Email is still the primary means of communication in business. Someone might ask: what about chat, phone, social media? True, more and more companies are adding additional contact channels for customer communication, but we still hear "send me an email" more often than "give me a call".
Business correspondence requires attention to many details - you need to take care of the subject line, greetings, valuable content, properly attached files, and at the end of the email - a professional signature.
An email signature is an important part of a message. Why?
A signature doesn't have to be boring or standard, although it's worth following certain rules. It seems simple, yet you often come across signatures that don't meet basic standards.
That's why we've prepared a short step-by-step guide to creating a professional signature.
Create a professional email signature for free
Your first and last name are essential. Your recipient should always know who they're dealing with and who to turn to if needed. Your name should appear on the first line of your signature. It's good if it stands out from the rest of the content - you can bold it or use a different color.
Right after your name, your job title should appear. This helps the recipient understand why you are contacting them and what your role is. Next to your title, it's worth adding your company name, especially if it is well recognized or is an industry leader.
In the next line of your signature, add information such as your email address and phone number. If you don't want to share your direct number, you can provide the number for your department or a hotline. Also remember to include the international prefix if you work with foreign clients.
If your company has a website, don't forget to include it in your signature. Additionally, if you run a blog and want clients to be able to contact you through it as well, this is a good place to include its address too.
In Sugester, you create an email signature in HTML format. This is certainly a more advanced method and requires some HTML and CSS skills, but it allows you to display images in various colors, sizes and shapes, add links, and format the signature appropriately. This makes the signature more professional and more engaging for the recipient.
All details such as: first name, last name, job title, phone, email, etc. are included in the Sugester email signature using Liquid variables. You can find the list of available variables here
Variables allow you to create a dynamic signature - the information in it will change depending on which user sends the message from a given address.
Here is an example of an email signature using variables:
Best regards,
--
e-mail:
tel:
When setting up your email signature in Sugester, keep in mind that there are 2 places in the system where you can do this. You can set one signature for all mailboxes in the Email Configuration, where only the user's data will be automatically substituted depending on who is sending the message. You can also set a separate signature for each email account handled in the system.
Want such a signature in your email? Use the Signature Gallery in Sugester
If your company has social media profiles, be sure to include icons for them in your signature. Is it worth having them? Absolutely. Social media platforms have good website quality and high Google rankings. It's also a great way to gain new followers and let your clients get to know you from a different angle. Social media can also help drive more traffic to your website, for example if you publish posts on Facebook with links to it. You also give clients an additional channel to communicate with you. When adding social media icons to your email signature, however, consider whether it's worth adding all of them, even those where nothing interesting has happened for a long time.
One more thing - is it better to add links or icons for social media? In our opinion, icons, because they are easily recognizable and immediately catch the eye, so the recipient instantly knows where to find you. As we know, the brain processes images much faster than text, and icons also save significant space in the signature. This space is worth keeping in mind if you don't want your signature to look chaotic and cluttered.
Also don't forget to make sure the icons link to the correct pages, so they don't redirect to wrong sites or, worse, lead nowhere.
If you're creating your email signature in Sugester, you can easily add a link to, for example, Facebook:
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/sugesterPL" target="_blank"><img height="30" src="https://files1.intum.net/s/ACCOUNTNAME/files/facebook-app-logo.png" width="30" /></a>
Be sure to add a photo or company logo to your email signature. If you want your signature to be more personal and have your name associated with your image in the recipient's mind, go for a photo in the signature.
If you want to add a photo to your signature in Sugester, first check whether you have added your avatar to your user profile (here we explain how to do it).
If so - just use the variable in the signature
You can also add the company logo to make your signature more attractive and increase the recipient's brand awareness.
How to add a logo to the signature in Sugester?
See an example of a signature below, created using our signature templates.
A good move is to include a CTA button in the email signature. The button should be consistent with the rest of the signature and should not make the recipient feel like you're trying to sell them something - rather, it should inform them about opportunities they can take advantage of.
When creating a signature, don't forget about colors. Choose muted colors that won't overwhelm the recipient and will work well with the overall signature design. If the signature includes a logo, draw inspiration from your company's colors. If you opt for your photo, a good solution is to choose a font color that matches the dominant color in the photo. The most common colors are: black (a symbol of elegance and professionalism), blue (symbolizes trust and knowledge), and green (associated with health and ecology).
You can also emphasize the hierarchy of information in the signature and highlight the elements most important to you. For example, write your name in a larger font so the recipient can easily associate it. You can also use underlining to guide the recipient's eye to what they should read first.
Check whether your signature looks good on mobile devices. Four in ten emails are opened in mobile apps. The signature should be clear and readable, so it can be easily read on a phone. Make sure the text is large enough to be easy to read on small screens, and that links are spaced far enough apart to be easily tapped with a finger.
Scale and proper use of white space between text play a big role in this regard.
Once you've finished your signature, before you send it out to the world, send it to a few test addresses - ideally from different email providers - and check whether everything looks as it should.
Create a professional email signature with Sugester
