Marketing Your Business Brand with E-mail Signature Blocks

By Jan Zimmerman from Web Marketing For Dummies, 3rd Edition

An e-mail signature block is a powerful marketing tool which is the equivalent of a business card or letterhead. A signature block should appear at the bottom of every business e-mail you send out. A good signature block includes a marketing tag, all your contact information, and live links to your website and social media pages.

Credit: Courtesy of Watermelon Mountain Web Marketing www.watermelonweb.com

A sample signature block with links to social media.

Your company name and marketing tag provide name recognition and branding. The block offers consistent, easy access to all your contact information, including (at minimum) your phone number, fax number, street address, e-mail address, and website address.

Some signature blocks include business hours, a link to a map, or a link to a current special offer or event, as well as linkable calls to action to visit elements of the company’s social media presence.

Almost all e-mail programs (sometimes called e-mail clients), such as Outlook, Outlook Express, Gmail, and Eudora, allow you to set up signature blocks. In other words, they’re free! To set up a signature block, look on the toolbar in your e-mail program for a menu option named Tools→Options or (similar), or use the Help feature to look up instructions.

Display the website address in your signature block as a live link. Most e-mail programs create the link automatically if you start the URL with http://.