Freelancers often shy away from marketing. Unless you do copywriting or corporate work, it can seem like foreign territory.
But marketing is basically communicating to other people about yourself, and who communicates better than a writer?
If the idea of a full-on marketing program is too scary, start small. A great launch pad is your email signature, the tag line you set up in your email software to add your contact information to the end of your outgoing messages or replies. You can use this feature to add links to your website, blog, social media accounts and a lot more, as you’ll see.
It still surprises me that more writers – and editors and a lot of other people too – don’t take advantage of this simple tool, which is built into most email programs, including Gmail and Microsoft Outlook.
Here are some simple types of email signatures writers can use to promote themselves and their work:
1. Create a basic email signature.
An email signature can include anything you want it to: your name, contact information, credentials, a book you’re promoting, your professional affiliations, and on and on.
My default email signature includes my contact information and links to my blog and Twitter account:
2. Use custom email signatures.
I also have several custom email signatures that I choose between depending on who I’m sending a message to. For example, I’m a contributing editor at Crain’s Workforce Management, a human resources business magazine. When, I’m contact sources for Workforce stories, I promote my special standing at the publication by using a signature that includes my title and a link to the publication’s website:
For non-work messages, I use a plain Jane signature with my name and contact information.
I use Outlook for most email, so when I’m sending a message, I right click on the default signature and it brings up my list of email signatures and I pick the one that’s appropriate for that message.
3. Promote your blog.
Some writers use their email signature to promote their blog. Kate Megill blogs at Teach What is Good, and uses her email signature to link to it. With a picture like that, who could resist clicking through to read more:
4. Promote a book or other projects.
You can also use an email signature to promote a new book or other project. Earlier this year when freelancer Kelly James-Enger wrote me about a guest post she was doing for WordCount, she was using her email signature to promote her latest novel:
5. Promote everything!
Some freelancers are masters of the email signature. Rachel Weingarten is one. Weingarten a writer and public relations specialist and it shows. She definitely knows how to work an email sig:
Even if you’ve never met her, you know a lot about Rachel Weingarten and her sparkling personality and wit just from reading her email sig. More importantly, you know a lot about her business.
That’s the beauty of an email signature. It promotes you and your business – and all you have to do is hit the “Send” button.
If you’ve got a unique email signature, please share by copying and pasting it into a comment.
Since I am mostly approaching magazines, I list a variety of recent publications. Here is the whole thing:
Vera Marie Badertscher
P.O. Box XXXX
XX,XX XXXXX
xxx-xxx-xxxx
http://www.pen4hire.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/verambadertscher
Vera Marie Badertscher is winner of 2007 and 2006 National Federation of Press Women’s First Place National Awards for Travel Articles. Complete writer information at http://www.pen4hire.com
A sample of recently published articles:
Your Footprint in the City and Virtuous Vacations, Both articles in Rolls Royce Owner’s Club Desk Diary 2008;
The Piano on the Beach and Surprising Nashville; Both articles in Steinway & Sons Magazine, 12/07;
BICAS, 12/07, Tucson Guide ;
Boys Will Be Boys (essay on Hawk), 10/07; On the Comeback Trail, 9/07, Arizona Highways ;
The Great Unknown, (Le Marche Italy), 7/07; Jamestown’s 400th Anniversary, 3/07, Home & Away Hoosier ;
Atlantic Coast Historic Road Trip, 5/07, AAA Living, ;
Richmond Holocaust Museum, 3/07, Arizona Jewish Post ;
Secrets of Le Marche, 1/07, Rolls Royce Owner’s Desk Diary,
Quincy Tahoma of Santa Fe, 5/06, American Indian Art Magazine .
Web articles include The du Ponts’ Place in the Country, AutomotiveTraveler.com; Acoma Pueblo, Pueblo Cultural Museum, giftedtravel.com; Titan Missile Museum for Arizona Highways.
Member of National Federation of Press Women and Society of SW Authors
Work in progress, with Charnell Havens: Quincy Tahoma: The Final Chapter. See information at http://tahoma.info
In the interest of the environment, please think twice before printing this e-mail.
This e-mail and the information it contains is confidential. If you have received this e-mail in error please notify the sender immediately. You should not copy it for any purpose, or disclose its contents to any other person.
Michelle, I wanted you to know that after reader this post, I decided to update my email signature.
I did want to pose the question… how long do you think is a reasonable length? I think a short signature can be effective, too.
Well, if you looked through the comments that came in on this post, you’ll see that length is all over the map. My email sig is pretty minimal and I like it that way, but as you can see from Vera Marie’s example, some sigs are almost entire resumes. Whatever you use, I think it’s a good idea to tweak it every so often to keep it fresh.
Michelle R.
Michelle, I love your idea for having different e-mail sigs for different audiences.
I do tire of seeing overly long sigs, especially when it’s from someone I communicate with frequently. It feels like they’re attaching their resume to every e-mail, and that gets old.
Here’s what I include on mine:
Kathy Sena . Writer/Editor
Specializing in parenting, health, lifestyle and women’s issues
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Phone: 310-XXX-XXXX
Fax: 310-XXX-XXXX
Email: kathysena@earthlink.net
Web: http://www.kathysena.com
Blog: http://www.parenttalktoday.com (Today we’re talking about keeping too many balls in the air…)
OK, I have no idea how that smiling emoticon ended up on the end of my e-mail sig when I posted this previous comment. I definitely don’t have that on my sig!
Kathy
Thanks for the comments Kathy, and the emoticon doesn’t bother me. I have no idea how it got there either.
I can see why some people want long sigs, but I agree that they could get tedious if you’re exchanging a lot of messages.
I agree it’s good to change your email sig every once in a while, just for a little variety. It’s kind like an outgoing voice-mail message – if you call someone all the time it’s boring to hear the same old message. Which reminds me, I’d better change my outgoing messages!
Michelle R.
I agree that small businesses and craftsmen need to be doing this more to spread the word about themselves.
Recently launched is a cool new interactive directory which gives everyone the chance to promote themselves. You don’t even have to be a big business to do it.
If you are looking at spreading the word and getting yourself out there, thats the way to go.
Such a great idea. Thanks for sharing
A long signature is dangerous especially with a lot of URLs. If you use more than three URLs (and three is pushing it), some email apps send it to spam. I was using Gmail and had 4 URLs (3 of them social media) — a friend reporter mine went into spam. When I cut it to two, she received it in her inbox.
Long email signatures can lead to people overlooking it — like we stopped looking at banners — when it’s so long, people ignore it. And with more people getting emails on mobile devices … it can be bothersome.
Best to limit it to most key info and two links. Create an about.me page that can have all your URLs and social media page.
Excellent points, thanks for sharing them.
MVR
If you or your company has a blog, I think it is worth recommending WiseStamp as a way to pull in the most recent post. Particularly if you exchange with the same people frequently, it reflects the constant stream and doesn’t require constant updating.
(No, I’m not affiliated with Wisestamp at all, I’ve just had a good experience with their offering).
Great tip, I love hearing about new apps.
MVR