It’s time to pay tribute to a powerful yet simple Internet marketing tactic that is often overlooked in favour of more “cool” options.
I am referring to the ‘lowly’ email signature file.
A signature (or SIG) file is a brief chunk of copy that is automatically appended to the footer of your outgoing email messages. Most email programs allow you to set this up in advance, and some allow you to easily choose and rotate between different SIG files.
If you work for yourself or a company, I strongly recommend that you – at the very least – include your name, title, company name, and contact info in your SIG file. (For those of you who are rolling your eyes at this ‘obvious’ suggestion, you’d be amazed how many people forget to include their phone number. Monitor your inbound email during the course of the next few days and you’ll see what I mean.) Even if you don’t have a Website, make sure that your email address is included as a clickable link.
You should also consider including a brief description of your business, your tag line (if one exists), and perhaps a specific offer or call to action. This could be a brief blurb about an upcoming seminar you’re giving, a link to your blog, or an invitation (and link) to subscribe to your email newsletter.
Don’t be deceived by their simplicity. A SIG file can be a very effective tool. It costs nothing, you can change it as often as you want, and it’s a smart and efficient way to gently remind everyone you correspond with about your products or services.
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An excellent reminder, Bill. Particularly about including a Call to Action. Like many I have my coords in my signature but I don’t change it too often. I’m going to get my email program to remind me each Monday what I’d like my addresses to be acting on that week. As they say, little drops of water, little grains of sand,…
Feedburner users take note: You can add an animated .gif to your sig that includes your five most recent post headlines, and a call to action to subscribe to the feed.
Send me an email: jordan@telltenfriends.com and I’d be happy to offer a demo.
I noticed a funny little graphic in a colleague’s e-mail signature this morning. Not perfect for everyone but I think it worked for her….
http://cloudseeding.blogspot.com/2006/09/personalization-verve.html