that you are the best at what you do and that your industry has recognized you.
Crafting signatures for email that actively showcase award achievements ensures they reach thousands of recipients, boosting their visibility significantly.
Add a banner with logos or icons showcasing achievements boosts authority in emails.
Include social media icons in your email signature
Finally, use your company email signatures to promote social media profiles and share your latest content.
Adding social media links to your email signature grows your audience and boost your marketing reach. It also helps build customer loyalty.
Include small social media icons in your signature under the contact details. This allows users to access their preferred channel with just a click.
How professional email signatures and social media profiles work together
Signatures for email have a strong situational element. A recipient is already thinking about your company when reading your email. This means they can probably spare a few minutes to look at your social media profiles once they’re done.
Social media is a powerful tool and often provides the most up-to-date information about your company. Linking your profiles to your email signatures means you’re easily keeping your most important clients in the know.
To enhance engagement with your brand on social media, provide recipients an additional channel to connect with your company. Adding links to your email signature can quietly nurture leads and even work better than ads or email campaigns.
However, you must ensure that the social content you link to is relevant and up-to-date. Don’t add links to accounts you don’t use anymore. Recipients only want to read relevant and up-to-date content. Adding links to inactive social media profiles wastes their time.
Use the correct email signature format
Professional email signatures typically include the same features, such as contact details, social media icons, images, and marketing materials. However, how they are formatted and designed allows employees to appeal to various contexts and audiences.
Each aspect of a corporate email signature can be tailored to suit a chosen formality, audience, and industry. Placing important details like contact info or meeting links where they stand out can catch people's attention. Additionally, changing the size and placement of images and icons can have a similar impact.
Using professional email signature templates in your company
Email signatures can help employees meet specific industry expectations or legal requirements.
For example, those handling sensitive or confidential data can use email signatures to include regional legal disclaimers. These help protect businesses from the consequences of not following data rules like HIPAA, GDPR, or CCPA.
Similarly, signatures on emails can be used to promote a company’s green efforts. Green email signature footers are lines of text that convey the sender’s eco-credentials. They also urge the recipient not to print out the email or any documents enclosed. These are especially valuable to those in ethical or environmental roles, such as SHEQ Managers.
Regulations aside, email signatures are valuable real estate for roles in sales, marketing, and more. Including high-quality images and videos within email signatures allows Sales and Marketing Managers to demonstrate products. This provides promotional material in an easily accessible and unobtrusive format to an engaged audience.Now that you’ve seen what goes into a professional email signature, you can start making your own.
Professional email signature examples
Here are some email signature examples to inspire you:
Marketing Manager email signature example
This professional email signature example highlights the organization the Marketing Manager works at and presents her as an individual. It features a clear headshot photo and includes an appointment link for scheduling meetings.
Marketing Executive email signature example
For marketing professionals, crafting a standout email signature is key. Ensure it reflects strong branding, with links to various marketing channels. This example features social media icons to boost your company's follower count.
Sales Manager email signature example
When involved in sales, you aim to offer multiple channels for customers to transact with you. Utilize your email signature template to reach a broader audience when running promotional campaigns.
Head of Sales email signature example
Putting a face to a name is beneficial, especially for department heads. This email signature example highlights the staff member with a professional headshot photo, enhancing personal connection and professionalism.
CEO email signature example
As a CEO, you’re the face of the company you run. This is why you should use a professional email signature to showcase yourself. Any other marketing messages will also carry extra weight due to your position.
Founder email signature example
This email signature example features a compelling headshot to add a personal touch to interactions. It employs minimalistic and clear branding that enhances recipient engagement without being overpowering.
Author email signature example
Authors can use an email signature to promote their new book to business contacts. Including links to your work can enhance conversion rates with each email communication.
Software Developer professional email signature example
This signature for email uses a simple design provides different contact information. It also includes a clear CTA directing people to subscribe to the company newsletter.
Product Manager professional email signature example
Enhance corporate governance with sustainability by leveraging your email signature for green messaging. This email signature example prompts recipients to consider the necessity of printing emails.
Event Specialist professional email signature example
When your company receives an award, make sure to feature it in your email signature for increased visibility. Hyperlink the award image to provide recipients with additional details. This practice boosts recognition and engagement.
Animated GIF email signature examples
Using animated GIFs in email signatures can prove eye-catching and effective. However, many worry that animated images in signatures for emails may appear unprofessional in recipients’ inboxes.
Though some inappropriate animated GIFs exist in corporate communications, they can still be used effectively.
Animated email signature dos and don’ts
When adding animated GIFs to email signatures, keep them simple and relevant. Too much animation can distract from your message. Use GIFs wisely to avoid slowing down email loading times or causing compatibility issues on different platforms.
For modern digital businesses, animated elements can convey professionalism and creativity. Short, brand-consistent GIFs can add marketing value by telling engaging stories. Including animations like brand logos or product demos can enhance the email's impact.
To ensure optimal performance, keep animations brief, on-brand, and aligned with the overall email signature design. Avoid off-brand animations like cartoons or personal videos in professional emails.
Summary
Email signatures are an exciting opportunity to drive business conversations and engagement. They can also promote marketing materials, drive traffic to key pages or social media channels, and more.
Here’s a quick checklist to summarize the key features and benefits:
Email signature blocks have more value than just providing contact details.
Include important contact information only.
Make professional email signatures come alive by adding centrally managed user photos.
Build and promote brand awareness by featuring your company logo.
Use promotional banners to showcase marketing campaigns, testimonials, events, or special offers.
Win new followers by promoting your social media channels.
Allow recipients to schedule meetings and demos via a dedicated calendar link.
Follow international email law by including a suitable legal disclaimer.
Boost credibility by highlighting recent company awards and certificates.
Gain valuable customer insight with one-click feedback buttons.
Start creating your own professional email signature template
So, you now understand what should go into your corporate email thanks to these professional email signature examples. It’s time to start building one. Follow our guides below to quickly create a professional email signature.
Each email provider requires a unique set-up process to add, edit and manage email signatures. Select your relevant guide below:
Use Exclaimer to centrally manage your email signature blocks
You can’t create professional email signatures for all users if you can’t control them. Misspellings and outdated banners can make email signature management a hassle without one team in charge.
To make managing signatures on emails even easier, choose email signature software from Exclaimer.
Learn more and get yourself a free trial to see the power of email signature software for yourself.
