Signatures are essential on business email. They provide your customer with your contact information. But some businesses turn their signature block into a billboard of advertising: awards won, credentials earned, specials offered — all dressed up in a rainbow of colored fonts bordered with inspiring quotes and exclamation points.

Why? In everyday business emails, you’re emailing someone you know. Your recipient isn’t a complete stranger: You’re emailing to follow up with a potential customer, confirm an appointment, send a proposal, thank someone for a referral, whatever.  You don’t need to “sell” her; you need to communicate with her.

Put your message into the body of the email.  If you send someone a compelling message, they’ll want to look for your name and phone number so they can get back to you.

To effectively advertise within your email signature, simply include your Web address. Readers can go to your site to learn more about the splendiferousness of your company and services. Don’t have a Web site? No signature line in the world can present your bona fides to potential customers as well as a Web page.

A multi-layered Technicolor signature block will never compensate for an unmotivating, unfocused email message. Face it: If the email doesn’t convey the message, the reader won’t get as far as your signature. On the other hand, someone who is curious, whose interest you have engaged, will read all the way to your tag line because they want to—because you’ve helped them want to. You needn’t bother dressing it up in purple italics.

The essential elements are:

• Your name and your company name
• Your Web site URL
• Your phone numbers.  One is fine, three is enough.

To prove that I practice what I preach, here is my email signature:

Lindsay Gower
Blue Ribbon Writing
925.825.8791
www.BlueRibbonWriting.com
managing the written word