email signatures

[billbenson]

Just had an email where the client put his business card as the signature. As the vendor I frequently copy into an excel file the customers signature. That is much easier to do if it is text than an image.

For those of you that use images for your signature, I wouldn't or at least would augment it with the contact info in text.

The business card in your email might be a good idea though. You could probably put a print business card link in the email. Never tried it, so I don't know how difficult it would be. Some people probably still collect business cards. I don't but it's an idea??

[vangogh]

I don't really like when the email sig is an image. They usually seem too much to me and I want the ability to copy/paste the text. I prefer simply leaving my name, a link to my site, and any other contact info I think necessary. I also like to add a quote to get across a bit of my personality.

I'm not saying an image won't work and if I had to guess I would suspect they do. It's more my own personal tastes for not using them.

[KristineS]

We have some people in our company who use a scan of their business card as their signature. Personally, I'm not fond of that method. I like simple signatures. My signatures are just my name and title and the information for whichever company I'm representing. I've thought about having a universal signature, but that would just be too long.

[Marcomguy]

Making the entire signature an image is risky. If the recipient's email client doesn't load images, they won't get any of your information.

It would be better to use an image for only part of the signature, such as the logo, and text for the rest.

[orion_joel]

That is just what i am thinking, Marcomguy, I do use outlook for my email, however it is set to display in plain text only. I tend to dislike all the highly graphical emails that i receive from some marketing companies, and this is the best way i find to avoid having all the images load.

My email sig is three lines, Regards, my name, my business.

[billbenson]

I really had two points.

One is that I like to copy and past signatures into a customer file, which you can't do if its an image. To me an image is a real pain in the butt.

But I wonder if, in certain industries or markets, being able to print a business card might be an idea? I don't see it as a good thing for me, but I wonder if some of the old timers don't still collect cards for the Rolodex?

As to the spam blocking; putting links and images in an email is probably a really bad idea although most of mine get through. I send a lot of emails with product drawings and links to product info etc and they seem to get through.

[vangogh]

Good points about the images not necessarily being seen in the email. I think images can be used in addition to your regular signature, but I wouldn't have them be the only signature in the email.

FeedBurner allows you to add animated images as part of your email signature that become a link to your blog feed. Those can be a nice addition, but I'd still want to make sure the link was typed out just in case the image isn't seen.

[Harold Mansfield]

I have tried them both, I even used a mini feed headline to rotate the last 5 headlines from one of my blogs...in the end, as long as there is a link to your site, a simple name, email, title, and text link seem to work just fine.
If you have a Linked In account, that works too.

[vangogh]

That's how I see it too. I always want to make sure to leave my name and a link to my site in the sig. Depending on the email and who's getting it, I may also leave contact info.

[Paul Elliott]

According to AWeber a significant number of people still get text-only emails. Therefore, it would be wise to have a URL that is readable rather than embedded. That would also solve Bill's problem.

The principle is to use your product, in this case your signature, as your intended customer will use it. Do you really want to look so fancy your customer loses your contact information?

I suspect not.

Paul