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Using Email Signature Banners for Marketing Purposes

Brought to you by Exclaimer

Do you groan when another marketing email arrives in your inbox? How many of them do you open and read? There are few things more irritating than receiving loads of emails you’re not interested in.

This is why including an email signature banner on all employee emails is a great marketing strategy. Email is where you already communicate with everyone your organization knows. Adding an email banner – a graphic under the contact information of the signature – guarantees that it will reach a large audience.

These recipients will likely see this email signature banner at a time when they are interested in your company. After all, they will already be talking to you. The potential ROI of including banner in email signatures can be immense if used correctly.

Building email signature banner campaigns

Now, banners in email signatures are never going to replace other digital advertising channels. But when used as part of an integrated marketing campaign, these banners are perfect for showcasing your latest content, highlighting exclusive offers, attendance at trade shows, and so on. And the clicks are all free!

This creative way to increase your marketing reach costs practically nothing and is guaranteed to reach a large, targeted audience.

Create companywide email banners with clear calls-to-action.
Vary email signature designs for departments such as sales and marketing teams.
Run several email signature marketing campaigns at any given time, with different messages being delivered to different target audiences.
Increase attendance at your next open house, trade show or event by including reminders in your email signature.
Append the signatures on new messages so that future replies do not get cluttered with email banners. Alternatively, change the image under each reply for maximum marketing benefit.
Capture data on clicks in an email banner to Google Analytics or other marketing automation software.

Keeping an email banner relevant

However, using marketing banners in email signatures becomes pointless if it is not updated regularly. Like any other marketing campaign, timing and strategy are everything. You won’t promote products you no longer sell or advertise offers that have expired via any other marketing channel.

An email signature banner promoting an out-of-date award.

Another good example where email signature banner timing is important is promoting special offers or highlighting your opening times over a holiday season like Christmas. Once it reaches January 1, your Christmas banner is already out-of-date. If you're still using this in March, you're going to look stupid.

Something like this will make people think you’re inattentive and don’t care about your messaging. It might seem minor, but this can have more of an impact on your brand than you might think.

Familiarity can breed contempt when you use the same email banner for months at a time. When people see something repeatedly, boredom will inevitably set in.

Think of the banner advertising you see online. What is your normal reaction when you see the same promotional banner repeatedly? You get tired of seeing it and may even feel annoyed.

Now, think how many emails your organization sends a day. Think how many recipients are seeing the same email signature banner over an extended period. Don’t you think they might get tired of seeing the same graphic every time they email you? It’s possible they’ll even avoid communicating with you over email altogether.

An extreme reaction, but these things are known to happen! Remember, marketing campaigns only ever work if they stay fresh. You need to apply the same thinking in your use of email banners.

Automate email banners with a dedicated solution

Email signature software makes the entire process of managing email banners a lot easier than if try to do it manually. You can set a banner to run for a set period and then automatically remove/update it when needed. With this level of control, your recipients won’t ever tire of your messaging. You also never have to rely on your end users keeping their signatures updated.

Only using a third-party solution can automate this process and ensure everyone gets the right signature at the right time. You can even set it so that a banner only ever appears once in an email chain. This means conversations never get flooded with too much graphical content.