Do Something! Make your email signature work for you (Part II)

In my last Do Something! post, I talked about the basics of email signatures. This week, we’ve included some more ‘advanced’ possibilities for your email signature:

Practice Areas Email recipients may see your name and firm name and know that you’re a lawyer, but how will they know that you’re the kind of lawyer they need? Noting your main practice areas in your email signature will make it immediately obvious.

P.S. Do you respond to list serves, client questions, website answer services, etc? Do many of these responses relate to the same issues? Do you have written materials or articles on your website that address these same issues? If so, create some email signatures containing a “P.S.” that address those issues and point to specific articles or pages on your website. Psychologically, most people can’t resist reading what you put in a “P.S.”

Links to educational materials. If you’re a disciple of education marketing and you have a book or free report to offer to build your list and start your ‘drip’ marketing campaign, your email signature is yet another place to promote these materials.

Photographs If you ARE your brand, including your photograph in your email signature might take the place of a logo and improve recognition.

Updates Do you have a blog or other frequently updated site with an RSS feed? If so, you might want to include some code in your email signature which posts the titles of your recent blog posts to entice readers to visit.

Profiles Active on LinkedIn (or other social networking sites)? Looking to promote your  profile and expand your network on those sites? Include a link to your profile. By doing so, you’ll encourage email recipients to view your credentials AND join your network.

One word of caution. There are many options when it comes to additions to your email signature, but you’ll want to use restraint – don’t overload your email signature to the point where it’s too busy or overwhelming and your message gets lost. As with any other marketing tactic, you’ll want to consider your target audience and choose the right additions to your email signature for maximum impact.