What About Your Signature File?

Gary North

What is in your signature file?

"My what?" comes the answer.

E-mail programs offer a special file, called a signature file, that lets you enter information that will be automatically posted at the bottom of every message you send out.

A sig file lets you promote your Web site, your free autoresponder report, or anything else.

Generally, it's best to limit a sig file to four lines of text. I limit mine to one long line. It says:

Get any investment question answered within hours at www.garynorth.com. Also, sign up for my free Tip of the Week.

The Web address is highlighted and is live. A person need only click it to go to my site.

It amazes me how few people send me letters that include their sig file.

This is free advertising. Why not take advantage of it? The people who founded Hotmail attached a sig file at the end of every letter sent out by every client. It promoted Hotmail's free email service. This marketing tool enabled the company to grow to gigantic proportions, fast. It was started on July 4, 1996. By December, 1997, it had 8.5 million subscribers. Management sold to Microsoft for a reputed $400 million worth of stock -- a tax deferred exchange -- in 1998.

For Outlook Express, add a sig file with these steps:

Tools
Options
Signatures

I recommend clicking this box: "Add signatures to all outgoing messages."

Make a default sig file.

Here is how I recommend setting up your sig file.

Click the Text circle.
Click the Enter key twice.
Add a short underline: _________________
Click the Enter key once.
Type in your message.
Click OK.

Make sure that your sig file promotes at least one major benefit.

__________________

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