Savor the Success - Business Network for women entrepreneurs

The bulk of business communication today happens over email.  Most of us send dozens of emails daily to colleagues, clients, potential clients, editors and partners.  Your email signature can serve as great way to connect in new ways and reinforce your brand message.  

What should your signature include?

• Name
• Title
• Company Name
• Relevant contact information
• Social media links
• Services, Tagline or Quote

Tip: I suggest limiting your signature to 4-5 lines.  I opted to remove our physical address in favor of social media links. 

Tip:  most email programs allow you to have several signatures, so you can customize depending on the recipient.

Tip:  keep it simple and concise.  Recipients will overlook your signature if it is too busy or looks sloppy.

Quick and easy ways to create your signature:

If you use Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail or AOL you are in luck!  A great site launched that allows you to create signatures for free! (You must use Firefox as your browser to use this site). Visit www.wisestamp.com for easy step-by-step instructions.  Here is the email signature I created with wisestamp.com.  It literally took me minutes. I was able to add links to any social media site and even add our blog's RSS feed.

If you use Outlook the quickest way to create a custom signature is directly in Outlook or MS Word. Here is the email signature I created in Outlook.  On the email signature the Twitter and Linked-in graphics as well as the website and blog are live, meaning they connect directly to my corresponding pages.  

How I did it:

1. I wanted to include the graphics for my social media link so I did a google image search for the sites I wanted to include and saved the images on the desktop.  I opened the graphics in Microsoft Office Picture Manager to resize them (you can resize the graphics in any program).
2. I opened Outlook and created a new signature by selecting tools>options.  I then clicked on the mail format tab and then the signatures button. 
3. I formatted the text I wanted to include.  I changed the color, font and size to match closely with the way we present our content on our letterhead.
4. By using the “insert image” button, I inserted both the twitter and linked-in logos.
5. I right clicked on the images and added the hyperlinks to the respective site. Note: make sure you add the full link.  Pull the site up in a browser and copy the link that appears in the address bar.
6. Once everything was set, I named the signature, clicked “ok” and was done.  Note: I suggest sending an email to another email address or back to yourself to test the links, format, etc.

*Unfortunately Mac users will have a much more difficult time creating signatures with graphics and links in MacMail or Entourage.  We are looking for simple work-arounds, so stay tuned!*

Always look for new ways to connect and promote your brand!