Email and forum signatures.

Using your email and email signature to promote your website.

Email forwarding is when your website host sends any email addressed to your domain name to your ISP email address. So if you have a Internet access account for example with Telstra BigPond, all of your email will be sent to your Telstra BigPond email address.

Website marketing starts with your email.

You may want to have an email address admin@yourdomain.com.au, but you want to have that email sent to you normal email account. This is called email forwarding. The greatest benefit for email forwarding is that no matter what ISP you use (we all change ISP's every now and then) your email will be forwarded to your normal ISP email account. Impressions are everything on the Internet.

First impressions are what are going to make or break your online business. Email is by far the most powerful marketing tool you as a website owner can have and having a great email address is very important. Here is an example of what I mean.

sales@acme.com.au

acme@telstrabigpond.com.au

Which one of these belongs to the sales department of Acme Car Rentals and Hire? They both do, but which one would you trust will get to the sales department at Acme?

Again they both will, but the top one looks like it belongs to the Acme sales department. Having the right email address is paramount. People want to deal with professional people and the second email address looks like it may end up at Telstra. Once you have registered a domain name you will automatically get a proper domain email address. All it takes to activate it is to get your webmaster to set it up for you.

Use a catchy phrase in your email subject line.

Most people get around 10 to 100 junk mail (spam) emails each week. Getting yours read is a lot harder than it used to be. But you can make it a lot more attractive by being a bit creative in advance. If I was to send an email to my subscription list I would have a subject line like Acme - News Item! But if I was sending an email to some one who wanted more information on a particular car, I would have a subject line like Acme Response - The information on a car you required! What I am trying to do is give the recipient of the email, confidence in know that this is not junk email. Infact they know the Acme company because they asked for more information in the first place.

But if I had just put News Item or Information on a car in the subject line, chances are the email recipient will delete what they think is junk email.

Always use an email signature.

The experts say that a person who sends 20 emails a week is missing out on 10 new visitors if they do not have an email signature. So true! I receive at least 300 emails a day and 75% do not have signatures. Infact if it does not have a signature, it looks suspect, so in most cases I delete the email. Even if you are sending emails to people you know, you should always have a signature at the bottom. Most of the better email programs will add a signature to each outgoing email.

A signature is a very affective marketing tool if done properly. Open up a text program and play around with making a signature. Keep these limits in mind. A signature should not be any longer than five lines and should not contain you postal or street address. It should however contain your name and position, email address and website address and title. Also add a small sales slogan as well.

Here is an Acme example.
Brian Brown - General Manager
Acme Car Rentals and Hire
http://www.acmecarrentals.com
manager@acemcarrentals.com
For people who want more than just a rental car!

Make sure that you leave your signature on every outgoing email and if you like leaving messages on messageboards and chats, use your signature.

About the Author
Steve Szasz is the founder and Managing Director of WebSeo+Plus, a web based information site about website promotion and marketing in Australia. See http://www.webseo.com.au