Just How Bad Is Your Email Signature?

Is your email signature a turnoff for your customers and/or partners? That's the question asked by communications strategist Dave Clark in a recent web article at BusinessWeek.

Clark says, "Too often, we see e-mail signatures so jammed with information that our eyes just glaze over: name, title, division, company, e-mail address, office number, cell number, fax number, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn links (complete with icons), trite words of wisdom about not printing this e-mail or a variation on carpe diem … the list goes on."

He lays out some simple and fairly common-sense principles, including the ones I've paraphrased below, in the interest of continuous "personal brand" improvement:


Your title is really only helpful if it actually communicates what it is that you do to the reader.
Spell your company's name right (spacing and all).
Your mobile number is probably sufficient to get in touch with you.
You don't need an email address in an email signature file.
Your fax number will be asked for if needed. Otherwise, it's a waste of space and makes your customers/partners gloss over.
If your job involves shipping or billing, then your physical address is important. If not, it's probably not.
Keep the social networking links to a minimum -- noone really cares how many networks you're on.
Also keep quotes and mottos to a minimum -- if people want to be inspired, they'll read a book.


http://activerain.com/image_store/uploads/6/5/3/8/6/ar118883303968356.jpg
(Image source: Bob Carney)