When it comes to email signatures many of us believe that it is simply an electronic business card that showcases your contact details. Granted, it does show people which individual they are dealing with in a business.
However, they are so much more than simply a digitalised business card. The best thing to do is to see them more as another way of marketing to customers. If used in the right way, it can help provide its value from the very nature of corporate emails both to people in and outside of your business. This is why in our latest blog article; we will showcase 4 ways that you can build ROI through the use of email signature marketing.
1 - Building conversions
It goes without saying that most of our inboxes are spammed with hundreds of new emails each day. Email marketing is still a valuable resource in a marketer’s armory but has certainly been questioned in recent years. The ever-increasing spam, phishing and malware attacks have certainly reduced the levels of trust that individuals have in emails.
You will find that email signature marketing doesn’t have such a problem. Creative banners are the easiest way to target new customers with discounts, the latest updates and tailored content such as a blog article or page. The best thing about this is that every contact will see it and engage with it and best of all it won't take money out of your marketing budget.
This is great and all but how does this approach to marketing work in practice? The first step that you will need to take is to streamline your email signatures into your existing marketing plan. This means that as well as meeting your customer requirements you will need to make sure it matches up with the sales objectives of your business.
2 – Building up the levels of engagement with your target audience
As marketers, we understand the true value of engaging with the right type of audiences with the right type of engaging content. Through the use of email signature marketing, you are able to take this to the next level with even more specific targeting possible.
The best thing about it is the fact that you will be already aware of who will be seeing the message, what they are discussing and who they are speaking with across the business. From this, you will be able to create email signature marketing banners around these elements to have the perfect blend of both content and audience segment.
As well as this, it is of the utmost importance that you tweak your signature banners based on the context in which your audience will see it. This will make it easier to align your marketing messaging better based on their avid interests.
It is important to note that in order to maximise the true value of email signature marketing you will need to change the banner regularly to keep the engagement levels up. This demonstrates how well email signature marketing can integrate with your other marketing channels in a less intrusive manner.
3 – Taking your brand to the next level
So, what does it really take to make the best email signature? The first thing is easy, it’s a logo! This goes without saying but looking at a visual of the brand enables your audience to notice who they are dealing with even if they don’t recognise the name of the person.
Better still, images allow recipients to easily connect with your brand. However, it is important to note that the primary focus is on the email itself rather than just the logo. You don’t want to get carried away by over branding your emails as it will detract from the purpose of sending them in the first place.
As well as this, you will want to make sure that the contact details and legal disclaimer match up with your brand guidelines if you don’t already do so.
Like with other activities included with digital marketing, there will need to be regular collaboration between your designer, your HTML guru and the person that is in charge of your email infrastructure. Therefore, it makes perfect sense to use your brand elements across the whole design to take far beyond the reaches of just a logo.
4 – Better communication across your business
Being able to seamlessly use email signature marketing to target those outside of your business is one thing, as it’s simple to build messages that are aimed at certain users and audiences. It becomes an even more arduous task to use it internally. This may sound silly but internal communications can benefit from campaign banners that align directly with your employees.
So how does this approach work in practice? The good thing about banners is the fact they don’t need too many graphics. Better still, you don’t need to work as hard to keep the attention of the employees that already work for the business. You don’t need to go over the top in terms of content, given how regularly internal emails are sent out.
So, what can a banner be used for? Anything that you wish your employees to know such as an upcoming event, upcoming training or webinar date or anything else that comes to mind.
You could also take the opportunity to advertise internal job roles that are available if your business is big enough or offer employee training in one way or another. Even making use of email signature marketing for small tasks works like asking employees to switch off their laptops after they finish for the day or reminding them to book meeting rooms if required.
This helps to constantly be updating the messaging without being annoying. You can have this message on the banners for months on end. No need for follow-ups as these employees will just take this messaging on board visually.
Next Steps?
The use of corporate email is the best way of being fully aligned with your market segment. If recipients weren’t relevant, we wouldn’t be contacting them. By using email signature marketing is the best way to back up emails as well as providing extra marketing opportunities.
It goes without saying but many businesses rely on building up relationships between their workforce and their contacts. Therefore, email signatures are the best way to do this for marketing purposes. Recipients will look under an email and your content is there, so you can use this to say whatever you wish to.
However, the best way to master this form of marketing is through the use of a fully integrated email signature management solution. To get started with this, get in touch with one of our IT consultants.
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