3 Quick Tips for a More Effective Email Signature

We talk a lot about email. We know the importance of email and if you're following us there's a good chance you understand the importance of email too. We're no longer in the early stages of the Internet; we've moved into the technology age and your customers have expectations about your online communications with them. There's email rules, etiquette, and even laws that guide communication.

When you're interacting with a potential client you want to put your best foot forward. You want to show your personality while still appearing professional and you need to do that to the very last line of text. Your signature is just as important as the body of your email. It's your last chance for a first impression and considering only 52% of professionals actually have an email signature, you should make yours great.

Here are 3 quick tips for a more effective email signature:

1. Cut back on the inline images

I cannot emphasize this enough.

I understand that putting social media icons is much more fun and using your company logo is something you might be personally attached to but whenever and wherever you can, remove the images. The more images you have the slower your email loads, and plenty of email servers won't open your images without consent from the recipient which means your signature ends up showing up as a bunch of image attachments that might never get opened.

On that note, cut back on the crazy fonts and colors, too. Both of these will also slow down an email load time and if there's one thing people reading email don't have, it's patience.

If you just have to have images, use a hyperlink or make sure to put alt text in place of the image. Sometimes those images won't load in different email clients, devices, or browsers.