Make custom email work: Using an email signature builder
24 July 2023
An email signature builder gives you control over a key element of your marketing strategy – your email signature. Often overlooked, email signatures play a central role in your brand identity, showcasing your professionalism, and reinforcing what makes your company trustworthy.
Here’s why email signatures matter and how to use an email signature builder to craft a winning sign-off.
What is an email signature?
An email signature is a virtual business card. It’s made up of text and images inserted at the end of an email.
Every email signature is unique but they usually contain similar elements such as:
Your name
Contact information such as phone number and email address
A legally required email disclaimer
Links to websites and social media platforms
Banners, logos, and icons
Your email signature is an integral part of your branding. It’s a cornerstone of your company’s identity. It pays to spend time building a memorable signature rather than a basic sign-off.
Why build signatures?
That’s what an email signature is, but why build a signature in the first place? There are a few reasons:
An email signature offers an opportunity for your target audience to take the next step and engage with your company. This makes an email signature a lead generation tool.
Email signatures reinforce your brand, building awareness of your company and putting it in the spotlight.
An email signature makes you appear more professional. It shows you take yourself and your business seriously.
Clearly, there are significant benefits to adding email signatures to every communication, and using an email signature builder helps.
What are the benefits of using an email signature builder?
There are significant advantages to using an email signature builder tool.
Signature builders let you centralize your email signature templates across your business. Employees can’t use inconsistent formats as you control everything from one central platform.
Even if can’t code, email signature builder tools let you generate sleek and professional email signatures.
From marketing messages to confidential communications, you can customize your email signatures to deliver the right messaging, at the right time.
A signature building tool enables you to design and implement email signatures across various platforms from Office 365 (Microsoft 365) to Google Workspace.
Take control of your sign-offs and leave the best impression. Craft bespoke signatures and supercharge your business goals.
How to build signatures for your email
We will look at some examples of how to create email signatures using an email signature builder below. But first, here’s how you build an email signature manually using HTML code.
Build HTML email signatures manually
HTML signatures are an upgraded version of plain text signatures. They use HTML code to add visually appealing, interactive elements to email signature template such as graphics, custom logos, and links.
To build an HTML email signature, follow the steps below:
Create your email signature template using HTML code.
Add relevant contact details, such as your name and phone number.
Flesh out your template with social icons, a logo, and an email disclaimer.
Save your new signature and share it across your organization. This will involve the IT department.
HTML email signatures are valuable marketing tools, so get creative and start enhancing your emails.
Google Workspace email signature builders
Google Workspace lets you build HTML signatures for your emails. However, there are limitations:
When you reply to plain-text messages, the formatting disappears.
The Gmail editor has a character limit of 10,000 characters, potentially limiting the scope of your design.
Contact details can’t be taken from your Google Directory, meaning you’ll need to create a generic Gmail email signature for each Google Workspace organizational unit.
You need to set up canned responses for reply signatures, but these need to be set up individually within each user’s Gmail settings.
To build an email signature that’s memorable for the right reasons, you need a Google Workspace email signature builder tool.
With Exclaimer, you can:
Use email signatures to amplify your brand and segment messaging for different audiences.
Craft email signatures with visually-appealing elements to boost engagement and responses.
Take users’ contact details from your Google Directory and sync them automatically into email signatures you design.
Preview signatures before deploying them to all users, ensuring everyone has the right template.
Office 365 email signature builders
You can add custom signatures in Outlook for Office 365 using the disclaimer function. This lets you create a functional HTML email signature to add to outgoing emails. However, just because it’s functional doesn’t mean it’s effective.
Your sign-off will always stack at the end of a conversation, rather than displaying after each message. This limits the visibility and impact of your signature.
Email signatures won't be consistent across different devices, particularly mobiles where the HTML code will often get stripped out.
Images often won’t load properly, making signatures appear incomplete and unprofessional.
Lots of transport rules are needed to deploy signatures to various departmental units.
To overcome these challenges, use a custom email signature builder. Exclaimer integrates seamlessly with Outlook for Office 365. Within minutes, you can deploy consistent signatures across your company. You can then boost brand messaging and encourage more engagement.
Using Exclaimer for your signature
Your signature is more than just a goodbye. It’s an invitation. A connection. An opportunity to showcase what makes your brand unique. And by using an email signature builder, the only limit to your sign-off is your imagination.
Are you looking to build signatures that stand out and elevate your company’s branding? Explore your email signature’s true potential by getting yourself a free trial or booking an online demonstration today.
