By Caroline M. Cole
What do Confucius, Abraham Lincoln, campaign slogans, Nikola Tesla, blockbuster movies, Winnie the Pooh, Nelson Mandela, Leonardo da Vinci, Maya Angelou, religious passages, and ASCII art have in common? They have all made appearances in an email signature block, leaving various impressions on the message’s recipient.
Signature blocks—and their abridged form, signature lines—provide details that help email recipients identify and, if necessary, contact the writer in the absence of conventional letterhead information. Although these blocks used to include little more than the writer’s name, email address, and phone number, they have grown into electronic bumper stickers, conveying values, philosophies, states of mind, allegiances, and the like. As individuals and organizations look for more forums to reflect their personality, promote their services, build their brand, and preempt legal action, signature blocks have grown increasingly elaborate, if not complicated.
People may give little notice to the lines tacked on the bottom of an email, but signature blocks are extensions of both the messages we send out into the world and of ourselves. Consequently, they deserve attention if only to ensure that they maintain and reinforce the image we want to project to others. The following discussion offers considerations for preparing or revising a signature block.
At times, people may have little say in the signature blocks attached to their messages. Email accounts linked to businesses or their network servers, for example, may use signature block templates with set information to suggest a unified, cohesive organization in spite of the myriad views and personalities that may be evident among its members. Industry guidelines, as well as national and international laws may also require specific information to appear in a signature block; some countries, for instance, require the company registration number, place of registration, and website operation to appear in all emails, limiting the choices companies and individual employees may have to represent themselves.
Personal email accounts may have more options for the signature block, but here, too, senders should make sure the information that does appear is consistent with others messages they aim to communicate about themselves to various target audiences.
Whether an email account is for business exchanges, personal use, or both, the first matter for deciding what to include in a signature block is how the message’s recipients could follow up with the writer. Hitting “reply” may be sufficient in most cases, but even this method has limitations, say, when a writer is transmitting the message through a mailing list or when recipients need to follow up at a later point or in manner other than email. Therefore, if readers can respond to or otherwise contact the writer, the signature block should identify the most efficient ways to do so in both immediate and subsequent contexts.
If, for example, email is the only option for interacting with you in a particular forum, you might have a signature line with only your name and email address. If deliveries, phone calls, faxes, and social media are options, your signature block may contain any or all of these details, depending upon on your audience(s).
Industry professionals, business associates, social acquaintances, family members, or any combination thereof can affect the contact information you might include, or exclude, in a given context. Yet knowing the ease with which electronic communication can be forwarded ad infinitum, you should keep in mind the information that could become available to secondary and tertiary audiences who might receive copies of your messages and, thus, your contact details.
Once you identify the target and potential audiences of your messages and the ways they may need to find you, you can develop a single, default signature block, or craft various signature blocks to create and sustain relationships with these audiences as needed. Below are traditional signature elements to help in this endeavor:
Signature Cut Line (a.k.a. sig dash, sig delineator, sig marker). To help software distinguish the email message from the signature block and, if necessary, mark or remove signature blocks for recipient purposes, some signature blocks are prefaced by a signature cut line, two hyphens followed by a space and a line break (for example “ – – ” or “ – – \n ”). This designation alerts various mail servers to eliminate duplicate references in email conversation threads, saving bandwidth and bypassing pages of stacked signature blocks at the end of message exchanges.
Many signature block creation tools insert this delineation automatically, but some programs do not. Moreover, those who create their own signature block may inadvertently remove this reference. Therefore, if your messages typically generate an exchange of more then two messages, you should verify the signature cut line’s existence, adding one if necessary.
Name. Although writers might sign off an email with a familiar name, nickname, initial, or nothing, the signature block can fill in the details. In a professional context, the name in your signature block should be your official, legal name—the one that appears on company documents—but you also could include references to your familiar name or offer pronunciation cues to help readers who may be unaware of your legal name or your name’s pronunciation. For example:
Elizabeth Downey-Geisler
Alejandro “Alex” Gonzales
Xian (shee-en) Zhu
Titles. Sometimes a title and position are same, as in the case of CEO, Director of Marketing, and Senior Recruiter. At other times, individuals may have professional degrees and certifications that are distinct from their job title, raising questions about what to include.
Some people argue that listing degrees can seem pretentious, but context can matter. In professional contexts, degree titles can identify training and credentials that might correlate with information in the exchange. For example:
Tyler Duval, MSW, LCSW
Family Therapist and Adoption Specialist
Marianne Roth, CPA, CFA
Senior Auditor
Samantha T. Roark, Ph.D./M.D.
Chief of Surgery
Peter Fairchild, Ph.D.
Dean of Undergraduate Education
These references can also help email recipients know how to address the writer in, say, a salutation (e.g., Dear Dr. Roark, Dear Dr. Fairchild, Dear Dean Fairchild). Still, listing educational degrees or certification initials in contexts unrelated to that professional training or in personal email accounts may prompt criticism. Therefore, you should consider the context of your email account and the forums in which your messages will circulate to determine whether titles or degrees would reinforce the image you want to promote in those arenas.
Addresses. The inclusion and exclusion of an address can also shape the image of an email’s sender. Some businesses, for example, might include only a website URL and email address, suggesting a vast enterprise that transcends borders. In contrast, bricks-and-mortar businesses (including those with a substantial online presence) might include a storefront or mailing address in its signature block to promote itself as a community-based organization with face-to-face customer service. Such choices may be at discretion of the email account holder, yet some countries and locations require companies to list particular addresses, such as place of registration. Therefore, you should confirm if any address information is required when setting up or revising signature blocks linked to a business. For security, you should omit personal addresses in your signature blocks.
Phone Number(s). Sometimes email signature blocks include a company’s primary phone number or the numbers of other company divisions (e.g., sales, tech support), sometimes they include the writer’s direct line or extension number, sometimes a cell phone number. If you include a phone number in your signature block, it should be a number that is most appropriate for recipients to reach you or the designated parties in a timely manner. If you include more than one phone number, identifying each number can help recipients know which number would be most appropriate in a given situation. Similarly, providing international calling codes can help clients around the world reach you more easily.
Fax number. Although less common nowadays, fax machines are still important in some industries and organizations. If fax distribution is a common mode of transmission in your professional or personal work, you might include it in the signature block to save target audiences time in having this information alongside your other contact details.
Company logos. Companies large and small are including .jpeg logos in email signature blocks to encourage brand recognition, and even individuals are adding avatars, images, and animated files to personalize their messages. Yet despite increasingly sophisticated technology, email recipients still encounter difficulties when logos, graphics, and animations are part of a signature file.
For example, some recipients say that, depending on the size and nature of the graphic, these images bloat files and slow transmission, while some complain that images activate their system’s spam filter and redirect important messages into accounts they never read. Some argue that logos clutter their attachment files, and some people grumble that the images never appear, leaving unloaded .imp and .jpeg tags. Unable to guarantee what recipients may see on their end, you should develop signature blocks that convey the detail you need to pass along even if images do not load when, or as, you intend.
Legal disclaimers, disclosures, and confidentiality clauses. People bemoan the legal disclaimers in emails, saying they’re often longer than the messages themselves. Some even debate whether these notices are enforceable in court. Regardless of personal preference, some legal-ese may be required. For example, in some companies or industries, emails must include the same disclaimers that other company documents provide to satisfy compliance guidelines. Legal disclosures are also common, alerting recipients that messages may be archived, monitored, auto-responder affiliated, or otherwise subject to various laws. Confidentiality clauses seem to evoke the greatest criticism since people must actually open the message in order to learn whether a confidential message was delivered to them inadvertently; still, these clauses may be required to conform with particular company or industry standards.
Given the proliferation of such notices, you should ask about or verify any mandatory legal content for the signature blocks you may be sending.
While these elements may be some of the most common features in signature blocks, companies and individuals are incorporating other elements to further personalize their emails and, in doing so, convey more information about themselves, for better and worse. These elements might include:
Websites and Social Media Accounts. Companies and individuals trying to advertise themselves as widely as possible are using signature blocks as one more forum for exposure, listing websites and blog URLs, LinkedIn profile addresses, Twitter and Facebook usernames, Skype numbers, social network widgets, and so on. But, as with other details, you should use your email account’s purpose and audience to gauge which, if any, of these references to include. After all, once a message goes out, it has a potential audience of millions, which could have favorable or negative repercussions depending on the particular accounts you list.
Quotes and slogans. Wanting to add personality to a conventionally lackluster medium, people are personalizing their email signature blocks with inspirational quotes, slogans, lines of verse, life observations, and so on. Some recipients appreciate additional insight into the sender’s views and values, but some readers may find such musings professionally or personally off-putting. Rather than accept a singular, definitive stance on whether to include or exclude quotations, mottos, and other catch phrases in a signature block, you should consider the recipients of your messages and the ways pontifications of any sort may enhance or hinder their interpretation and reception of the accompanying message and, perhaps, even yourself.
Green IT Statement. Statements that ask recipients to “Please consider the environment before printing” encourage readers to be mindful of eco-friendly practices. Depending on the organization or person sending the email—or the contexts in which messages with such references would circulate—these notations can reinforce larger brand values. As a result, email recipients that align with environmentally conscious messages may think more highly or favorably about the message’s sender; other recipients, however, may find such messages patronizing, undermining the writer–reader rapport. Again, considering the purpose and audience of your messages can help you decide when, or if, to include such references.
Promotional Teasers. Aiming to maximize announcement distribution, some companies and even some individuals are inserting a line or phrase about services, actions, or upcoming events into their signature blocks:
Increase customer orders. Visit www.company.com for details!
Vote “no” on Title XYZ November 4.
Win cash prizes by joining us on July 21…
Such announcements can articulate and spread the organization or sender’s values in cost-effective ways, but email recipients who are tired of being pitched in every forum, as well as readers who might not share these particular views may be turned off by such endorsements. Furthermore, attaching a sales pitch to every email can suggest every communication has an ulterior motive, undermining the effectiveness of the message and, depending on the context, the sender’s reputation.
Auto signatures. To promote their products, companies are increasingly making brand-related messages the default signature for the emails people send on their devices, tacking statements such as “Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S™ III, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone,” “Sent from my iPad/iPhone” or “Sent via Blackberry” to the bottom of every message—sometimes unbeknownst to the sender. Some people say these default messages are status symbols in the ways the red sole of a stiletto, the interlocking double Gs or C’s on a handbag, or the prancing horse on the hood of a car identify things about their owners. Others say they like these references because it makes it easier to use the “fat-fingers error” excuse for any typos or writing problems a message may have; however, technology—even devices with small keyboards—should never be the excuse for misused words or other elements that can hinder communication. Therefore, you might consider changing the default message to a signature line, or delete the signature element altogether.
Reviewing the signature blocks from different senders, organizations, industries and countries, you would see countless configurations and, by extension, endless ways email writers can present themselves to the world. Ideally the choices are consistent with the image email writers present to their target audiences in other contexts, yet some choices may be undermining the writer’s image, even inadvertently.
Because signature blocks can affect what recipients learn or assume about the email’s sender, you should email your self a “test” message with the signature option checked to see what, if anything, your message’s recipients might see and to gauge the impression it may be leaving. Using that information, you can then edit or create your signature block to reinforce your ideal image to the audiences and in the venues you aim to reach.
Working toward Arête…
For ideas in generating a brand-consistent signature block, download the “Using Signature Blocks to Reinforce Your Image” .pdf. Or share your observations about the ways email signature blocks can or should reinforce a person’s image in the space below.
