Quick, Easy and Effective: Make the Most of Your Email Signature

March 30, 2009 by Rita Marshall 

When you end an email, you can either type a smiley face beside your name or you can use an automated email signature to promote yourself and your business. I think we both know which is the best option.
Here are some quick, easy and effective ways to make your email sig work for you.

Give (And Repeat) Contact Info

Your email sig should include your name, your title, your company’s name, your website, and how to get in touch with you. Getting in touch should include your email address. “Good idea,” some cheeky readers may say. “It’s not like you’ve just sent them an email with your address on it.”

But what if your email ends up getting forwarded a few times? Will someone find your services fascinating enough to dig through a forwarded email trying to find your email address? Never make ‘em look too hard for your contact info.

Prioritize and Keep It Short

A reader’s eyeballs are your most precious resource. Don’t abuse them with a 20 line email signature. Sure you’re on Skype, MSN, IM, Twitter and Facebook. You’ve got a land line, cell, and several email addresses.

Which are the quickest ways you’d like to be reached? One email address that you check diligently and one business phone number should be sufficient. Only add your physical address if clients often come there to work with you.  A total email sig should not go over 8 lines.

Get Creative

• Succinctly describe your business services in a snappy tag line under your company name. It never hurts to keep reminding everyone of what you do.

• Offer a free report or promote a free service. Do you have 10 Tips for Great-Looking Websites? Do you offer a free home evaluation for anyone thinking of selling their property?  Devote a line in your email sig and tell everyone about it.

• I’m on the fence about motivational or humorous quotes. Are you using the quote to illustrate your business style – tenacious, creative, energetic? If the line resonates strongly with you and you’ve got the room, go for it. If not, leave that valuable email real estate for contact info and a business description.

An Effective Finished Product

 Now that you’ve got a tight and effective email sig, make sure to set your email settings so that it goes out on all your emails. If you have a line for free reports or new services, make sure to update it with fresh reports, offers, or news every so often. Get really fancy and you can set up different email sigs for different groups of recipients.

You’re effortlessly marketing with each email you send now, and not a smiley face in sight!

Photo by Carl Dwyer

For Personnel Reasons: Dilemmas and Advice on Business Relationships March 16, 2009

March 20, 2009 by Rita Marshall 

Seeing is Believing, or Not Believing and Kicking You Out of a Business Meeting

Josh, a successful high-end real estate agent in his 20s, heads to a client’s house to discuss a multi-million-dollar deal. He is wearing a tracksuit (complete with stains), a headband and sunglasses. The client kicks him out of their meeting. Josh can’t understand what just happened to this business relationship. Can you?

This happened in an episode of one of my favourite guilty pleasures, the real estate reality show Million Dollar Listing (Bravo and HGTV). Two out of three of these upscale LA real estate agents try to demonstrate their uniqueness by being as “creative” or non-conformist with their appearance as possible. Josh believes he is so good at his job he can afford to be scruffy (and wear sweatpants). Chad instills client confidence by shaping his hair like a giant olive, and fussing with it constantly. Only Madison trusts a mostly professional wardrobe (it is LA) and his gleaming teeth to carry him through business dealings.

Are You Too Creative or Too Housebound to Dress Professionally?

It’s not just Beverly Hills real estate agents, though. Designers, writers, photographers and many other “creatives” sometimes also feel dressing professionally or conservatively dampens their overall brand. To be fair, when you want clients to think of you as wildly creative, looking like a banker doesn’t help. But do you know where to draw the line?

Sometimes small business owners who work from home with clients they never meet face to face don’t feel the need for a professional, business-like appearance. One copywriter brags on her website that she works in her pyjamas. Even if you had the best of intentions to dress professionally at home, the slide down to pyjama pants and sweatshirts is a slippery one. Are you able to turn it around and look your best when a client does request a face-to-face meeting?

Some Blunt Advice

For Amy Elizabeth Casson, president of Polished Image, generational difference also played a role in Josh’s clothing fiasco. Read her blunt advice to potential Josh copycats here. The truth is, your personal appearance does affect your business relationships.

Photo by Versalogic

Email Newsletter vs. Blog – Which Is Right for Your Business?

March 9, 2009 by Rita Marshall 

Email newsletters and blogs are both effective ways for businesses to keep in touch with customers and potential customers. It would be great to have both an email newsletter and a blog, but a small business may only have the resources to choose one or the other. How should a business choose?

I have an example close to home. Last year the On Target blog was accompanied by the On Target email newsletter. This year, the newsletter is gone. What happened? I had to make a choice. Here are the steps I went through:

1. Recognizing it took too much time (and possibly money) to do both

Even though creating content wasn’t a problem (I doubled my newsletter articles as blog posts) the time it took to post to a blog and create a newsletter as well was too much.
I used the free version of EZezine, which doesn’t allow you to save drafts. I would have to create and send out the newsletter at once, instead of being able to walk away and come back with fresh eyes (vital for good proofreading and editing). The cost of paying for an e-newsletter publisher didn’t make sense when I considered where my company was headed.

2. Recognizing a new focus for business

As Longbow focused increasingly on web media and SEO, devoting more resources to my blog to establish a stronger web presence made more sense than maintaining an email newsletter. Learning things like how to burn a feed and promote blogs will add value for my clients as well as myself.

3. Going with your Gut

There was also a personal element. As both an e-newsletter recipient and a blog follower, I usually find catching up on blogs through a feed reader a lot more convenient. I can set aside time to read new posts from the blogs I subscribe to. When I don’t want the distraction, I just log out of my reader.

There are some newsletters I can’t wait to see in my inbox, but I like to keep my email focused mainly on communicating with sources and clients. If you are deciding to start a blog or an email newsletter, subscribe to a few of each and see what you like and don’t like on a gut level.

4. Thinking about potential readers

Think about your customers – do you have a large pool of customers who would be willing to hear from you through a newsletter on a regular basis? Are they tech-savvy enough to have RSS feed readers and navigate through different blogs or are they more email-centered? My clientele was clearly comfortable with blogs and readers so I felt comfortable making the switch as well.

Blog vs. e-Newsletter: Final Things to Consider

  • What is your business focus? Are you trying to build a stronger web presence or do you just need an inexpensive way to keep in touch with customers and potential customers?
  • What kind of preparation will you need to launch either a blog or e-newsletter? While free blogging platforms are available online, most businesses prefer one that is attached to their website. You may have to consult a web designer, or you may find out that your hosting company can help you out. This entire website, for example, is a modified wordpress blog provided by my hosting company. If you’re stuck for content, a copywriter can help generate ideas and write professional articles or posts.

Your answers aren’t written in stone – try one method out and you can always switch to the other or combine the two. Each method can be a fantastic marketing tool, so it’s worth the time to consider how blogs and e-newsletters can help your business.