How to use reply email signatures effectively
22 April 2022
When you start an email conversation, one of the first things a recipient will see is your email signature. It’ll include all your contact information, legal disclaimer, company logo, and other marketing elements. But as the conversation continues, the same signature isn’t needed as much.
Using a shorter reply email signature is good practice as the conversation continues. This more straightforward design includes only essential contact information such as name, company, phone number, and email address. Your reply signature becomes a simplified version of your main signature template.
But why is this necessary in the first place? Well, it can become annoying if you’re involved in an email conversation and it gets flooded with signature content.
Repeating the same sign-off for each new reply will make your emails look busy and cluttered. It can be difficult to read the message's content if there’s too much signature imagery to wade through. Having a separate reply email signature is far less intrusive in email chains.
What does a reply email signature look like?
A reply email signature will have a more straightforward design than your primary external signature. Its purpose is not to be overpowering but to supply recipients with relevant contact information. Other content, such as promotional banners and social media icons, aren’t often included. This is because they’ll already appear in the first email signature template.
Below is an example of a standard corporate email signature. It would appear on the first email sent to a new recipient:
Now, this is the corresponding reply email signature. It uses far less information than the main template. Elements like the legal disclaimer, profile photo, and award images aren’t included. In fact, it uses little of the original design:
This design can also be used for any forwarded emails too. This again helps to minimize the ‘clutter’ of repeated signatures and disclaimers within message conversations.
How to add signatures in replies on Outlook
In order to add email signatures to replies on Outlook, you just need to set it up. This can save you a lot of time because you'll merely just have to click a few buttons and you'll be right as rain.
Go into 'Settings' and 'View all Outlook settings'.
Then click on 'Compose and reply' to create your signature.
You'll see two boxes at the bottom of the page. Select 'Automatically include my signature on messages I forward or reply to'.
Click 'Save'.
That's as simple as it is. The easiest way to reply with a signature in Outlook is by setting it up automatically.
How to add signatures in replies on Gmail
Doing something similar on Gmail isn't that difficult either. If you want to add signatures to your Gmail replies, you can follow these steps:
Open up Gmail.
Click on 'Settings' and go into 'See all settings'.
Scroll down and when the 'Signature' section pops up, add in your signature.
After you've created it, you'll see two drop down menus where you can select your signature for 'On reply/forward' use. Click that.
Implementing reply email signatures in your organization
If you’re using an email client like Outlook or Gmail, you can set up different signature templates for email replies. These are selected using a drop-down list directly in the message window. However, this only really works on an individual level. Signatures can’t be controlled at an organizational level.
Creating reply templates is impossible for organizations using Office 365 (Microsoft 365) or Microsoft Exchange. These only come with a function designed for plain-text messaging like an email disclaimer.
For those on Google Workspace, replies are created in the same way as in Gmail. This again means that signatures can only be updated by each user individually.
No matter which method you use, email signatures are either impossible to control or very time-consuming to manage. It's easy to design and deploy consistent signatures for all users by choosing an Exclaimer email signature management solution. You’ll be able to create high-quality email signature replies for your business needs.
Make email signature management easy by getting yourself a free trial of Exclaimer today.
