The Top 15 Email Signature Design Tips

A company’s brand is its identifier; a logo can symbolize who a company is and what it does. That is why it needs to be used correctly in every form, whether that be business cards, letterheads, or online presence. However, one form that is often forgotten is corporate email. This is surprising given that it’s the most common business communication method, but email signature design is not always considered to be important.

Every email an employee sends is an opportunity to raise brand awareness using good email signatures. By using branded email signatures, recipients are much more likely to remember your brand and company. This creates a sense of trust.

When a contact repeatedly sees your company logo in an email signature, they’ll recognize your brand. This makes them more likely to reply.

A branded email signature also adds a level of professionalism to email communications. Think of an email signature as a digital form of a business card; it must be well designed, conform to brand guidelines, and provide important contact information. When designed well, an email signature will promote your company’s brand in a positive and professional way.

Poorly designed email signatures, or emails without a signature, can have a negative impact on a company’s reputation. Using your brand incorrectly will make your contacts think of you as unprofessional. A consistent, branded organizational email signature design can have a strong impact on how a customer or client perceives you.

Mastering email signature design

Master email signature design by using these top 15 tips. You’ll then have an email signature design that provides valuable information about an individual employee and is also representative of your organization.

1. Minimal contact information (full name, job title, phone number, email address, etc.) should always be what you start with. When combined with links to social media and your company website, your email signature design can strongly support your branding.

2. It’s extremely easy to include too many contact details and lots of links in an email signature design. Choose what’s absolutely necessary to include and remove any unnecessary information.

3. Vary your email signature design according to the sender’s department. For example, give customer support one type of signature template and the sales team another.

4. There is no need to have an extensive email disclaimer. You only need to use a few lines at most. If you want to provide more detail, include a link to a longer version online.

5. Scale email signature designs so they resize to fit a viewing window. Good visible image sizes vary with the email client or device used to read them.

6. Too much color can clutter an email signature and make it look amateurish. If you have one main color in your logo, it is best to incorporate just this in your signature.

7. If you use less than two primary images in your email signature, it will improve the overall design. It will also decrease the size of the signature file.

8. Remember that different branding can be used at various points in correspondence. A stronger signature design can be used on the first email and simpler branding on replies.

9. You should always choose a font that closely matches the message body of an email. Also, don’t make the font size bigger than 12 points so that your signature design is easy to read.

10. Place a promotional banner underneath the contact details with a clear call-to-action. Email signatures are the perfect channel to promote special offers or big news you want to share with a large audience.

11. Include social media icons to take recipients straight to your social accounts. Promoting your social nature in email signatures is a great opportunity to extend your reach.

12. Centrally manage email branding so you can easily amend and refresh email signature designs across your entire organization. This also means you avoid inconsistency.

13. As a rule of thumb, email signatures work better without videos and animation. This is because it can make a design look cluttered. Making a signature interesting on its own merits is far more effective than using content just for the sake of it.

14. Restrict background colors to the contact detail section of your signature. Too much color in your email signature design will detract from your overall message.

15. Coding an HTML email signature template requires a lot of expertise. Using an email signature solution lets you control the signature design through a signature editor. This allows you to create dynamic email signatures from scratch, with no HTML experience or IT skills needed.

For more details on creating the perfect email signature design, view our 17 Email Signature DOs and DON’Ts.

How to get consistent email signature designs

There are a few options when it comes to deploying a companywide branded email signature. The IT department can manually create and add signatures, setup transport rules, or use email signature software.

Exclaimer’s email signature management solutions help solve the headache of manually setting up companywide email signatures. Create and deploy professional, branded signatures for all employees from a central location. Add logos, promotional banners, and custom fonts in a matter of minutes. Ensure every employee gets a consistent, branded email signature every time.