The top 10 tips for email signature marketing

When we talk about corporate email, we’re not talking about sending out email marketing communications to your contacts. We mean the standard business emails that are sent by your users every day to external and internal recipients. These will inevitably have some form of email signature appended to them. 

So why should you think of professional email signatures as an independent and valuable communications channel? One that can be used for lead generation and increasing brand awareness? 

For more details, check out our top 10 email signature marketing tips that'll provide great benefits for your organization. 

1. Do use email signatures as a marketing channel 

By 2025, it is predicted that global business email volumes will rise to 376.4 billion per day. This is the perfect opportunity to include your corporate emails as part of your marketing strategy. By updating your email signatures with an eye-catching design and clear call to action, you give your marketing efforts a boost with very little effort. 

Place display banners underneath the email signature contact section so that every recipient who sees your corporate emails knows what your company is doing. Link this banner to a campaign landing page or additional information on your products and services. This is one of the best uses of email signature marketing you can ​​​utilize​. 

2. Don't miss out on over 522,000 marketing opportunities a year 

An average employee sends 40 emails a day, which continues to rise each year. In a 50-person office, for example, you are looking at about 2,000 emails sent per day, or 522,000 additional marketing opportunities a year that your company could be missing out on. 

Instead of spending lots of money on various marketing channels, turn your humble email signature into a low-cost high-volume tool that is guaranteed to get thousands of impressions a day. And all through the simple process of sending emails. 

3. Do tell people about special promotions and latest offerings 

If you are running a seasonal offer, use an appropriate email signature design to drive more interest. You can also highlight that you offer free trials of your products, announce new solutions, showcase a recent award you’ve won; there are many different possibilities when you sit down and think about them. 

You can also run several email signature marketing campaigns at any given time, all with different messages being delivered to different audience segments. By segmenting your target audience correctly, email recipients will more likely pay attention to your marketing message and take action. 

4. Don't think email banners are less useful than online advertising 

Your website showcases your corporate branding and product offerings to customers. However, it will always gain less visits per day than the total number of emails that your organization sends. Also, other marketing channels such as PPC (Pay Per Click) and paid social media often come with a substantial cost. 

Unlike other online marketing channels, you will often have a prior relationship with every recipient you send a corporate email to. They will already know what you plan to discuss with them. This lets you align the messaging of your email signature marketing campaign with the message you send. 

5. Do get people to visit your corporate blog 

Now, this is only effective if your company keeps one updated on a regular basis. However email signatures are a great place to introduce recipients to your corporate blog. 

Email signatures can even include an RSS feed, which will show the title of your most recent blog post and automatically update it every time a new article is published. This means that you are not only providing new content on a regular basis, but also promoting it to the right target audience. 

6. Do highlight events you’re going to attend 

Are you going to an event? Exhibiting at a tradeshow? Talking at a conference? Using a promotional banner in your email signature ensures that your organization’s most important contacts stay in the know and can potentially spread the word about the event. 

It may also help you generate more registrants. At the very least, it will gain more awareness among your target audience. 

7. Don't forget to capture data 

Recipients can engage with all of your email signature marketing campaigns and click on lots of different promotional banners. However, if you don't know ​who these people are, you can't report on your campaigns' effectiveness or take any affirmative action. 

Add UTM parameters to the URLs of any landing pages you use in your email signatures. This will then capture information in Google Analytics, giving you effective insights into which banners are performing best. With this data, you can optimize your email signature marketing efforts, so they are more effective. 

8. Do shout about content your company has created 

Have you written a book? Had a white paper published? Share a link to this content in your email signature to build credibility and authority with the recipients you communicate with. 

You can do this either via a plain text link or a promotional email signature banner. Either way, you will be turning your emails into a valuable lead generation tool that will mean your content is viewed by more people. 

9. Don't forget to remove out-of-date banners 

If your email signature is promoting a summer sale in December, then the banner is no longer fit for purpose. Make sure that you regularly update your signature banners. Even better, try to schedule them in advance if you can. This way, when an event or special offer has finished, the banner will automatically be removed from all user’s email signatures. 

10. Do use promo banners for internal communications 

Are there some new internal job opportunities? Do you have a new clean-desk policy? Do employees need to be reminded to turn their computers off at night? An email signature can easily incorporate internal communications without having to get your users to do anything extra. 

Email reaches all staff no matter what time of day it is. Using banners in internal messages means you can ensure employees are constantly aware of what’s going on within your company. 

For more great tips on how leverage email signature marketing, check out our official Email Signatures for Dummies guide and get your free copy today. 

If you want to make email signature marketing campaigns easier to manage, let Exclaimer show you the way.