What is a Professional Signature for Email (How to Create One)

When sending traditional mails, you sign your signature just before your name to confirm your identity. Your signature is so important that if someone duplicates yours, it would be tagged as a fraudulent act. If signatures are so important in traditional communication, why not in digital communication?

What you’ll learn in this article;

• The Meaning of a Professional Signature for Email
• Importance of Having a Professional Signature
• What Should be Included in an Email Signature
• If it is okay to have more than one signature for an email
• How to create a free and simple Gmail signature like the Fig-1 above(10 simple steps)

What is a Professional Signature for Email?

A professional email signature is a unique identity that you attach to your electronic messages. It is the digital replica of your signature. It could be as simple as your name written in a stylish way or could contain more details like pictures, logos, links, etc.

Most importantly, it is your modern-day business card; you reserve the right to what it looks like and what information it’ll contain. Every time you send out a message with your email signature; you have sent out your business card along with it.

What is the Importance of Having a Professional Signature

1.    Professionalism and Legitimacy

An email signature is a way of showing your legitimacy and professionalism. Your email signature can include logos (yours and that of people you are working or partnering with), links to your social accounts, websites, or published content.

Once you know what your immediate audience prefers, you create an email signature that fits their requirements. Email signatures provide options for people to confirm your status especially when it is business-related.

2.    Creating a Brand Identity

The more people see your email signature; they get a mental picture of you and/or your brand. The more often your unique signatures appear to a particular individual, the more your brand is gaining promotion and recognition in the sight of the beholder.

You have to ensure that your email signature has a professional look and represents your brand identity.

3.    Marketing

You can use your email signature to showcase important messages i.e. a link to; download your book, watch your free course or read your trending post, etc.

What Should You Include in Your Email Signature?

• Name
• Phone Number
• Email
• Address
• Personal Photo
• Logo
• Your Real Signature
• Links to social accounts or website
• Certified Partnership
• Legal Disclaimers
• Etc.

Can You Have More Than one Signature for an Email?

Yes, you can have more than one signature for your emails. Email providers like Google give you the option to have more than one email signature.

For example; you can have one signature for the emails you send to your friends, and another for the emails you send to business partners. It all depends on the recipient and the purpose of the message. If the purpose of the email is for a job application, for instance, you can also use a simple and official signature like the one I’ll teach you to create towards the end of this article.

Rules to Creating a Good Email Signature

1.    Stay Consistent

 Changing your email signature often or not using it often will hurt the brand identity you are trying to build in people’s minds. Create a good email signature and stay consistent with it; you can make minor changes but the major parts of the signature stay the same.

2.    Simplicity

Your email signature should be simple and easy to interact with.

3.    Moderation

Use colors, fonts, symbols, and images that suit the brand/industry that you are building or representing.

Step by Step Method to Create a Free Email Signature (Gmail)

Step 1:           

Sign your signature on a sheet of clean paper with a black pen.

Step 2:

Take a good picture of your signed signature

Step 3:

Crop the picture using your phone or a personal computer (PC)

Step 4:

Open a Google doc sheet and create a 1X2 table

Step 5:

Add the picture of your signature you just cropped on the first row.

Step 6:

Write your name on the second row. Note: You can play with the font style, size, and colour and find your taste.

Step 7:

Remove the boundary lines of the table, and then copy everything (i.e., Cntrl+A then Cntrl+C if you are using a PC).

Step 8:

To add your signature to your gmail account, follow the steps below;

Go to your gmail settings- General setting-Signature-Add new signature-Give the signature a title- Click on create.

Step 9:

Paste the details you just copied from your google doc in step 7 into the work space. Adjust the settings to allow you send your signature by the time you send your next mail.Fig 6:

Step 10:

Test run it by sending a message to yourself, to see how it looks. Make adjustments if there’s something you don’t like.

Kudos! You have just created a simple and free email signature for yourself.

Don’t mind my design; I believe you’ll do better work than I have. Feel free to adjust the font, colour, positions, etc. until you find something that suits you.

You can also add links to your social platforms and other relevant information. In our next blog post, we teach you how to make a more creative signature that will include pictures, brand logos, social media handles, etc.

Was this article helpful? Do you have more questions you would like us to answer about the topic? Let us know in the comment section! 

Editor’s Recommendation

• How to Create an Attractive Email Signature
• Email Etiquettes That Every Professional Should Know
• 10 Freshers Follow-up Email Templates (+Examples)
• What do the CC and BCC Mean in Email
• How to Email a Job Application (With Samples)