How to turn everyday emails into a low cost marketing channel

Are you leaving money on the table when you send out your daily emails? If you aren’t actively marketing through your email signature in your correspondence, the answer is yes. The signature space in your emails is a prime piece of real estate just sitting there at the bottom of your emails begging for some attention, and neglecting it can mean hundreds if not thousands of dollars in missed opportunities. With that said, below are some ideas you can use to take advantage of email signature marketing.

What is Email Signature Marketing?

In a nutshell, email signature marketing is the practice of taking the bottom section of your emails, which typically features a signoff with some personal information, and transforming it into a marketing channel for your business. 

For example, instead of merely concluding your email with something like “Sincerely, John”, the email signature area can be a section where you include a sophisticated email banner with a call to action (CTA) for your reader. This CTA can promote a sale, encourage the recipient to book a consultation, lead them to your latest blog post, or invite them to take some other action. This way you take an otherwise boring area in an email and turn it into another opportunity to increase your business’s revenue. 

Best Practices for Email Signature Marketing

Like all things in business, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about email signature marketing. Therefore, we thought it would be good to share the best practices for transforming your email signature into a low-cost marketing channel. These include, but aren’t limited to:

1. Always include a CTA
2. Stay true to your brand
3. Keep it simple
4. Ensure your signature is responsive
5. A/B test your signature
6. Update your signature and banner graphics regularly

Now that you have an idea of the best practices for email signature marketing, let’s break down each one a little further so you know exactly what it takes to transform your signature into a money-making machine.

1. Always include a Call To Action

Here’s an example of an email with an awesome CTA:

Your CTA is the backbone of your email signature marketing efforts, and it should preferably be within a signature banner. This allows the reader to clearly see your CTA, making it simple for them to click and do what you want them to do. Your call to action can be to click and view current listings, like the real estate example above, or it could be to do something else such as:

• Schedule an appointment, consultation, or meeting
• Get a special discount offer
• Check out a new product or service
• Leave a review of your business
• Forward your email to a friend
• Read a new blog post
• Download an eBook

The possibilities for what your CTA could be are virtually endless!

One last thing to remember with regards to your CTA is that your emails should only have one of them, having multiple CTAs will distract your recipient, cause decision fatigue and ultimately make them not click anything at all.

2. Stay True to Your Brand

This isn’t just an email signature marketing best practice, it’s also key to having a professional looking email. What does it mean to stay true to your brand when sending emails, you ask? It means using the same images, colors, fonts, and logos as you do in your other marketing materials. If every piece of correspondence you send out uses an Arial font, it would be “off-brand” to suddenly use Times New Roman in all of your emails. Or if your website only uses blue, green, and pink pastel colors, then it wouldn’t make much sense to send emails with fire engine red and yellow. Consistency is key, and you want your audience to have a certain expectation of what your ambiance will look and feel like.

3. Keep it Simple

This is an email signature best practice we see a lot of people miss the mark on. Here’s an example of the right way of keeping it simple:

You can see how clean and simple this is. The messaging isn’t too busy or wordy. The email signature banner is neat and polished. The call to action is clear, understandable, and readable. This is the aesthetic you should be going for when designing your email signatures.

4. Ensure Your Signature is Responsive

Email signature marketing doesn’t work well if your signatures don’t look right across all devices. For example, if the email signature banner looks good on a desktop computer, but is distorted and illegible on a mobile device, you’re missing an opportunity for revenue with every person who reads their emails on their smartphone or tablet. If your signature banner doesn’t look good in dark mode your email signature won’t look good for these readers either, and therefore will be less effective.

Bottom line – if you are going to put effort into your email signature, you might as well take the extra step of ensuring it looks good regardless of who is viewing it and/or how they are choosing to view it.

5. A/B Test Your Signature

This practice will require you are using quality email signature software. It’s a good reason to avoid free and/or complicated software programs as well. After all, you get what you pay for. Using a solid program such as Black Pearl Mail will give you the ability to test audience responses between two different types of email signatures to see which one resonates the most with your readers. This can be extremely helpful when you’re looking to optimize your email signature marketing efforts.

6. Update Your Signature and Banner Graphics Regularly

There are few things as frustrating for a reader as following through on a call to action only to find out it’s outdated. For example, if you are offering 25% off through the end of December, you better have changed your email signature by January 1st. Otherwise, you will just leave your recipients frustrated.

As your sales change and your offers are updated, update your email signature to fit your current deals and specials. While you’re at it, you should also think to change your signature based on who you are sending the email to. This is another reason having an email signature management program is so beneficial. 

With Black Pearl Mail software, you can segment your audiences and have different banners displayed across them. As a result, if you are sending a piece of correspondence to someone who is a new customer, your signature can have an entirely different call to action than the one you want to share with a returning customer.

Bonus tip: Use These Practices Internally As Well

You can use email signatures for correspondence within your internal messaging too. Imagine you’re the manager of a sales team – your email signature banner could include a link to book a private meeting with you or check monthly quotas. The CEO or upper management could include a banner that links to the state of the company. Email signatures can also be used to boost company morale, remind coworkers of important events, recruiting new employees, or even charity promotion!