One easy and yet often underutilized FREE outlet for marketing your own business is your e-mail signature. The little tag line at the bottom of all of your correspondence is an easy tool to keep your business at the forefront of people’s minds

How many times have you received an e-mail from a potential client, or potential vendor yet had no immediate method of contacting them, other than a reply e-mail? If it’s a yahoo, gmail or any other free e-mail account, many people stop right there. E-mail snobbery exists! To appear professional, an e-mail address using the same domain as your company website is the best way to go.

Keep your signature as simple as possible. While a certain celebrity or authors quote at the bottom might be inspiring to you, it may potentially be offensive to others. Yes, you might take pride in your country, religion or political views, but unless you intend to upset, irritate or annoy others, best to keep those gems to yourself or your personal e-mail account at best.

Start with your name, your company name, contact phone number and your website address. Adding your company logo is also a good idea as quick visual recognition. It is relatively easy to use your logo and website url in conjunction with one another and create the logo into a direct link to your site.

The formatting of your signature is also important. Try not to make the fonts too fancy, too big or too small! Also, stick to neutral colors, black, grey, navy blue for the least obnoxious results. A signature at size 20 font with pink swirly text can be extremely off-putting and a quick way to ensure your recipient will not take you seriously as a person or a business.

A full signature can often be enough for the first e-mail you send out. If communicating with customers or potential clients, e-mails can often turn into a long thread of responses back and forth. Having to scroll through your signature several times can be annoying. Set up your signature so it only occurs on the initial e-mail but not on replies. Or, if you still feel the need to end each e-mail with some sign off, have a condensed version of the sig tag for replies only.

Finally, make sure the signature is consistent. This doesn’t mean using the same one each day (although that should be a given). It means having some uniformity across your company. Each employee should be using the same format and same specifications for their signature. Set this policy early on for your business. Even if it’s just you sending out the e-mails, have a standard signature that signifies professionalism. Considering that every e-mail you send is a reflection of your business, make it a signature that counts!

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