The Little Internet Marketing Tactic That Could

It's time to pay tribute to a powerful yet simple Internet marketing tactic that is often overlooked in favour of more "cool" options.

I am referring to the 'lowly' email signature file.

A signature (or SIG) file is a brief chunk of copy that is automatically appended to the footer of your outgoing email messages. Most email programs allow you to set this up in advance, and some allow you to easily choose and rotate between different SIG files.

If you work for yourself or a company, I strongly recommend that you - at the very least - include your name, title, company name, and contact info in your SIG file. (For those of you who are rolling your eyes at this 'obvious' suggestion, you'd be amazed how many people forget to include their phone number. Monitor your inbound email during the course of the next few days and you'll see what I mean.) Even if you don't have a Website, make sure that your email address is included as a clickable link.

You should also consider including a brief description of your business, your tag line (if one exists), and perhaps a specific offer or call to action. This could be a brief blurb about an upcoming seminar you're giving, a link to your blog, or an invitation (and link) to subscribe to your email newsletter.

Don't be deceived by their simplicity. A SIG file can be a very effective tool. It costs nothing, you can change it as often as you want, and it's a smart and efficient way to gently remind everyone you correspond with about your products or services.

Comments

[Kate]

Great summary of using a sig file with some how-to examples, Bill. Your readers might also be interested in the recent article and ongoing conversation at One Degree on this very topic.

http://www.onedegree.ca/2006/04/23/your-sig-file-is-a-marketing-tool

Cheers .. Kate