Think of an email signature as an online business card.

Typically, it states your name, title, company, and phone number; Essentially, everything that your business card says.

Whether you work for an organization or work independently, email signatures can be a tremendous channel to utilize when promoting your most important initiatives.

A signature makes it easy for contacts to immediately connect with you.

According to HubSpot, the average worker sends 41 emails each day. Over the course of a week, that’s 205 emails. Now, let’s say that an organization has 100 employees, that’s more than 20,000 missed opportunities, each week, to market not only the business, but the individual.

That’s a lot of interactions!

According to Ipsos for Entrepreneur, more than half of U.S. adults don’t use an email signature.

Emails are a proper way to share relative information. That’s because they generally come from a trusted source. They come from people who we are doing business with. When we are actively engaged in reading emails, we pay more attention to the signatures.

This is why it’s important to weave in marketing messages.

People are attracted to color. If a signature has a colorful name, image, or phone number it would stand out and people would notice it.

Social media icons, act in double duty, drawing people’s attention and enticing action. Don’t list every channel where you or your company can be found on, that will only make your signature look unappealing and cluttered. Focus on a few accounts.

A signature is a call to action, sort of speak, as it’s where you want to direct people to go. So, add a link to your website. Drive traffic to where you need it most.

In regards to a head shot or image, make sure the photo is sized correctly. A photo too big may draw the attention away from the intent of the email. An image of the company logo acts as double duty. It attracts the reader, while building your brand. Note, if an image is too big, it may not get through spam filters.

To differentiate your signature from the rest of the email, you may want to use colorful, weird, or large fonts. Recognizable to the reader that this is the end of the email and if they need any further information that this is where they should go.

In case you work with international companies, don’t forget to include the prefix for your company’s code.

Also, test your signature in multiple servers. How your signature appears in Outlook or Gmail, may not look the same in Yahoo etc.

Don’t think of a signature as an afterthought, but a valuable marketing opportunity.