All Around the World in 365 Days

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Tip of the Day
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If you do decide to use an email signature, keep it short and simple.
Most people don't want to read a massive email signature at the end of
every email you send them.

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You Too Can Benefit From The Power Of Email Signatures
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Read On Our Website:
http://goo.gl/Q69Zb

by Saikat Basu

A signature tells you something about a personality. Just as two
people hardly write alike, they also sign differently. Thats how the
science of Graphology came into being. But the digital age and the
email signature have reduced the way you sign-off on a mail to a
footnote. Just a typed name, and maybe a phone number or a Twitter
handle how utterly dull. Just as there is a way to write and format
proper emails, there are also ways to end them well.

A few years back, I showed you how to create custom signatures in
Gmail with Firefox add-ons. Much of that information remains true. So
do the six tips to get more out of your Gmail email signatures. The
common thread is to not only create a stylistic impression, but also
create a personal brand or promote a corporate one.

So, without further ado, lets look at how you can benefit from the
power of email signatures.

The Benefits of an Email Signature

An email signature shows your openness to communicate.
A well designed email signature conveys professionalism via your
emails.
An email signature is a promotion tool for a business, a website/blog,
a book, or a social cause.
An email signature with the relevant information is your
short-biography.
An email signature is also a social networking tool, like a business
card.


The Absolute Basics of an Email Signature

A neat email signature says just one simple thing you care about the
way you communicate. So, a basic email signature without a touch of
pretension should answer who you are, what you do, and how you can be
contacted. I personally prefer an email signature that is minimal and
does not hog space. Our attention spans being limited as it is, I feel
you could start with these points…

Your full name.
Your contact information.
Your personal or professional website/blog.
Your business address (or any other you might want to include).
Include links to your social network profiles only if they are
important enough.


Designing a Simple Text Email Signature

Email signatures in simple text allow you to create clean lines of
information without fancy graphics and logos. They are also consistent
across devices and arent handicapped if image blockers are in place
(as in Gmail or Outlook). Designing a simple text signature for your
email takes some creative thought because you can only work with
fonts, font sizes, symbols, spacing, and the colors available. The
following image illustrates a neat text signature created in Gmail:

This is a simple signature that took me just 3 minutes to set up in
Gmail. All I used was the Verdana font and some spacing between the
letters of my name to make it stand out. If it suits you, you can pick
the colors of your company logo to design your text signature. Heres
another look at it with a placement of the address:

To take your default Gmail signature beyond text, you can use the rich
text editor in Gmail to spice it up with hyperlinks and images too.

Take Your Gmail Signature beyond Simple Text

The rich text signature editor in Gmail also helps you create HTML
logos. You can insert small transparent logo icons for the services
you want represented in your signature. An advanced Google Image
Search will give you the location of such icons. Many services have
media logos in different sizes, for instance: Twitter. Preferably, go
for 16px by 16px sized transparent icons. Upload and position them
appropriately. Heres a sample signature I created quickly:

Also note (as this Gmail support page says) if you send mail from
multiple addresses in Gmail, you can set a different signature for
each address in the General tab of your settings. You can also use the
power of canned responses to set up multiple email signatures in the
same account.

Create a Signature with LinkedIn

LinkedIn has a rich signature generator that helps you populate your
emails with HTML signatures. The signature generator comes with many
hued themes to give your emails a stylized look. The LinkedIn
signature generator gives you a JavaScript window as seen below. You
can copy-paste the code into email clients which support HTML
signatures.

The signature generator does not say that it supports online email
clients. But there is a simple workaround you can implement for Gmail.
Simply copy all the text in your LinkedIn signature and paste it into
a new compose window. Gmail automatically displays the signature with
the LinkedIn theme chosen exactly preserved. You can save and re-use
this signature as a canned response.

Spice Up Your Emails with Third-Party Email Signature Tools

WiseStamp

WiseStamp is a browser add-on for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and
Thunderbird. The browser extension comes with many email signature
templates which you can customize with your own information like a
profile picture or logo, IM & social profiles. The singular feature of
WiseStamp is that it gives you a choice of apps across the social web
which you can connect to with your signature. For instance, you can
add a Facebook email app to promote a Facebook page or a WordPress app
to give your blog readership a boost.

The free version gives you two signatures (e.g. personal and
business), while the paid version with different plans comes with
multiple signature support.

Last year, Tina did a comprehensive review on WiseStamp. Since then
new apps like Pinterest and Instagram have been introduced.
Outlook.com is a webmail platform that is supported. One of the
significant additions are the Sidebar Apps.

Sidebar Apps allows you to showcase your content alongside your
emails. The sidebar placement allows you to promote your content on
the right-hand side of your emails and potentially garner more
eyeballs. Sidebar Apps are available for YouTube, Twitter, and
Pinterest for now.

Sigwich

Sigwich is another third-party app that helps you create an appealing
signature. It works with email clients like Outlook, Gmail, and Yahoo,
and on Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome. Sigwich has a powerful
signature engine that helps you build a creative signature easily. It
has 6 different signature layouts that give you enough room to design
a customized look. After touching up your signature, you can install
the signature file and use it with your email client. Do note that you
have to sign-up for a free account before you can click on download.

The optional signature layouts are good, but I wasnt too satisfied
with Sigwich. One of the little bugs I found while using Sigwich was
that the Image Cropper wasnt working properly. I missed the ability
to color the fonts. Going head-to-head, WiseStamp is far more powerful
and easier to use.

There are many dos and donts for creating the perfect email
signature. Using the right tool is perhaps number one on the list.
Keeping it simple and slim should be at number two. The benefits of
using an email signature are often intangible. But you never know
where the good word is being carried to. What about you? Do you
consistently use an email signature? Mention how it benefits you? How
did you design it? If not, its about time you did.

Read On Our Website:
http://goo.gl/Q69Zb

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