What is an email signature, goals and stages of an email signature?
One of the most effective marketing tools is an email signature. This is the name of the next stage of the development of the company’s brand and is closely related to the development of business ideology and the development of its main ideas. The signature helps to create a new image of the company and its products in the minds of customers, therefore, such a phenomenon as “create a Gmail signature” is an extremely important process in promoting your brand and distinguishing it from other competitors.
Using an email signature: concepts, goals, and key tasks
A modern email signature is a set of measures aimed at changing the brand and its components (ideology, name, logo, slogan, visual design, etc.). In the broadest sense, the goal of an email signature is to change consumers’ perceptions of your brand and business in general. To create the right signature that aligns your brand with your company’s current state and plans, it’s important to familiarize yourself with email signature templates for Gmail. Changes to the email signature can include many things, for example: updating or changing promotional materials. At the same time, we are not talking about a complete replacement of the previous brand. The brand is developing and becoming fresher and more emotional. The new quality makes the brand more attractive to old customers and makes it possible to attract new consumers. Minor changes to the brand image or marketing principles should not be reflected in the email signature. This method reflects a significant qualitative change in the company’s strategy and position in the market. Almost all points related to the brand are displayed in the email signature. The tasks in create html signature for thunderbird are to consolidate your brand, the email signature enables:
- Develop your brand identity;
- Strengthen your brand;
- Attract new customers.
When creating an email signature, they try to preserve what consumers perceive as advantages, to abandon features that reduce popularity and familiarity. The use of an email signature is necessary if one or more factors are present:
- Bad positioning of the brand at the start of work;
- Change in market conditions;
- Low brand recognition;
- Loss in competition;
- More ambitious work tasks and goals.
A professional email signature looks best if it is simple and short. Accordingly, your signature should be limited to three to four lines of text and contain only valuable information such as your name, title, and up-to-date contact information. You can highlight the text of your email signature in bold. The bold text naturally grabs the recipient’s attention and can help highlight important details in your email signature, such as your name, title, or company. You can also italicize some text. Calm and elegant colors like blue and black are the best colors for creative email signatures. However, if your email signature is not too flashy, you can choose a color that best reflects your mood, your company’s mission, and the desired call to action. Do not add unnecessary information to your email signature. Email signatures are a great way to convert recipients into loyal customers. The key is to find the right mix of images, information, and calls to action to give customers a choice without overwhelming them with too much promotional information.
Marketers point to several things that force companies to actively use email signatures. The first is to meet the current needs of your ever-changing audience. The market is becoming more competitive every day, new players are entering the market, more modern advertising media are being used, and sales channels are expanding. All these moments force the management of the company to return to the starting point, often rebuilding its image from scratch. The efforts of marketers to create new brands often go unrewarded and do not lead to audience growth or increased profits. The main purpose of using such tools as an email signature at any stage of development is to bring the company closer to the target audience of consumers and increase the overall competitiveness of the product or service, for this the available functionality offered by thunderbird html signature generator will be actively used. Failures often occur because professionals do not focus on realistically achievable positions, striving for groundless, illusory results. Too ambitious goals cannot contribute to the realistic and effective positioning of the company and its products.
Key stages of creating a creative email signature
The first stage involves an audit of the existing brand. This includes checking its condition, assessing customer preferences, and determining how it functions. The analysis of the company’s financial condition is also ongoing. The purpose of the audit is to determine the current awareness of the brand. Marketers are trying to understand whether consumers are loyal to the brand and whether there are significant obstacles to such perception. The audit allows you to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the brand, as well as its key advantages over competitors. A thorough analysis will allow you to make an informed decision about the need to change the position of the brand when creating a creative email signature. When a marketing audit shows low brand recognition, an email signature is aimed at improving this feature. In the second stage, the company’s development strategies and tactical methods of their implementation are developed. The main content of this phase is to define the elements of the email signature that need to be changed. In the third step, the selected branded product is replaced. The new positioning is created, identification systems (verbal and visual) are updated, and various communication strategies for business promotion are applied through the use of an effective email signature, which is a tool for conveying your brand to the target audience.
Using an email signature: the complexity of the technology
A modern email signature is more than just changing the icon or company name. Choosing the wrong strategy can hurt the company’s image. Customers can get confused. Part of the target audience may perceive the updated email signature as fake, and the lower prices of the products reinforce this opinion. The whole project is collapsing. A well-thought-out email signature will be successful, it will fulfill all the tasks set before it, but marketers will have to work seriously before any serious changes.
Whether you’re running a large email marketing campaign or using an email account for everyday communication, signatures are important. The method affects how your recipients will remember you. The importance of email signatures is often forgotten. It’s not just an easy way to unsubscribe from emails, it’s a way to contact the recipient. This is an effective opportunity to say something about who you are personally and to show your company professionally. Colors, fonts, and design represent brand values and are linked to all other aspects of visual media. This is an effective opportunity to connect with the client. Whether it’s inviting them to join us on social media, encouraging them to visit your website, email signatures supporting your business goals, and delivering marketing activities to promote your brand. Email signatures often contain basic contact information, but a photo can liven up your email signature and add personality to your emails. Don’t forget to smile! Animated GIFs are a great way to liven up your email signature. With just a few GIFs, anyone can go directly to your website and place an order. Links to YouTube videos are important. Modern video content is one of the most effective channels for attracting potential customers. When you’re active on YouTube, add your video to your email signature. You can also get new followers. Actively promote your product. In an e-commerce business, email signatures are used to convert leads into regular customers. Showcase your latest offers with images, descriptions, and links to product pages in your email signature.
Present your portfolio. When you’re actively involved in creative work, such as photography or graphic design, email signatures can include your latest or most popular work. Even better, each image links to the corresponding page on your site. Linking to social profiles is a common way that is actively used to increase the number of followers on social networks – you just need to add a link to your profile in your email signature. Use attractive icons that relate directly to your profile. Great reviews are one of the best indicators of your business and brand credibility. Would you like to request authentication with your signature? Link to relevant review sites to make it easy for your customers to view this important information. Submit information in your email signature as simple as possible. While you may be tempted to give recipients as much detail as possible about your business in your email signature, there are strong arguments for keeping your signature simple.
Too many calls to action and links will confuse your customers. A simple link and some social media icons have a much better chance of converting an email signature into new regular customers. Add a link to Google Maps. You decide whether to include your address in the email signature. In some cases, there is also a legal obligation to record address information. This applies to restaurants, shops, etc. When it makes sense to add this information, it’s a good idea to add a Google Maps link. Linking to a Google Map allows recipients to click on the map directly from the email while reading the message on their smartphone. This allows them to find you right away! When designing email signatures, it is important to remember that color attracts significant attention. Bright colors are needed to attract customer’s attention and convert them into repeat customers.
Using too many colors can be counterproductive. Choose the right color for your industry. For example, bright colors may be appropriate for a creative agency, while a service provider may want a more subtle palette. Make sure your colors match the rest of your brand materials. Recipients are more likely to read your emails on their smartphones than on desktops or laptops. It is important to create an email signature taking into account the needs of mobile smartphones, email signatures must be displayed correctly on them. Use a logo that looks good on small screens. Make sure your text displays correctly when read on a mobile device.
Make sure the links and icons are positioned correctly so they can be touched and work properly. Use a handwritten signature, it can make the email signature personal. The recipient will know that you did not personally write the email, but a handwritten email signature creates such an illusion. Add a call to action. You are not limited to using email signatures to receive notifications. You can encourage your customers to take an action by adding a clear call to action. It should be relevant, polite, confident, and more of an idea than an advertising proposition. Make sure your CTA has a clear message that is easy to understand. Don’t forget the privacy and legal notices. Depending on your industry, you may need to display certain disclaimers in your emails. An email signature offers a good opportunity for this. You want your email signature to be as complete as possible, but you also don’t want it to look cluttered, and ugly. Separators also provide an opportunity to organize content in email signatures. You can separate different information with spaces so that it is displayed clearly and neatly. You can also use character delimiters. This will make your email signature more visually appealing.
The most important elements of an email signature
Your name, position, and company
Please enter your name and the name of the company you represent.
Contact address
Add your company’s website and at least one phone number, but avoid unnecessary things like adding an email address.
Department
It’s a good idea to include the department you work in, but it’s not always necessary.
Company address (or link to Google map)
Ideally, you should use a link to Google Maps so as not to take up precious space in your email signature.
Disclaimer, compliance with applicable legal requirements
You may have to meet certain legal requirements to send a generated email signature. It is worth contacting a lawyer to understand how to do this correctly.
Call to action
When you have sales or marketing goals you’re working toward, email signatures can be an effective way to engage your audience.
Links to social networks
When your social network profile is actively managed by you, add social media icons to your Gmail email signature to encourage people to connect with you.
Adaptive design
70% of people read their email on smartphone apps, so make sure your email signature works well on a mobile device.
Logotype
Logos help customers recognize your brand, which can increase brand awareness and traffic.
Features of email signatures
Consumers imagine an email signature based on their experience with a particular product. Therefore, when creating it, marketers must consider the functional needs and emotional benefits that encourage people to contact your company. If the new email signature meets the needs of the market but does not meet the expectations of the target group, then this type of positioning is doomed to failure. In most cases, the email signature means brief information about you and your services/products. When repositioning, it is important to create a “bridge” between two perceptions of the brand: what it looks like to consumers today and what it will look like after the rebranding. A similar relationship is observed between actual and perceived brand perceptions of both emotional benefits and product attributes most valued by consumers.
The emotional benefit of the new brand allowed the company to reposition itself in surrounding markets and proved to be excellent at building customer loyalty. Once you have created a creative email signature for your brand, you need to follow the simple rule of “do it” so that the company can deliver on its promises and not disappoint its target audience. In the service market, it is especially important to adhere to all obligations assumed and presented to recipients in the email signature. The company’s updated email signature with all its features cannot immediately respond to new positions. Product and service updates and support programs may take time to roll out. In this case, specialists in creating email signatures use the so-called intermediate positioning, which is based on parameters that only the company can currently achieve. A unique email signature can create a more attractive value system for customers and ensure that the company’s policy is simple, accessible, and easily accepted by consumers. A competent change in the corporate image often leads to an increase in customer loyalty to the brand and an improvement in the company’s market situation.
