Even the most basic email services offer a “signature” tool, which basically auto-populates the bottom of your email with whatever you like.

Surprisingly few people use this service, but it’s an excellent way not only to give email recipients more information about how to contact you, but also tell them something about your business.

Setting email signatures up is typically quite easy, and you can learn how to do it in your current email provider by using the “help” feature.

At a minimum, your email signature should tell recipients a little more about you, and how to contact you. The most basic email signatures should look like this:

Mary Baker
Broker, Acme Realty
E: mary@acmerealty.com
P: 425-XXX-XXXX
F: 425-XXX-XXXX
W: http://www.acmerealty.com
B: http://blog.acmerealty.com

With this signature, Mary has given five different ways to reach her – via phone, email, fax and online.

The signature above is basic but helpful. It tells people who Mary is, and how to contact her, but doesn’t describe much about what she does. It also doesn’t give people a reason to immediately engage with her, to explore more, or to request more information that will learn more quickly to a transaction.

For example, what if underneath the contact information she added this:

Sign up for our FREE newsletter!

http://newsletter.acmerealty.com

Everybody should have a link in their email signature to their newsletter sign-up page. If you’ve already signed up with Constant Contact, that page is free and already built for you!

With these basic calls to action, Mary has given his email recipients something to interact with right away, something further to explore, and immediately given them an opportunity to engage with my company and come closer to a transaction.

Think about what these links could look like for you. Some examples include:

• For real estate agents, offer a free CMA or access to home listings
• Offer a free copy of one of your special reports (from your freebies list)

But whatever you decide to include in your email signature, make sure it works harder for you, and gets people more engaged in learning about your services, your expertise, and getting much closer to a transaction with you.