Creating an Email Signature

Email signatures give persons quick access to your primary contact information. Also, your signature is also a great way to link to your website so that you can build web traffic from normal daily email conversations. I will give instructions for Outlook 2007/2010 versions below. If you are using Outlook 2003, the concept is similar. If you are not using Outlook at all, you still will benefit to browse below to some concepts that you can consider regardless of your email app.

In Outlook, go to the tools menu and choose Options. In the dialog box, choose the “Mail Format” tab. Look for the “Signatures…” button and click it.

On the next dialog, you can create a signature. Click the “New” button. Type a name to identify the signature. For example, a simple thing to do is to use your first name. If you have multiple email accounts, and need multiple signatures, you could name the others with additional description.

In the lower part of the box is where you can type the information about how best to contact you. Most of my correspondence is electronic, so I choose only to put my email, web, and cell references. As a real estate professional, you will want to put your mailing address also. We all have electronic address books these days. When you receive an email from somebody new, if you are like me, you'll copy all the content from their email signature and paste it in to the fields of a new contact card for them. In this sense, for the person who needs to create a new contact card, having complete information is useful. You might be inclined to not put your email address thinking that "it is by email I am contacting them, they can get it from the sent by box" - True, but it is easier to grab to copy/paste and it is a more visible form to include it as part of your signature.

Notice that when you type your website, you want to have it converted for you to a hyperlink. This is very important. You WANT them to click through to your website. Many programs convert web addresses to hyperlinks automatically. If your address does not convert, usually it will do so if you type an extra space at the end. If it still does not, you can then select the text and right-click to choose the "insert hyperlink" option. Often I see emails either without the website reference or the website reference is not in a hyperlink form - DON'T let that be YOU too!

When you create your signature, you might want to consider its vertical layout. If you did one line for each part, the HEIGHT of the overall signature could get quite tall. As you know, email conversations go back and forth. Having to hop over a huge signature to get to the next content is distracting. So, what I like to do is to display more than one item in each line thus keeping it tightened up vertically.

At the top-right of the dialog box, you can choose to include the signature on new messages (that’s for sure) and also if you want it on your replies. If you reply back and forth many times and put a signature on EVERY message, your conversation thread becomes a little distracting with signature info everywhere. However, you can choose to include signature on replies and then opt to manually delete it as needed in the cases of long back and forth conversation emails.

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About the
Author

Craig Daniels  is a Technology Manager residing in NYC who specializes in applied technologies in the fields of Architecture and Real Estate. Craig focuses on finding the best uses of tech as can be used to help a business be more successful. He is keen on always seeing the perspective and viewpoint of his audience and he tailors his teaching to be easily understood. He teaches by means of this blog, online courses and webinars, as well as one-on-one remote sessions with persons located throughout the country and beyond.