Elements to include in your Email Signature

As a branding photographer & business owner, my number one form of communication with a client is usually going to be email. I’m always referring to a person’s email signature when deciding how to address them and the best way to find more information about them or their business. On the flip side, as a business owner, I want my clients/audience to know how to contact me, that I serve Virginia clients, & how to get to my most used links.

When building your email signature, make sure your audience has all the pertinent information about you–who, what, where, when. Here are some ideas of what to include in your email signature. I suggest picking 5-6 things from this list to build an email signature that is informative, but to the point.

Your preferred name

Include the name that you prefer to be called. Many times your email address contains your formal name, but you may go by a less formal version of your name or even your middle name. Make sure people know how you like to be addressed in an email and in person.

Elements from your Brand

Include your branding in your email signature so that it’s consistent with the rest of your platforms. This can be done by including your logo or using your brand colors. Remember to keep this simple, strategically using 1 standout color that is easily readable and a variation of your logo that fits in your email signature nicely.

Headshot

Yes, as a branding photographer I’m always going to advocate you sharing your headshot so that the receiver knows what you look like, making your email more personable and allowing them to recognize you in person. Remember that this image in your email signature is most likely going to be a small image, so use an image that shows your face nicely. I’d recommend choosing a headshot or a logo, not both.

Contact Information

Remember to include the ways that you prefer to be contacted and leave out those that you don’t. I personally don’t want people calling or texting my cell phone unless I have explicitly given it to them, so I make sure to exclude my email from places like my email signature, website, social media, and business card.

Social Media handles

Only include links to the social media handles that you are active on and regularly update.

Office Hours & contact policies

Remind clients of what your weekly office hours are and when they should expect to hear back from you. This creates expectations between you and your clients as well as positive boundaries for your work and home life. I like using Boomerang by Gmail to schedule emails to be sent during my business hours, it helps me check getting back to the client off my to-do list, but sending that email during business hours.

Links

Consider putting a1-2 links that clients would find useful, think upcoming events or blog posts. Keep this as evergreen as possible since this is going out with every email you send out.

Travel dates

Do you find yourself in other cities often serving clients? This is an opportunity to remind clients of upcoming opportunities to work with you or just remind them that you’ll be out of town and will need more time getting back to them.

Upcoming Events

Does your business have any upcoming events that you’d like to make sure email recipients know about? Feel free to put things like workshops, speaking engagements, shows, etc. in your signature. Bonus points if it links to more information about your event.

Tag Line

Do you have a tagline that you’re known for? Take a portion out of your elevator pitch & put it here!

Email Signature examples

Here are some great examples of email signatures from some of my dear business friends. Many of these professionals are in different industries, so they have different needs depending on how they interact best with their clients/audience.

Thank you to my business friends who allowed me to use their email signatures in this blog post:
Melody Tholstrup, My Size Marketing
Karen Roa, Aleen Floral Design
Kelsey Anderson, Launch Your Daydream
Juliet Eckenfels, Eckenfels Media
Kara McCoy, Kara Anne & Co.
Cory Newell, Rev. Cory Newell and Associates
Micro-Weddings Virginia
Rachel Eubanks, Inspire to Engage