How to Maximize Your Email Signature - Updated with More Strategies
This post is meant to serve as an update to one of my post popular blog posts since I started writing this small, but mighty, blog: How to Maximize Your Email Signature as a Professional Translator or Interpreter.
It's been over a year since I published that post, and it's still one of the most read and shared posts on the blog. Not only do I think the suggestions in that post are still valid and useful today, but since then, I've come up with a few more ideas I'd like to share with you.
So, here are five more ways to update and maximize your email signature to market your services to current and potential clients!
1. Link to your LinkedIn profile with an invitation for others to connect with you. This not only helps your email recipients to learn more about your expertise, but it helps to grow your network on a platform that is meant for doing business.
2. If you're an interpreter, link to a video of yourself! You can upload one for free on YouTube, and you can even embed it on your website. Give a brief introduction of who you are, who you best serve, and how you help your clients get the results they seek. Not only is it highly effective to have "face time" with potential clients, but you also allow those who might hire you to hear you speak. A video is a great way for potential customers to see andhear your professionalism, confidence and articulation in your own voice and words.
3. Include a link for clients to sign up for your email list. Having an email list is important for most businesses these days, and solopreneurs should keep this in mind, too. When you have access to your potential clients' inboxes, you have the ability to continue the conversation more fluidly and frequently. Show up for your clients by providing valuable content once a week, twice a month, or however often you can consistently do so.
For more on why you ought to have an email list for your clients, check out 3 Reasons You Should Have an Email List for Your T&I Business and Some Bonus Tips.
4. If you'll be speaking at an event your clients might like to attend, include a link! This not only lets your customers find out more about your expertise, but if it's a local event, they may want to attend as well. For an added bonus, upload the slides for your presentation in a downloadable format (with permission from event organizers, if necessary) so that clients can access the value you have to share, too!
5. Add an invitation for others to schedule a meeting or consultation with you! I've seen this quite a bit from professionals in other fields, but I had yet to see any translators or interpreters take advantage of this unique way of "continuing the conversation." That is… until I met Susie Jackson. Susie took my T&I Website Blueprint Course, and she amazed me with some of her simple, but highly-effective, marketing tips. Check out Susie's email signature!
Not only is the request to chat discreet, but I think that's why it seems so effective. It's professional without being flashy.
Once you click on the button in Susie's email signature, it leads you to this page on her site.
Susie uses Calendly, a tool you may have seen me recommend before in this blog post: Why Translators and Interpreters Should Virtually Meet Potential Direct Clients.
I asked Susie about her experience with this simple email signature tweak, and here's what she told me.
"I haven’t actually had anyone book a call through the link in my email signature yet, but I have had two since revamping my website and including the link there! I used to include my phone number in my email signature, but I found it stressful when clients just called me out of the blue. Also, my time zone doesn’t usually match most of my clients’ so I didn’t want calls in the middle of the night. I’ve found this to be a really good compromise – clients can still speak to me over the phone but I get time to prepare and can block out times when I’m busy – win win!"
I love how Susie took what could be a stressful situation for her daily business flow and tweaked it to give a professional and effective option to connect better with her clients!
All of these are easy tweaks to your email signature that can make a big impact. Between this post and the previous one, you now have 10 solid ways to bring more attention to your services by taking just a few minutes out of your day.
Keep testing different ways to connect with clients through your professional email signatures to see which one feels the most like you and is most useful for continuing the conversation with your clients. Whatever you do, don't let your email signature remain static. Use this free piece of marketing that literally everyone sees in their inbox!
Let me know if you've tried any of these email signature tweaks and had any success with them, or if you have any of your own ideas that have proven to be effective!
