7 Tips for Creating Professional Email Signatures [Infographic]

Your email signature is a key aspect of your digital identity. It's therefore somewhat surprising that around 48% of professionals have no signature at all, while many more make do with poorly thought-out or badly designed sign-offs. In fact, an effective signature can be one of the simplest ways to give your email more impact and encourage a response from your clients, customers, or colleagues - you can consider it a business card with serious frills.

Your e-mail signature puts your contacts just one click away from responding through the channel that works best for them - keeping it clear is of utmost importance. Keep it to one email address, one phone number, and only the relevant social networking links. Space them out with pipes (|) and line dividers so your eagle-eyed recipient can zoom straight into the information they need to connect with you.

Keep it on-brand, too - aligning the font, colour and tone with your organisation's image will look professional and strengthen your company identity. You can add a headshot if you'd like to make it more personal - but again, make sure its appropriate to your brand. Another great idea to keep your signature up-to-the-minute is to add a line of text that communicates your current project or goal - be it a special offer, a seminar you plan to attend, or a new product.

In the end, the way you choose to identify yourself through your email signature depends on the nature of your correspondence. Big business will have different needs to a family newsletter. Thankfully, we have this great cheat sheet infographic by Cloud Solutions that spells out in quick steps on how best to tailor your signature to your needs - and to be taken seriously by your recipients.

7 Tips for Creating Professional Email Signatures [Infographic] | Social Media Today This post was originally published in Irfan Ahmad's blog.