Top 10 Email Signature Design Best Practices
The email signature is a small block of text placed at the bottom of your newsletter. Because it is small and text-based, it needs to be designed delicately.
With that in mind, let’s explore the ten best practices for creating an effective, successful email signature.
(N.B. Do prioritize the email signature when submitting your design doc to any email marketing firm for psd to email conversion.)
- Understand The Basic Format
The email signature block must consist of the following information:
- Your first and last name
- Your job title or designation
- Your company name and a link to the same
- Your phone number or email address
Those are the building blocks of your signature. Now it’s time to put meat on the bones.
- Add Social Media Links
Add links to relevant social media profiles such as LinkedIn, X, and Instagram. Avoid including links to accounts you rarely use. Keep in mind that space is limited, so you don’t want to clutter up the block merely to intimate a diverse social presence. Do not overdo the icons either.
- Add a Call to Action
Depending on what exactly you want the subscriber to do, you can add a simple call to action in your signature. Typically, you want users to follow you on social media, check out new products, be in touch with the latest news on your blog, etc. In addition, make sure the CTA is prominent.
- Add Legal Disclaimers
This is one of the most critical components of your signature.
Two points here. First, add a prominent unsubscribe option in accordance with the provisions laid in the CAN-SPAM laws. Second, you may want to include a legal statement to protect the privacy of your communications. But it’s negotiable since it depends on your niche. For instance, if your niche is finance and your email typically contains banking or insurance-related intel, you can’t afford to drop it.
- Sign Off in Style
In style or without – those are the only ways to sign off. Now, by ‘style’ we mean signing off in a way that radiates your personality.
Having ‘thanked’ the viewer, you want to close the email in a simple yet individualistic manner. This is also how you attract attention: compel the recipient to respond to your message.
Of course, you can close in a traditional way. But if one were to choose between signing off in style and without, style is better.
- Add Face Or Logo
Include a nice, bright headshot with a Duchenne smile. This is another way of reinforcing your persona. Equally, it is helpful in that people tend to remember visuals better.
If you don’t wish to include your face, add the logo of your brand. It’s not an alternative without import. The logo shifts the focus on your team, instead of highlighting just one person. In fact, most brands use a logo at the end of their newsletters.
- Right Size, Proper Structure
Notwithstanding the relatively small space that an email signature occupies, it influences how the overall email turns out. So size matters, especially if you want psd to email conversion in which case the newsletter will be created in HTML or CSS.
The optimal size for an email signature is 300–600 px wide and 150–200 px high. Use bullets, high-contrast colors, minimum graphics, bite-sized sentences, and headers up to two levels.
- Use Consistent Fonts
To remind you once again: space is limited, so you want to use fonts that do not seem to make the signature block too busy.
To that end, the first tip would be to stick to just one font across the block. Avoid using exotic serif fonts that are not typically supported by most email clients, devices, and platforms. You want to maximize readability by using sans serif fonts.
Make sure that the email signature is supported by screen readers as well.
- Ensure Mobile-responsiveness
Like we said at the beginning, the email signature is a tiny block of text at the very bottom. You want to ascertain that this small chunk of text is readable on mobile devices/small screens. This also extends to links and the CTA that you include in the block. They must be tappable.
- Add Animated GIFs
Many brands like to add at least one animated GIF in the signature block. It’s a neat piece of fun, provided it’s not unduly distractive.
How do you ensure that? Use no more than one loop, to begin with. The GIF shouldn’t flash at a rapid pace. You want to assimilate, rather than make too obvious, the GIF into the template in order to maintain the visual flow of the email.
Wrapping Up!
To sum up, here are the elementary components of an email signature:
- Personal information (first name, last name, phone number, designation)
- Thank you note
- Social media handles
- Links to relevant resources, offers, pages, content, etc.
- Animated GIF
