Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Online signatures are one of the most valuable, free and powerful internet marketing strategies yet so few ever use them.

Where else can you tell the world exactly what you want them to know about you and your business online everytime you correspond via the net? Signatures are your calling card, your yellow page ad, your online answering service, your identity online.  I`ve landed more new clients because they read a post on a forum I belonged to or were forwarded an email from someone else with my signature on it.  Online signature marketing works!

We have the opportunity to use signatures not in just our emails but also in many online forums just like this one here at StartupNation that we may belong to as well.  So many times I`ve received emails or read forum posts from businesses that just reply with:


Many posts at online forums don`t have any contact info at all except a nickname to click on to find out more about the person who posted it.  And, most profiles I`ve found are never thoroughly completed either which means that even if I did want to learn more about this person and their business, most likely I can`t.  

How do I contact this person by phone right now? Or how can I investigate him a bit more by possibly looking at his website for more information? I can`t and that irritates me!   

Folks! This is a simple and free opportunity to market yourself so ALWAYS have a signature at the bottom of all your online correspondence!  If you belong to an online forum that allows signatures, before you even think about making your first post, fill out your signature, add an avatar and complete your profile first and then post your intro.  Give people the info to learn more about you and your business if they so choose.  It takes only a few seconds and could be a very profitable marketing strategy that cost you just a few minutes of your time ;)

Here is my current signature that I put at the bottom of every email I send:


At a bare minimum it should contain:

    * Your name/company name
    * Your contact details – phone number, email address
    * Your website address
    * Marketing tag line or a special announcement, product on sale, etc.

You can see below my forum post signature. It is a bit shorter but still contains the most relevent information I want people to know...AND how to click through to visit my website.  Make sure the URL works in your signature too.  Many times I`ve clicked on links which didn`t work. Or people forgot to hyperlink their URL on their forum post which means I now have to take time out to copy and paste your URL into a browser window to visit your website. Probably not happening! Be guaranteed, that most won`t do this...why?  Because internet surfers are becoming more and more spoiled rotten each day and we want instant gratification anymore via the click of our mouse which means that many just won`t bother to cut and paste. ;)

Online signature should be used on all email correspondence, which is just a given. But don’t forget to use them on any e-lists (Yahoo groups, etc.) forums, newsgroups and bulletin boards you may belong to. Also since online signature are typically at the end of your emails or posts, it is not considered spammy, yet ;)

Signatures at the bottom of online correspondence entices users to easily click on the link to read more about you. This is your chance to send these curious lookers towards your website or better yet, specifically towards a product you want to promote on your website.

As for guidelines, an online signature should not be more than 6 lines in emails. As for other areas like forums, check with their posting guidelines for line length before you add your signature. Remember to always include your URL typed in full ie) www.mediamage.com since not all email programs support html and your user may have to copy and past it into their browsers so give them that option.

Feel free to spice up the text too with different characters (ascii text) to enhance your personal message. It doesn`t hurt to be original at times to entice your user to visit your website or call you.

  _______
 |_o_|_o_|  Want To Get Organized?
 |___o___|  Hire a Virtual Assistant
 |___o___|  www.VAnetworking.com
 |___o___|  
     ||   ||     1-604-542-9664

How synchronistic is this! :-)

A realtor I know has been using something called AdBranding for email signature and tracking. The company was just bought out, and has become MLXjet. To put in a signature isn`t a problem, but what`s more helpful is to be able to track what happens with an email after you send it.

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Melanie Rembrandt
CEO, Rembrandt Communications®, LLC
Visit www.rembrandtwrites.com for valuable PR tips and SEO copywriting help!
Twitter: @RembrandtWrites

Since 1998 my online signature, on business and design forums - and in emails, has been one of my best marketing and promotion tools.

- J.





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Jeff Fisher | Jeff Fisher LogoMotives | Tweet! Tweet!

So right about tooting my own horn ;)  I thought I may as well use my own signature as the examples in my article too

Craig, I`ve heard about tracking signatures although I don`t do it myself but would be interesting to watch the logs to see where people came from.  I`ll have to investigate that more ;)  Saying that, a signature also gives you a backlink  (read more about how to get backlinks at my website) for example when used at a online forum. If you had tracking code within the signature instead of a www.yoururl.com then it would defeat this SEO strategy to help you rank higher in a search engine query.  But again, you`d have to weigh out the pros for you....are you using the signature for backlinking strategies or to find out where people are coming from that visit your site?