Although business cards are the perfect tangible item to gift your clients at a meet and greet or convention, your email signature is the perfect non-tangible item to make available to your clients 24 hours a day!
So many of us are guilty of writing “valuable” information on a piece of paper and then shoving it into a jacket pocket or the bottom of a purse or briefcase. At that moment, we feel it’s important enough to save. But three weeks later, when we go to look for it, it’s been washed, dried, and disintegrated or thrown away with our pay at the pump receipts.
Once we realize we have misplaced the contact information for the prospective business acquaintance, we start racking our brains, hmmm, I wonder if he has a website, or maybe he’s on social media. We immediately go into a private investigator, or “stalker” mode as teenagers call it. After trying to remember the guy’s name and then guessing the spelling, and clicking around, we might find him. But even if we do find him on social media, will we find his website? Or will we have to PM him and let him know that our irresponsible self lost his card? Or, do we just forget about that guy (too much work) and move on to something or someone else?
Rewind. Let’s pretend that shortly after our first encounter, the prospective business acquaintance stops us and says something like, “Hey, let me shoot you a quick email so you have my contact information”. Perfect! We can’t crumble, shove, or wash an email. It will be waiting patiently in cyberspace until we need it. If we should at some point decide that we would like to do business with this person, and locate his email, wouldn’t it be ideal if his signature line gave us access to one-stop shopping? What if by clicking that one email, we can easily locate his company name, website, social media links, phone number, and so much more? Nothing would be more disappointing than finding his email, scrolling to the bottom, to find nothing more than a brief salutation and a name. Now we’re resorting to “stalking” again if we have the time and energy.
Doesn’t it just make sense to have all of your contact information available for your customers in one location? One location that’s just one click away from being “added to contacts”. If your customer has just one email from you that’s still accessible (and let’s face it, even deleted emails aren’t actually deleted), they can reach you! If your information isn’t available in the midnight hours when your customer can’t sleep but can and wants to work, or research, or shop, then your customer just might be looking at someone else’s website and social media pages. We live in a fast-paced society where people want and expect instant gratification.
Making your contact information available in your email signature tells your customers that you are available to them. Go ahead and include your company slogan, your website, social media links, even your blog. A signature that’s nothing more than a signature is cold, unfriendly, and leaves the impression that this person really doesn’t want to be bothered by being contacted in any other way aside from email. It might even convey the message that this person (or company) doesn’t even have a website or social media page to like or follow.
Make your email signature work for you. It’s free advertising, a free Rolodex, and convenient one-stop information shopping for your clients.