There is an art to the seemingly simple email signature. Remember that length, look and overall feel can prove to be a boon or bust for any professional email signature. Senders don’t want to overload a recipient with information, but at the same time must be sure to include all information a client may find useful.

Last week we posted email signature tips #1-5. Follow these additional tips #6-11 and you and your employees will have effective professional email signatures:

6. Include Links to Social Media

Links to social media websites used to be frowned upon. However, as social networking became more prevalent and eventually grew to become important business tools, directing a recipient to Facebook and LinkedIn profiles or Twitter accounts has become popular.

But be sure to only use company profiles and accounts. Don’t give links to personal profiles. No business recipient cares what you and your friends did over the weekend, nor should you want them to know.


7. Add Timely or Seasonal Messages

Is your company organizing an event or do you have any seasonal business? Is this your 20th year in business? Use your email signature to communicate this. After all, it is free advertising space.

8. For EU Companies: Make sure you add the required information

According to EU law, companies must include the following information in their signatures: company registration number, registered company address, place of registration, and VAT number if applicable.

9. Include a shorter email signature on replies and forwards

It is good practice to include a longer email signature on your first email, for instance including your job title, full address, EU-required information if any and company logo and/or promotional message. Any subsequent signatures could include just the essentials such as name, company, phone, email address and website URL. Some email disclaimer and email signature programs can even do this automatically for you.

10. Proofread for spelling and punctuation errors

Last but not least: proofread your email signature for spelling and grammatical errors. Check that links to websites, bios and vCards are correct.

11. Consistency is King

Once you’ve designed a great email signature, it’s time to make sure that all employees within the company are using the same signature. There are email signature tools for Outlook that allow you to centrally configure a company wide signature that is automatically applied for each Outlook user. Since you can easily update the email signature for all users, it makes it much easier to add timely messages about upcoming events and promotions. There are also Exchange signature tools (for Microsoft Exchange Server) that add the email signature at server level.