Picture this: You’re writing an email to a new inquiry with the hopes of turning them into a client. You’ve spent time crafting your response. You’ve done a spell check. And you made sure thoughtful personalizations (like an acknowledgement of why you’re excited about the potential project) are sprinkled throughout. How do you end it? Before you slap a “best regards” at the end and call it a day, follow our email closing and email signature best practices to end on a professional note—and increase your response rates.
Build trust with a picture
Make a good first impression by including your headshot in your email signature. According to Forbes, “people have an inherent trust of other people. Including a face along with your message instantly humanizes it and makes it more trustworthy.”
Let people know what you do
We all know to include, at a minimum, our business name and contact info in our email signature, but don’t forget about your job title. Stating your role lets people know what they can expect from you. And while there’s nothing wrong with having a fun job title (especially if it’s in line with your overall brand), be sure that it still provides clarity into what you do.
Real-world example: Marisol Morley of Tiny Kitchen Treats does a great job blending fun titles with informative ones in her email signature, including Founder, CEO and Treatmaker.
Include a CTA
Your professional email signature is a great place to further connect with your inquiries and clients. Think about including a link to:
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- Promote a timely event you’re hosting or promotion you’re running
- Ask them to join your newsletter list
- Follow you on social media
- Showcase a piece of content (like a blog post, client reviews or your portfolio) to help your inquiries get to know you and your work better
Tip: Including one CTA is impactful; any more is overwhelming.
Add some pizazz
Want to make your email signature pop? Try our email signature generator to easily add design elements and choose from multiple email signature templates. You can get an email signature customized with your own branding in 30 seconds. (Plus, it’s completely free.)
Include “Sent From My iPhone”
Acknowledging when your messages are sent on the go (and perhaps a little less than perfectly crafted) can buy you a hall pass in the eyes of your email recipients. Researchers found that “those receiving a message containing spelling and grammatical errors forgiving of the mistakes when sent from a phone. Users forgave errors attributed to the constraints of writing on a tiny touch screen, but not mistakes made on a computer.”
Sign off with “thanks”
One study found that among the most popular email closings—including thanks, regards, cheers, best regards, thanks in advance, thank you, best and kind regards—the ones that were a variation of thank you performed best. Emails that ended with “thanks,” “thanks in advance” or “thank you” got 36% more responses on average than emails that closed with other sayings. In fact, emails that ended with “thanks in advance” had the highest response rates.
Ready to up your email game?
Follow these email signature best practices to start sending polished emails that get responses.
