Quick Tip: Market Your Brand Through Your Email Signature

You’ve got all your social networking profiles. You blog. You podcast. You share your work online. You’re a self-promoting, bootstrap marketing machine! But, are you missing one of the easiest ways to promote yourself and your work?

I like to write these intros all suspenseful-like, but obviously if you noticed the title of this post, or the picture above, you already know where I’m going with this; have you neglected the noble email signature?

Most of the time when you see an email signature in the wild, it comes in one of two varieties: the Name/Title/Address/Phone/Fax/Email combo, or the Inspirational Quote/Funny Joke in 25 pt Comic Sans in Bright Purple. Neither of these is the most effective beast to promote your brand.

Here’s a couple quick-hitting tips to build a lean, mean, monster of an email signature:

1. Keep it Lean, Keep it Clean: Your recipient has already read your email message. Don’t assault them with another twelve lines of text. And certainly make sure it’s proofread and in an easy-to-read-font. 11-point Arial for the win!

2. Leave Room For Your Elevator Pitch: Your contact info is important. But is your fax number necessary on every call? The work phone and the cell? And the recipient clearly has your email address already. Keep contact details to a short line or two and spend another two lines on a link to your work/product/company/etc and a slugline enticing your recipient to click the link.

3. Love Your Signature, But Don’t Share it Every Time: That signature is a fine piece of work. It’s attractive, simple, informative, and enticing. But if your recipient has already seen it more than twice, your recipient has seen it too many times. If you kept handing out your business card to the same person every time you met, what would that person think? That you don’t remember them? That you just shill yourself to everyone you meet? That she’s not interested in talking to you anymore?

Share your awesome signatures in the comments section (and shamelessly share your links, we’ll look the other way), or give us your thoughts on what makes or breaks an email signature.

The Dude

Fat Dude Design: Web And Graphic Design for Artists and Entertainers