Email Signature Management: In-House or Outsource?

Brand-negative first impressions can occur in emails where poorly constructed email signatures are in use. To overcome this, an enterprise email signature management program needs to be implemented. Whether to do that in-house or outsource it is dependent upon… 

Email signatures often serve because the digital equivalent of printed business cards – a brand-forward technique of sharing contact information. As such, they needs to be taken seriously. 

Employees are never asked to create their very own business cards, in order that they should never be left to create their very own email signatures (and once they are, “create” is usually the operative word – involving brilliant colours, script fonts, poorly inserted images, and catchy motivational phrases). 

Here’s what needs to be expected out of a properly executed email signature program: 

• A skilled first impression created by the visual appearance of the emails emanating out of your client’s organization. 

• Email messages adhering to brand standards across all employees. 

• Efficiencies when composing emails in not having to spell out contact information every time. 

• Efficiencies for email recipients by way of calling the sender, visiting their website, or navigating to their physical location. 

• Compliance with any legally mandated or beneficial disclaimers. • Inclusion of any legally mandated employee-specific license numbers. • A way of widely sharing links to your social media.

• A platform for making time-sensitive announcements (trade show appearances, holiday hours, latest services or products, etc.). 

More necessary than these individual advantages, is the cumulative effect that begins immediately upon the launch of a well-crafted skilled email signature program. If your client launches their program at noon, the advantages begin accruing at 12:01 pm and never stop! 

You work hard at establishing your client’s brands – don’t allow them to adversely affect your efforts when sending routine email messages. A foul email signature isn’t brand-neutral, it’s brand-negative! 

The In-House Approach, and its Drawbacks 

As a branding agency, it’s likely that you just’re already providing your client with web development and graphic design services. You may, subsequently, consider taking up their email signature project as well. However, there are a number of drawbacks: 

1. Finicky: Many things which can be taken as a right in HTML programming simply don’t work in the case of email signatures. Or worse yet, they don’t work well – they work simply enough so that you can consider that you just’re providing a top quality deliverable, but once it’s put into day-to-day use, problems can quickly surface. 

2. Effort to Create at Scale: How do you go from one coded signature to 100, or 1000?  Especially when individual users have nuanced requirements. 

3. Deployment at Scale: Once you’ve got your 100, or 1000 signatures created, how do you get them installed within the user’s email programs so that they’re functioning as desired?  Some users can have Outlook desktop (Windows or Mac), some use Outlook Web, and a few the Outlook mobile app. What’s the plan for getting the signature appropriately installed for every user on each device? 

4. Require Continuing Support: Email is used on a large scale. No matter what, there might be some failures/anomalies with the e-mail signatures. While many users are oblivious, some will reach out for answers/solutions. Are you ready to supply this level of service? 

5. Ongoing Maintenance Expectations: Email signatures aren’t just static. There’s a “25-year” anniversary logo. Twitter becomes X. An office relocates, requiring an address change. The client desires to publicize a webinar or scheduled appearance at a trade show.  Each change requires recreating the HTML code for each user after which redeploying the updated code to each user (on each device). 

In conclusion, in case your client is small and has cooperative support from their IT team, an in-house approach could also be reasonable. Conversely, in the event that they’re larger (50+ users) and/or have limited IT  support available, you could find that by taking up this project you’ve bitten off greater than you wish to chew. 

Outsource Approach #1 – Third-Party Email Signature Software

Off-the-shelf email signature software is widely available and overcomes a lot of the drawbacks mentioned above. The marketplace for the sort of software is mature, so you’ve many options to select from.

When considering off-the-shelf signature software, remember that a big learning curve is prone to be required. These are IT-centric products and would require dedicated IT resources to establish, and in some cases, to take care of. Furthermore, they are going to either lock you into the usage of a pre-existing template from the seller’s template library, limit you to the capabilities provided by a  WISIWYG editor, or require someone to jot down the e-mail signature HTML code from scratch. 

On the plus side, once configured and operational, these software products will provide your client with a substantial degree of flexibility and control over their email signature program going forward. So, if you happen to, or your client, have the IT resources available, and are willing to make email signature management an ongoing job responsibility for somebody, the software approach may go well. 

Outsource Approach #2 – Managed Email Signature Service 

An alternative approach is to make use of a managed email signature service provider. Here the service provider sits between your agency and your client’s email users, overcoming all five of the previously mentioned drawbacks in the method. It offers an efficient and stress-free approach to moving out of your conceptual email signature designs to a functioning, enterprise-level, email signature program to your client. 

The process is kind of easy on each side. 

On your side, the managed email signature service provider will assist you with the technical facets of your email signature designs after which translate them into proper email signature HTML code. 

On the client side, they’ll execute the mandatory back-end work, resulting in the deployment of a turn-key service built around their proprietary technology. The result’s that with a minimal time commitment by the client’s IT department, and (perhaps) each end-user, the e-mail signature program might be fully functional and in operation. 

Once operational, the day-to-day management of this system is handed over to you or your client. Management is then carried out through a dashboard which provides granular control over things like locations, user groups, and banner-driven marketing campaigns.

The user data required for the e-mail signatures comes either robotically via a knowledge sync to the client’s “lively directory” (AD) or is manually entered via a client-specific user portal, resembling this one provided by Dynasend:

The final email signature is then inserted robotically, with no user intervention, into emails sent from O365 by a contemporary (light-touch) O365 add-in. This add-in might be deployed enterprise-wide by the client’s O365 administrator in only minutes. It really couldn’t be any easier. 

Conclusion

Properly executing an email signature program isn’t an insignificant task. It is,  nonetheless, an necessary one. With commitment, and the usage of the correct outside resources, the method can go easily, culminating in tangible results. 

As stated earlier, the cumulative effect begins immediately upon launch, and never stops!