Writing an Effective Email Signature (Part II)

In the previous article, we discussed how effective email signatures are formatted. In every form of communication the presentation and the content both carry importance, but the content has the ability to create more impact. In the following lines we would discuss how the content of the sig file should be composed.

1. Description of web site

On the Internet, your presence can only be asserted through words. Therefore, it is necessary to remind your email recipients again and again about your business through your sig file. For this purpose, you must have a brief and well-written description of your web site in your sig file.

A well-written web site description should stress on the benefits of visiting your web site and convince the readers to visit it. To come up with convincing benefits, you must try to think the way your customers do: what appeals to them, what do they want. Tell them clearly why they should be visiting your web site and what’s in it for them.

As for the length of the web site description, it should be short and relevant, preferably a line or 60 characters long, as a long description is not very likely to be read. Write and rewrite the description so that it is perfected and summarized, and includes all information that you want to give out.

2. Special offers

A special offer can be a major benefit in itself. A special offer can be anything from seasonal discounts to quantity discounts to free stuff. Offering something for free is the most attractive benefit, from the customer’s point of view. It can provide your email recipients a good incentive to visit your web site and would have a positive impact on your web site traffic.

There are a number of things that you can offer for free in your sig file. Your free offers would depend on the products or services you are trying to sell. However, one very popular free offering on the net is information. Netpreneurs can easily offer free information in the form of ezines or articles.

3. Regular updates

It is advisable to regularly change your email sig and update it. This arouses interest amongst your regular email receivers. It gives them the impression that you have something new to offer. Even if you do not offer anything new, changing your email sig would diversify the way you communicate through your sig file, leading to more response. In this way, you would also be able to test the response to various email sigs, and can identify the most effective sig file.

4. Variety of sig files for different purposes

It would be a good idea to have different sig files for different target audiences, or even different businesses. For example if you have three different web sites or are trying to promote a number of affiliate programs you might want to make a different sig file for each of them to promote them well. If you try to squeeze all this information into one sig file you would not be able to do justice to any of the businesses that you are trying to promote.

Moreover, it is also necessary that you target your market clearly: the more targeted the sig file, the more powerful its impact would be. The first step in this process would be to identify and define all your target audiences. Then you can compose a different sig file for each target market.

5. For ezine publishers

All ezine publishers want to increase their subscriber base. You can take help from your sig file in this regard by describing how someone can subscribe to your ezine. You should also give your subscription address in your sig file. In this way people can easily subscribe to your ezine. You would notice an increase in your subscriber base if you post helpful messages to lists and bulletin boards, along with your ezine subscription address. The more helpful your email message is, the more subscribers you would gain.

6. What if you don’t have a web site?

There are people who conduct business on the net or offline, and do not have a web site. Their sig files are brief and to the point. How can they offer more information about their business to their email recipients?

This can be done in the following way. Compose a sales letter or email message that offers information about your business. Then, set up this particular email message as an auto responder message. The auto responder email address should be included in your sig file.

If your email recipients are interested in more information they simply have to send an email to that address. You can also follow up on the people who request information via the auto responder. In this way, the 5 lines of your sig file can become a full blown sales letter.

Even if you do have a web site this approach can prove to be good marketing tool for you. There are people who read email messages a lot more attentively as compared to web site content. This approach can be ideal for this kind of people.

These are a few tips on writing the content of your sig file. Do keep in mind that the impact of your sig file does not depend only on the way you format and compose it. It also depends on the content of the email message that accompanies it. Try to write useful and informative email messages to increase the impact of your sig file.