This post is for all of you inbound marketers and sales people out there. Most of us work in positions where we are about forming relationships and generating leads. A lot of times email can be just a pain to do this. Sometimes a quick hop on Skype can actually be much more time effective, even if your not using video. Check out this nifty little Skype email signature trick in which you can add a “add on skype” into your email signature.

Skype Email Signature

Here is a screenshot of my email signature. This gets appended to all of my communications. A signature can be a great way to generate some additional leads and interest without doing any additional work. I even recommend adding custom UTM parameters to your email signature links so that you can track conversions more easily. The part we care about for this post is the one on the right of the bottom line where it says “Skype.”

So what does the Skype link actually do? Well, when whoever gets my email clicks on it, it allows them to quickly add me to their contact list by launching their Skype client automatically. And of course, I have to accept the request on my side. So I only accept requests from people I know will be possible leads or customers. No more needing to say, “Hey, here is my username or email, add me on Skype.”

Follow the steps below to easily generate a link like this. I have tested this with both Microsoft Outlook and Gmail.

Step 1

First you need to generate a short URL you can use. Why? Because there is a formatting issue. You can’t use bitly to do this because bitly requires an actual website as an address. I personally use this site: https://is.gd/. (Tip provided by Vanger on Stack Overflow)

Step 2

Enter your Skype email or username in the following format and click on “Shorten!”

Quick Tip: Did you know you can add additional emails to your Skype profile? I have my personal email and work email on my account, so then you can give out the different ones. To add an additional email to your Skype account login to the Skype web interface and click on “edit profile.”

Step 3

You now have a shortened URL in which you can use in your email signature.

Step 4

You can then take this link and add it as a hyperlink on the Skype text.

And that’s it! Now whenever anyone clicks on “Skype” in your email signature it will automatically launch Skype and initiate an invitation request to you so that you can add them on Skype. Now you can stop wasting time telling people how to add you on Skype. Go straight to the source and chat up those leads! Thoughts on using a Skype email signature? Leave them below in the comments.