The acronym S.W.A.L.K (sealed with a loving kiss), originated during WWII. Servicemen would write to their sweethearts at home, ending each love letter with this sign off.

Fast forward 70 years and this sign off is still perfect in every way. Now, I’m not recommending that you send loving kisses to all your customers, but I do recommend that you make your email newsletter sign offs personal. More on that matter…

Every time I get up in front of a room full of people to talk about marketing, I emphasize how important it is to make sure that your communications:

  • Feel like they come from you
  • Are authentic to the personality of your business
  • Speak directly to one person (people read your message by themselves)

All of these things will help you get a much better response from your audience when you send your newsletters out. However, one of the best ways to help your readers identify more closely with you and your business is to have a great sign off. A great sign off is really, really, easy to create too. Here’s how:

1. Include your contact information.

This is about practicality and trust. First and foremost, you want people to contact you so that they can ask questions and place orders. That’s how we get customers, right? Secondly, if you share your contact information with your readers, it tells them that you trust they won’t abuse it. As we all prefer to buy from people that we know, like, and trust, giving out your contact information makes them trust you even more too.

2. Use a hand-written signature.

Nobody wants to feel like they’re getting messages from a robot. Consider adding a .jpg (picture) of your scanned signature to your newsletter sign off. This will give it a professional and personal touch. Warning: Don’t scan your full signature, only scan your first name. You don’t want people using it to impersonate you in any way.

3. Add social media links.

You want your readers to connect with you in as many places as possible. Share your social links in your emails and invite them to say “hello” and become a fan/follower. Ultimately, the more points of connection you have with a person, the more likely they are to buy from you and recommend you to others because you’re building up the “trust factor.” It additionally means that if they miss a message of yours in one place (Facebook), they may pick it up in another (Twitter).

4. Show your face.

Put a headshot of you in your signature. This makes the reader feel like they’re having a personal conversation rather than reading a marketing email. People like to know who is behind the newsletter. This can also help reduce unsubscribes if you’ve personally met people at an event because they’ll see your face and remember who you are.

Bonus tip:

5. Present a powerful P.S. to drive action

A good P.S. in bold and italics, just below your signature, is a powerful call to action. Why?  Most of us “scan” our emails rather than read them all the way through. You want to grab their attention with a strong, engaging call to action. Our eyes are naturally drawn to different text (that’s why we use bold italics), and a P.S. is always intriguing. Try it and compare your click throughs. It should get the most clicks!

If you can do all of this (and you should, it’s not hard), you’ll create a better connection with your readers and have an improved response to your newsletters.

Want more helpful information about improving your newsletters? Check these out.

I would love to know if any of these pointers improve your click throughs. Let me know how it goes in the comments below.