Creating an Email Signature
By Stephanie Ashman on April 11, 2023 in Branding Web Design Tips and Tools
Everyone wants to make a powerful first impression and what better way to create a lasting impression that reinforces your brand than an email signature. An email signature is a small block that adds information to your email, which can include (but not limited to) your name, position, and contact information. Behind every correspondence, your brand will live on through your email signature and will continue to engrave your brand into your potential client’s mind.
We invite you to consider some of our best practices, along with some helpful tools.
Goals of Email Signature Design
A professional and visually-appealing email signature can be the foundation of your email marketing. An email signature can help you reach goals, including:
- Powerful brand marketing
- Create a level of trust with your clients
- Encourage reader response
- Increase engagement
- Drive traffic to your website
- Generate potential leads
What to Include in Your Email Signature
Your email signature should be a “no-frills” and straight to the point design that is consistent with your branding. It should use your brand colors, typography and elements that may be relevant to your brand. Your email signature should not be a distraction in the email with inspirational quotes, bright colors, too many icons, animations, etc.
It should include only the essential elements:
- First and last name
- Company name
- Job title
- Telephone number
- Email address
- Physical address
- Social media links
How to Create an Email Signature Design
While Paperstreet doesn’t offer email signature setup, as they are very difficult to troubleshoot with different email programs, we can assist with any design elements you may need. We do, however, have a few suggestions/tools for making your signature. Most of them are free or have a cheap annual fee to add more customization.
- https://htmlsig.com/
- https://www.wisestamp.com/
- https://mysignature.io/editor
- https://www.honeybook.com/email-signature
- https://signature.email/
- https://webapp.wisestamp.com/
- https://mysignature.io/
- https://newoldstamp.com/
- https://www.rocketseed.com/products/email-signatures/
Examples
Here are a few example of email signature improvements:
- By condensing the height of the original design, we were able to make a more compact design so it takes up less real estate in the email.
- Using simplified social media logos adds a modern touch.
- Creating differentiating factors like bold and colored abbreviations helps to break up the design and it is easier to find what you are looking for at a glance.
- Less is more. Too much color within the email signature can become very distracting. Keeping a simple color palette will allow the more important details to stand out.
- Typically, the title should go on the line below the name. In this case the title was really long and created an extremely wide design.
- Design balance is important. The logo and the contact information should be balanced in height and width if they are side by side.
- Branding is an important element to carry through your website and your email signature is no exception. Using fonts from your logo will continue to elevate your brand.
- Using abbreviation should be used when needed, but usually when there are multiple locations or phone numbers. If there is only minimal information, then abbreviations are not usually required. In this case, we removed the abbreviations to get a cleaner, more streamlined look.
- Taking a simple text email signature to the next level will improve the look of your branding in each email you send.
- Adding your logo will enhance the design and create a visually pleasing email signature.
- Instead of including your social media handle, using the logo (along with a clickable link) will make it easier for users to access your social media pages.
