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What’s in a Signature?

Best practices have taught us that most people naturally migrate to their name in an email, just to check and see if it is correct. But I never realized how many people pay attention to the salutation of a signature as well. Have you?

This may just be a B2B phenomenon, but check this out. Everyone has a pet peeve in life. Mine is people who sign their emails “BEST.” Best? What does that mean? Best what??? Best wishes? This is the best email I ever sent? You are the best? I bested you? I just don’t get it. In conversations with people about this, there is never a consensus on the “Best” way to sign an email, but there are always a lot of suggestions.

I decided to do something different with my email signature line recently after I saw the movie “Meet the Robinsons.” If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a Disney movie for kids and the moral of the movie is, never give up, always push yourself forward. It was a really cute movie. At the end, there is a great inspirational quote from Walt Disney. After seeing the movie, I decided to use “AF” as my new salutation. (You can email me if you want to know what it stands for).

I have NEVER received so many emails in my life asking me what AF stood for. One person even said, “I spent an hour looking it up online. What does it mean?” I guess I never realized the power of the salutation before.

Wonder if this could play into a good email strategy somewhere?

—Jeanniey Mullen

Posted on May 30, 2007 11:38 AM |

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Comments (2)

Sam Michel:

Couldn't agree more. I've been using 'Toodle Pip' to sign off my emails since, well, as long as I can remember sending emails.

Most Brits take it as read, but it's been a useful way of catching attention amongst Americans that I've worked with.

Posted by Sam Michel | May 31, 2007 2:28 PM

Posted on May 31, 2007 14:28

Mike Blaney:

I would like to add that sending emails with email stationery (totally biased point of view) is even more effective as it makes your emails stand out in a sea of emails. From a simple border to an over-the-top design with links your web site we have designed hundreds of effective emails. Feel free to take a look at www.inboxfx.com

Posted by Mike Blaney | May 31, 2007 6:07 PM

Posted on May 31, 2007 18:07

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The Email Experience Council's membership includes many of the brightest and most committed email marketing experts. We're pleased to have some of them share their insights here on these pages. Our blog contributors include:

Elie Ashery is the president and CEO of Gold Lasso, and is responsible for the company’s vision and strategy execution. Before joining Gold Lasso, he co-founded Newsletters.com in 1997, selling it to The Tribune Cos. in 2000. He then worked for IncenSoft, focusing on email marketing while there. Read more.

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Lisa Harmon is a principal at Smith-Harmon, a creative services consultancy dedicated to email marketing strategy and production. She works with marketers to increase clickthrough, maximize revenue, and infuse delight into their email creative. Lisa is also the blogger behind edm.smith-harmon.com, an ongoing commentary on the best (and worst!) in email marketing creative. Read more.

Chip House is ExactTarget's VP of marketing services, leading the teams responsible for client success. He was named to BtoB Magazine’s 2005 “Who’s Who in B-To-B,” for being a vocal proponent of legitimate commercial email and an active lobbyist regarding spam and privacy issues. Read more.

Spencer Kollas is the director of delivery services at StrongMail, helping maximize customers’ email deliverability rates. He was previously director of deliverability services for Premiere Global Services. Spencer is an active member in the Email Sender & Provider Coalition, Messaging Anti-Abuse Work Group, the Anti-Phishing Work Group and, of course, the eec. Read more.

Stephanie Miller is VP of strategic services for Return Path, the leading email performance company. She works with marketers to earn a higher ROI and response from their acquisition and retention email programs—developing content, contact and segmentation strategies, along with testing, measurement and production programs. Read more.

Erick Mott is the director of marketing and corporate communications for Habeas, the leader in email reputation management services. He has a rich background in marketing and communications strategy and execution for such companies as Nokia, MarkMonitor, GlobalFluency, Cisco Systems, Creator Connection, Sun Microsystems, Philips NV, Elm Products and CBS Television. Read more.

Jeanniey Mullen is the Email Experiene Council's founder and the global EVP and CMO of global online publishing company Zinio. She is a thought leader and visionary in the email and digital marketing field. A columnist for ClickZ, she has published numerous papers and is a frequent speaker. Read more.

Charles Stiles is the VP of worldwide business development at Goodmail Systems. In his role, Charles is focused on helping generate a better understanding of the email environment and potential solutions for a better consumer experience. He currently serves as the chairman for the Messaging Anti-Abuse Work Group. Read more.

Jeremy Swift is director of client relations for email service provider BlueHornet. He helped form BlueHornet’s founding team in 2000 and has been responsible for client services and marketing strategy since the company’s inception. Jeremy is known for his ability to articulate technical information in ways that clearly resonate with today’s online marketer.

DJ Waldow is an account manager at Bronto Software. He works with Bronto’s largest clients to help them achieve and surpass their marketing goals. An active member of the email marketing community, DJ posts regularly on the Email Marketer’s Club, publishes a bi-weekly email marketing best practices newsletter, and films BrontoFire.

Chad White is the Email Experience Council’s director of retail insights and editor-at-large. He founded and is the author of the Retail Email Blog, a blog dedicated to tracking the email marketing practices of the largest online retailers. Chad regularly writes major research reports on email marketing and is an Email Insider columnist for MediaPost. Read more.

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