While the variety of social media outlets we use on a daily or weekly basis have changed how we communicate, email is still the method of choice in business. And it’s used a lot: according to the Radicati Group, email is still the predominant form of business communication, with over 100 billion business email messages sent and received each day in 2013.
For business, email is the primary way to communicate, and having a well‑formed email signature and maximizing its effectiveness is a boon to any type of business entity. When contacting clients via email, there are some best practices to construct an effective signature, keeping in mind the preferences of both the recipient and the email client.
Begin the email signature with an accepted signature delimiter: essentially two hyphens together, this element helps email clients recognize the separation of the body of the email from the proceeding signature lines.
A good signature will include the individual’s name, company, position or title, and contact information. Lines of text in a signature are better kept to three lines, and 72 characters per line, which generally eliminates text wrapping to the next line. With so many ways to make contact, it’s best to choose one or two to use in the signature—having several options may feel overwhelming.
When using graphics, it's best to have an absolute URL graphic, meaning the graphic should be pulled from the server. For instance, the logo or any icons in a signature should be located on the company server, and then be linked in the signature using the actual URL to that.
It’s important to note that, for some email clients, more than one image for every 40 words can be flagged and end up in the spam or junk folder, so using an appropriate amount of images will ensure messages arrive in the client’s inbox intact.
Located in Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona, Kinetik IT is a full-service information technology and Internet services provider, offering a wide array of technology and internet strategy solutions, as well as sound advice. To learn more about services and products, and to stay up to date with Kinetik IT, visit www.Kinetik-IT.com or follow Kinetik on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.