Email Signature Templates

Every business or organization that uses email as their primary form of communication can benefit from email signature templates. What should all be included in an email signature template? First, it’s helpful to understand the purpose of each element within an email signature design. From the font to social icons and a dynamic email banner, there are a lot of details to consider when standardizing company-wide email signatures. Here are a few basic elements found in modern email signatures today:

• Full name
• Company name
• Title
• Phone number
• Company website URL

Although these components seem very obvious to include, it’s important to use them in a way that best represents you and your company’s brand. Font, font size, colors, and overall hierarchy or order are all decisions that go into a branded email signature template. Marketers need to find the right balance between being memorable but not too distracting.

If you’re then ready to expand your email signature size with additional elements, consider adding any of these options.

• Headshot
• Company logo
• Company tagline
• Social icons
• Calendar scheduling link
• Dynamic email banner

Any of these creative details can take your email signature to the next level and make it really stand out. A headshot puts a face to a name and adds a personal touch to your email, especially for team members who are customer or prospect-facing. A headshot can be small or stand out, but not too big. It is usually a square or circle crop. The company logo and tagline are also good ideas to make your company’s brand stand out in an email. And why not use every email sent by your employees to get more traffic, follows, and subscribes to your company’s social channels? If you’re ready to create email signature options that drive for engagement or conversions, consider adding a link or call-to-action button that leads to a calendar system where the email recipient can schedule time on your calendar. Finally, an email signature banner is the most critical component to turning employee email into your new favorite advertising channel. We’ll expand upon this throughout this resource.

There are many options to choose from with free email signature tools and email signature platforms with a monthly or annual cost. If you need email signature templates free of a commitment or cost, it is possible to find. But you might also find they are very limited with functionality and opportunities to customize. The HubSpot email signature generator, for example, allows you to first pick from six different templates. Then you can customize your text fields (name, phone number, website, etc.) and stylize specific colors, a list of font options, and different font sizes. You can even add images by URL and create a call-to-action button. This tool and all of the features it offers is amazing for individuals looking for a free email signature to represent their personal brand every time they send an email. But for those looking to roll out consistent signatures to their entire company or organization, the email signature generator copy and paste approach isn’t scalable.

Email signature platforms offer a way for the brand, marketing, or IT team to centrally manage and update company-wide email signatures in a way that best represents the brand and requires zero effort for each individual employee. Not only that, platforms like Opensense also offer email ad campaigns that can add value to your event marketing, content marketing, customer marketing, or account-based marketing efforts. In addition to centrally managing the email signature, email ad campaigns can be published and updated from a single location. They can also be updated by sender or recipient. A Canva email signature banner can be designed in one place, saved as a file, and then uploaded to an email signature platform to then be used as the email ad banner. Email signature template word and text ideas are available on this resource if you need a starting point.

Outlook and Gmail are two of the most popular email platforms that each offer different ways to update the user’s email signature. It’s helpful to know the differences between the email signature Outlook process compared to the Gmail process, but first we’ll share a few more differences between Outlook and Gmail.

Outlook is developed by Microsoft and associated with Microsoft Office and Office 365 suite. Gmail is developed by Google and is part of the Google Workspace.

Gmail and Outlook both offer 15 GB of storage space for free accounts. Gmail then provides options for additional storage at a cost. Outlook users can integrate with Microsoft OneDrive for additional storage.

Gmail utilizes labels and a search function to organize and find emails quickly. Outlook uses folders, categories, and rules.

Gmail has a clean and user-friendly interface with what many consider to be a modern look and feel. Outlook has a business-oriented interface with a focus on productivity.

Below is a list of steps users can follow to update email signature templates for Outlook. Users can use an email signature generator to help with step six. Free email signature templates for Outlook may also help, but might be limited on certain features. The best free email signature generator for Outlook can be helpful when adding and formatting their signature, but users will still need to follow the first five steps in order to get there.

• First open Outlook by launching the Outlook application on your computer.
• Click “File” and then select “Options” from the dropdown menu.
• Click on the “Mail” tab in the Outlook Options window.
• Jump to the “Compose messages” section and click on the “Signatures” button.
• You can either create a new signature or edit an existing one in the Signatures and Stationery window. To create a new signature, click on the “New” button. To modify an existing email signature, select it from the list on the right.
• Input and format your email signature in the “Edit Signature” box. Of course an email signature platform like Opensense can make this an easy and automated process for every employee.
• Save your changes by clicking on the “OK” button.
• Compose a new email or reply in an email thread to see your new email signature in action.

The list of steps to update a user’s email signature is slightly different than what is listed above for Outlook users.

• First open Gmail by logging into your account with your credentials. If you don’t have a Gmail account, you will need to sign up for one.
• Find the gear icon (located in the top right) and click to open a drop-down menu.
• Select “Settings” within the drop-down menu.
• On the Settings page, scroll down until you find the “Signature” section.
• Here is where you can create and format your email signature. A Gmail signature generator can help with this step, or building a Gmail signature template in a platform like Opensense.
• Once you have built or transferred over your professional Gmail signature, scroll down to the bottom of the Settings page and click on the “Save Changes” button.
• Test your new email signature by composing a new email or replying in an existing email thread.

For individual users of Gmail, free email signature templates for Gmail will help with this process (especially step five). It is difficult to use email signature generator Gmail features to scale a template across the entire company or organization. For those wanting to apply a standardized template (or a few different templates) across all users, it is best to use an email signature platform that integrates with Gmail.

When determining the best email signature generator to use, individuals or companies need to consider a few factors. Many email signature platforms offer a free email signature generator option, but also provide premium features or subscription plans for more functionality and advanced customization. Individuals who need an email signature for their personal email account may not need the most sophisticated features, so a free option makes sense. Email signatures for individual users can be relatively simple and include basic components like name, phone number, and maybe a link to a personal website or LinkedIn account. However, if a single user or group of users want advanced features like dynamic email banners, headshots, or social icons, outlook signature templates free may not be able to accommodate all of that.

The list of top email signature platforms and email signature generators changes from year to year as new features are released. The best free email signature generator in 2022, for example, may not be at the top of the best free email signature generator 2023 list. It all comes down to which tool or platform makes the most sense for your business. Whether it’s a free option with basic features or a paid subscription with sophisticated targeting, there is a tool or platform out there for everyone’s email signature needs.

Users, tools, and email signature platforms can leverage the styling and formatting capabilities of HTML. Email signature HTML code provides the structural elements needed for the layout of the template. Tables, rows, and columns are just a few examples of HTML tags that can used to organize components of the email signature. Tags can also be used to specify the font, color, size, alignment, and many other formatting properties of the text. If you want to include logos or images within your email signature, HTML can use a tag where users specify the image source and define attributes such as height, alignment, width, and alt text.

Links and social media icons are also possible within an HTML email signature. Website URLs, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn are a few of the most popular links and social media channels featured in company-wide email signatures. HTML can also be enhanced with CSS by defining styles for various HTML elements like padding, borders, fonts, margins, colors, and much more. HTML email signature generator code can also include placeholders for email signature platforms that integrate with external sources to dynamically popular user-specific information. This can be the employee’s name, contact details, or job title. An integration might not be possible with HTML email signature templates free but it is a feature offered by platforms with paying customers.

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