Using Your Email Signature to Promote Your Business

by Kay Green, www.MyPreciousKid.com
Copy right 2002-2005

The email programs Outlook and Outlook Express will allow you to add an email signature to the bottom of every email you send out. This is a very simple way to increase the visibility of your web site and keep your business name in front of people. This small tip can bring your web sites lots of business. Outlook also has mail rules and folder sorting to help organize your business even more.

If your email is a POP3 account of any kind you can probably receive it through Outlook. All of my domain emails are POP accounts. MSN and AOL are not POP accounts and cannot come thru this way. I have 5 different emails coming into my Outlook inbox. Outlook Express comes free with all Windows Operating Systems so is probably on your computer. Outlook (the full version) is part of the Microsoft Office Software package.

At the bottom of this article you will find instructions for adding your email accounts to Outlook and for setting the mail rules and folders.

 My email signature looks like:

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
http://www.MyPreciousKid.com
Children’s ID Products
http://www.mypreciouskid.com/wholesale.html
Home Business Option
http://www.Preciouskids.org
Adoption & Homeschool Resources
 ****************************

To set a email signature file:

1.     From the Tools Menu, choose options

2.     Select Mail Format

3.     Select Signature Format

4.     Select New

Follow the instructions to add your email signature. You can make more than one signature to use for different e-mails. You want to have your web site name and URL first.  You can ad a catchy slogan or phrase to get their attention. You could even use this to advertise specials or deals you are offering.

If you are a member of yahoo groups be sure to know what their rules are concerning signatures. Most will allow them. Many have a limit of 10 lines so keep it short and to the point.

This signature automatically goes to every person you send an email to and they get your contact info and your web site name and URL. You will gain name recognition. You want others to associate you with your business name.

Another thing I high recommend once you are in business and have a web site (your URL not a free web site) is to stop using the free email accounts (aol, msn, yahoo, hotmail) Instead use the email address for your domain. My email address Kay@mypreciouskid.com tells them where to find me. Kay@aol.com does not. I want my web address in front of every one I have contact with. Most domain host will allow you to have multiple emails for your domain. You can select a different email for different purposes: orders@mypreciouskid.com , info@mypreciouskid.com , Sales@mypreciouskid.com , questions@mypreciouskid.com or even a different user name for each of your yahoo groups. In outlook you can bring all of these into different folders or have them all forwarded to one account.

Outlook allows you to add a new email account. Here's how:

1.     From the Tools menu, choose "Accounts."

2.     Select the "Mail" tab.

3.     Click the "Add" button.

4.     From the Add menu, click "Mail."

5.     In the text box labeled Display Name, type your name and click "Next."

6.     In the Email Address box, type your E- Mail address (be sure to include "@domain.com") and click "Next."

7.     Under "My incoming mail server is a..." select "POP3."

8.     Type "mail.domain.com" in the Incoming Mail Server box. (Check with your email provider for the exact settings)

9.     Type "smtp.domain.com" in the Outgoing Mail (SMTP) Server box. (Check with your email provider for the exact settings)

10.  Click "Next."

11.   In the Account Name box, type your Mail ID
In the Password box, type your Mail password.

12.  If you want Outlook to remember your password, check the "Remember password" box.

13.  Click "Next."

14.  Click "Finish."

You can do this with every POP email account you have. You can also set up folders in your in box and set mail rules to deliver you separate email accounts to separate folder, or to put emails with certain subjects into certain folders.

1.     From the Tools menu click “Rules Wizard”

2.     Click “New”

3.     Check “when arrives thru a specific account”

4.     Click on “specific” account

5.     Select your account

6.     Click “next”

7.     Check “move to a specific folder

8.     Click on “specific” folder

9.     Select the folder (creating the new folder if not there)

10.  Click “finish”

You can do the same thing by selecting sort by WORD in SUBJECT LINE Or AUTHOR or any other filter you choose. I use this to automatically put all my yahoo groups’ email into their own specific folder leaving my inbox cleaner.

These tips will help you to gain name recognition for your business, organize your email and hopefully get you more customers.  

More ARTICLES about business, parenting, adoption, homeschool and more by Kay Green!