4. A Simple Call-to-Action

An alternative to promoting a specific piece of content is to include a call-to-action. This could be anything from inviting recipients to visit your blog, schedule a demo, register for an upcoming event or webinar, enter a contest, take a poll, or download a piece of content.

5. A “Sent from my iPhone” Disclaimer

You can also play around with a “Sent from my iPhone” disclaimer. Not surprisingly, correct spelling and grammar increase your credibility. So, if you tend to type out quick responses on the go, including some variation of this line can make recipients more forgiving of errors.

What NOT to Include in Your Email Signature

Here are some other things you should leave out of your email signature:

Your personal social media profiles

Your home phone number or address

Your personal website

Your email address (this might seem obvious, but needs to be said)

Your vCard (it adds bulk and is redundant for most of your contacts)

Inspirational quotes, jokes, memes

GIFs

Design Tips for a Better Email Signature

Now that you know what to include in your signature, follow these design tips to ensure your signature makes the best impression possible.

Less is More

The perfect email signature conveys your contact information in a simple, clean, visually-appealing format.

Rather than listing every possible way someone can reach you, select a few specific methods of contact to include. This keeps it concise and tells people how you prefer to be contacted.

Two or three lines is ideal – four max if you want to include your business address or phone number.

Don’t Make Your Entire Signature an Image

Feel free to include an image in your signature – like a brand logo or a photo of yourself – but don’t even think about making your entire signature an image. It might not always display properly and your recipient can’t copy your contact details if they’re part of an image.

Be Deliberate in Your Use of Color

Use too many different colors and you risk creating a cluttered, clashing sign-off. Instead, choose a few specific colors from your logo to highlight elements of your signature. This ties your whole signature together in connection with your brand.

Stick to a Single Font or Two

As with colors, using too many fonts is distracting, difficult to read, and makes your email look unprofessional.

If you want to draw attention to a specific aspect of your signature, like your name or phone number, play around with font size, weight, and color. This adds emphasis without the use of multiple font styles.

Make the Best Use of Space Possible

Create a design hierarchy to draw attention to the most important information first. You can achieve this by adjusting the font (size, weight, and color), alignment, and positioning of all elements including images. Left alignment is the safest bet for easy reading, since our eye is used to scanning from left to right.

You can also use dividers to help organize data and define your information hierarchy. For example, a vertical bar or “pipe” helps divide up different pieces of information while keeping your signature clean and organized.

For example: Emily Bauer | Content Marketing | Propeller CRM

Design with Mobile in Mind

Did you know that 54% of email is opened on a mobile device? That means over half of all email recipients are unable to read email signatures that aren’t designed to scale on mobile.

Since mobile screens are much smaller than computers, choose type and graphics that remain legible when scaled down significantly. Make sure any buttons you include (like social media icons) are easy to tap – which means leaving some white space in between them.

How to Generate an Email Signature of Your Own

If you’re ready to create your own signature, check out Hubspot’s super handy (and free!) email signature template generator. Simply enter your information into the form and the tool will turn it into a ready-to-use signature that you can export and add to your email client.

Or try out one of these free alternatives:

Getting Your Signature Set Up with Your Email Client

Now that you’ve got the tools to design the perfect modern email signature, the next challenge is setting it up in your email client. It can be tricky to make your signature look exactly how you want it to, but here are some resources to make it easier.

Gmail

This helpful tutorial tells you how to manually create or change a gmail signature on your computer, android device, iPhone, or iPad.

iPhone & iPad

There are a few different articles available on setting up your email signature on iPhone and iPad, including this one, which was tested with iPhone Mail 6, iOS Mail 9, and iOS Mail 10.

Mail for Mac

This tutorial walks you through how to set up and preview your email signature for Mail.

Outlook

Here’s a detailed overview on how to create and personalize your email signature in Outlook 2016 and Outlook 2017. If you’re still using an older version, here’s the guide for Outlook 2010 and 2007.

Samsung Email App

If you’re sending emails from your Samsung Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge, follow these simple directions to set up your email signature.

Yahoo! Mail

Here’s where you can find instructions to edit or update your Yahoo! email signature.

Ready to Start Sending Better Emails? Get Your Free Copy of The Beginner’s Playbook to Running a Cold Email Campaign

Once you’ve perfected your email signature, it’s time to put it to good use. If you want to leverage the power of cold emailing to generate new leads, this guide will show you how.

Get your free copy today so you can start sending cold emails that get opened, get read, and get leads for your business.