How to Create A Professional Email Signature for Your Business

H

A professional email signature is often an overlooked priority for many freelancers. However, this is a fantastic opportunity to provide potential clients with more information about your business and highlight key information about you. How do you create the perfect freelance email signature?

Your email signature should be a part of your personal branding as a freelancer and needs to be carefully thought out in order to have the right effect.

Here, we’ve covered how to create a professional email signature and the key features you will want to include:

  1. What should a professional email signature include?
  2. How to Create a Professional Email Signature
    1. HTML signature
    2. Email generator tools
  3. How to add an email signature to Gmail

What to Include in Your Freelance Email Signature

Good email signatures will be short, concise, and include the key information you want to highlight to your email recipients. 

As a freelancer, it is important that your email signature attracts the attention of the recipient, who could be your next client.

A few things you should definitely include in your email signature are: 

1) Your Name, Job Title, and Contact Details

This is, of course, the most important thing to include in your professional email signature. You want your readers to know who you are, why you are messaging them, and what you do. 

Including your name and job title is the simplest way of doing this. For example:

John Doe
Freelance UX/UI Designer

Peter Smith
WordPress / WooCommerce expert

You must also facilitate easy ways to get in touch with you. Depending on your business and your preferences, this may vary. 

For example, if you work with international clients and use Skype to communicate with clients, don’t hesitate to add your Skype name instead of your regular local phone number. Whatsapp has also become a popular option to connect with business – if you are available to your clients on Whatsapp, tell them about it. 

Tip: Don’t go crazy with the alternatives! This is just for the initial contact and you will have time to offer more options once the conversation starts.

2) An Image of Yourself

Adding a headshot photo to your email signature can add a human element to your email, distinguishing you as an actual person rather than just a blank email. This can be a simple but effective way of building trust and a connection with the recipient of your email. Just make sure it is a small (i.e. not overly attention-grabbing) and professional (probably best to avoid using your most recent beach picture) image.  

3) Your Logo

Do you have a logo that you use on your website, social media channels, invoices, etc? Put this in your professional email signature to create cohesion within your branding.

If you don’t have a logo, this may be something you want to look into at the same time as creating your email signature in order to present a more professional image to your future clients.

💡 If you need help with logo design, do not hesitate to reach out to our logo design experts.

4) Social Links & Website

Not everybody agrees that including links to social networks in the email signature is a good idea. However, it can be a great way for freelancers to connect on a more personal level with potential customers.

These days, most people will want to do their own research before replying to a pitch from a freelancer. Including all the links they need to find you online is the best way of directing them to the areas you are most active in, and that display your work most effectively. Only choose your most professional social media channels and avoid ones you have for personal use.

For example, do link to your freelancermap profile with one of our available widgets that you can pick here, or a link to your portfolio, blog, etc. As for social media, add only the most professional social networking channels and do not link to accounts you use privately

5) A Bio Line

Including a short bio line in your email signature can be a great way of providing a little more information about you in an interesting way. For example, if you have a specialist niche, this is a great place to emphasize it to your email recipients.

You could also add a funny sentence that talks about your client’s most-common pain points and how you could help them. This is something they will probably relate to.

Here is the bio line Neil Patel, an extremely well-known internet marketer, uses online:

Here, we can see his name, an image, a social media link, and a few sentences that provide more information about him.

Neil’s bio line takes him from ‘internet marketer’ to marketing expert, having helped enormous brands increase their revenue online. Any potential client that sees a bio like this is instantly going to pay more attention to that email above others.

Of course, you may not have the experience of Neil Patel, but you can still use a small bio line to make a big impact.

Ready to create your professional email signature?

You can start from scratch designing your own signature or use one of the many free resources for e-mail signature generator. For example, HubSpot offers a great one that you could check out here. Other

How to Create a Professional Email Signature

Now that we know the details you need to include in your freelance email signature, let’s take a look at how to create an email signature.

Thankfully, you don’t need to be an experienced designer (or hire one!) in order to create an effective professional email signature.

To create an email signature that suits you, you can use an online template and edit it with your own branding, links, and anything else you want to include.

For a simpler template, you can also create one directly with Gmail or your email provider, but this will not have the same customization options as an online template.

When creating a freelance email signature, you should keep in mind two key things in order to ensure it delivers the right impression to your email recipients:

  • Colours – Do you use particular colours across your branding, for example in your professional website? Use these same colours in your email signature for brand consistency.
  •  Keep it Short & Simple – While you do want to include key information in your signature, you don’t want it to be the same length as your email! Keep it short and simple, using icons as links where possible.

Create a Free HTML Signature

On some email providers such as Outlook you’ll need to add your email signature in HTML. The HTML code allows you to personalise your email signature as much as you want in terms of format, colours or functionality.

Here are two free examples of HTML email signatures that you can copy and adapt to your needs. 

An example of a simple email signature that we use on freelancermap is:

Add HTML Signature

And here’s the HTML email signature code:

<strong><span style=”font-size:small;”>[YOUR NAME]</span></strong>
<div><span style=”font-size: x-small;”>[YOUR POSITION] |<a href=”https://www.freelancermap.com”>[YOUR WEBSITE]</a></span></div>
<div><span style=”font-size: x-small;”>E: <a href=”mailto:[YOUR EMAIL]“>[YOUR EMAIL]</a> </span></div>
<div><span style=”font-size: x-small;”>[YOUR PHONE]</span></div>
<div></div>
<div><span style=”font-size: x-small;”>Follow us:</span>
<div><span style=”font-size: x-small;”><strong><a href=”[BLOG LINK]” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Blog</a> </strong></span><span style=”font-size: x-small;”>|<strong> <a href=”[FACEBOOK LINK]” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Facebook</a></strong> </span><span style=”font-size: x-small;”> | <strong><a href=”[TWITTER LINK]” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Twitter</a></strong> </span><span style=”font-size: x-small;”>| <strong> <a href=”[LINKEDIN LINK]” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>LinkedIn</a></strong></span><span style=”font-size: x-small;”> |<strong> <a href=”[OTHER LINKS, E.G. PORTFOLIO]” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Portfolio</a></strong></span></div>
<span style=”color: #666666; font-size: xx-small;”><span style=”font-family: arial, sans-serif; background-color: #ffffff;”>[YOUR ADDRESS (Optional)]<br /></span></span>

Here’s another email signature example with a picture too:

HTML Signature Sample

If you like this example, feel free to use the following HTML email signature code:

<div>
<table style=”border: 3px solid #41c0eb;” border=”0″ width=”600″ cellspacing=”0″ cellpadding=”0″>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style=”border: 1px solid #41c0eb; border-right: none; border-left: none;” align=”right” valign=”top” width=”170″ height=”170″><a href=”[LINK A TU WEB]” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”><img style=”padding-top: 20px;” src=”[LINK A TU FOTO O LOGO]” width=”150″ height=”150″ /></a></td>
<td style=”padding-left: 25px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; border: 1px solid #41c0eb; border-left: none; border-right: none; line-height: 16px;” valign=”bottom” width=”430″ height=”170″>
<p style=”font-size: 18px;”><strong>[YOUR NAME]</strong></p>
<p style=”font-size: 16px;”>[YOUR POSITION] · <a href=”[YOUR WEBSITE]” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>[YOUR WEB TEXT]</a></p>
<p style=”line-height: 18px;”>T: [YOUR PHONE]</p>
<p style=”line-height: 18px;”>E: [YOUR EMAIL]</p>
<p><strong>Me encuentras en:</strong></p>
<p><a href=”[LINK TO PORTFOLIO]” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”><img src=”[URL IMAGE FACEBOOK LOGO ]” width=”30″ height=”30″ /></a><a href=”[LINK LINKEDIN]” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”><img src=”[URL IMAGE LINKEDIN LOGO]” width=”30″ height=”30″ /></a><a href=”[LINK FACEBOOK]” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”><img src=”[URL IMAGE FACEBOOK LOGO]” width=”30″ height=”30″ /></a></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>

In widely-used email providers, such as Outlook or Thunderbird, you can easily add your HTML code to create your signature. Here’s how:

  • Outlook HTML signature: Account options > Write mail > Format, font and signature 
  • Thunderbird HTML signature: Account settings > Signature text (active using HTML)

Tools to create your email signature

You can design and create your freelance email signature from scratch, using one of the HTML examples we’ve shared, or by using one of the many resources available to create an email signature online. 

Many email signature generators offer their service for free for the first signature. We recommend you check out the following:

  • HubSpot email signature generator has several different email signature templates that you can customize and edit as you need. 
  • WiseStamp is also an email signature generator where you can get inspiration and create your own signature.
  • Htmlsig gives you 30 days to create your email signature and edit it. It offers several options like the possibility to make appointments in the calendar or to connect on Whatsapp.
  • Newoldstamp also allows you to create a single signature for free.

How to add your signature in Gmail

Gmail is one of the most used email providers worldwide, so chances are you are using this service from Google, too. Let’s take a look at how to add your email signature to your Gmail account.

Firstly, log in to your account and head over to your inbox. There, you’ll see the settings wheel in the top right corner, close to your picture/logo. 

Click this cogwheel and when the settings open, click the ‘See all settings’ button.

You will see that there are many different things you can edit and configure according to your needs, but to add an email signature you need to stay in the general settings and scroll down to “Signature”.

There you can add the format you want, with links, images, icons, etc.

Gmail also allows you to have several signatures available. You could configure one that draws more attention to the first mail and a different one for the replies. 

Ready to create your professional freelance email signature? Remember that it’s the little things that often have the most lasting impact!

Yasmin Purnell

Yasmin Purnell is a content creator at freelancermap.com. She has a great deal of experience working as a freelance copywriter and has enjoyed the Digital Nomad lifestyle. She is in charge of bringing you amazing freelancing tips and experiences that will help you boost your freelance business.

By Yasmin Purnell

Recent Posts