Business owners know how important it is to portray a consistent and professional image. Part of that image includes your email signature.
Email signatures are a great opportunity to brand every message you send when communicating with clients, prospects, and vendors. A cohesive email signature leaves an impression and helps develop brand recognition and trust in the long run.
But managing email signatures for your entire company can be hard without some help from technology. Manually policing it gets old fast, and it's a recipe for mismatched email signatures from each employee.
Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) lets you create organization-wide email signatures and disclaimers, but that may not be enough. It allows you to show the exact same boilerplate info on every email (Ex: company address, logo, legal disclosure, etc.), and each individual would still be responsible for managing their own contact information.
Fortunately, there are a few tools that can help you keep your company's Microsoft 365 email signatures accurate and consistent for each employee.
Sigstr
Sigstr is a best-in-class email signature management and marketing tool. It was recently acquired by Terminus, a leading account-based marketing software provider.
It's a powerful tool with tons of customization options. It can dynamically change the email signature banner that it shows to your recipients based on your relationship with that contact.
For example, if you're emailing a prospective customer, you can set it up to show a specific signature with information on your next webinar. Or if you're emailing a customer, it could show the latest promotion you're running.
Source: Sigstr
Sigstr offers three different tiers of service for their email management system - basic Core, mid-range Advanced, and a robust Enterprise tier. All tiers offer useful features such as a dedicated customer success manager, quarterly business reviews, ongoing admin training, and more.
Their dedicated manager is great for small business owners who may not be very tech-savvy and want personal assistance to walk them through the various steps from implementation all the way through their first campaign strategy.
The Core tier includes useful analytics tools such as real-time campaign performance, click-through reports, data sharing with CRM platforms, and marketing automation. Sigstr's Advanced level includes all the features of the Core tier, along with useful integration with other platforms such as Salesforce CRM, and integration with other tools in the areas of marketing, sales, ABM (account-based marketing), and more.
Sigstr's most robust level, Enterprise, includes all the features found in their Advanced tier, plus features such as multi-domain set-up, a single sign-on using SAML (security assertion markup language) -- in addition to several other features.
Sigstr works with human resource systems that support thousands of employees and their software works with multiple email clients including Outlook, Office 365, Gmail, and iOS. Their system also works across multiple types of devices as well.
Sigstr is committed to delivering outstanding levels of security and recently received their SOC 2 Type II certification.
They even offer a free demo and will work individually with companies to personalize pricing. Pricing is not available on their website at this time, but past conversations tell us that it's a more robust tool than others being compared in this article and the pricing reflects that.
If you're just looking for something to provide consistent email signatures, this is likely overkill. But it can be a powerful marketing tool if you're ready to take that step.
Crossware
Crossware allows small business owners to create and maintain compliant, personalized email signatures, along with targeted useful content. It supports a variety of platforms including Office 365 and Microsoft Exchange.
Crossware Mail Signature for Office 365 is actually hosted within Microsoft's data centers. This provides an extra layer of security, as emails with a Crossware-made signature are never routed through a third-party infrastructure. This seamless integration also allows users to send an email with a Crossware-designed signature from any device or email client without any additional steps.
Source: Crossware
One of the main aspects of any email signature management system is to provide business owners with an opportunity to send out key advertising messages designed to increase interest in their products and/or services. Similar to Sigstr, companies using this tool can tailor their advertisements based on sender and/or recipient details.
There are flexible features that provide designated users with complete creative control, such as creating an email signature from a template or starting from scratch. Crossware also allows companies to assign editing rights so that only designated users are in charge of designing and maintaining signature and advertising content.
Crossware's pricing is very reasonable, calculated per user (any mail file requiring a signature). The fee for each user is $1 per month. For example, a business with 70 users would incur a fee of $70.00 a month, which is then billed annually.
Additionally, Crossware does offer a free trial for businesses using Office 365 or Exchange.
Exclaimer for Microsoft Office 365
Exclaimer's email signature management system boasts an easy-to-use web portal that allows companies to create their own signature designs, or use a ready-made template. Its user interface is designed for everyone, including those with little to no technology experience.
Source: Exclaimer
The designer environment allows the insertion of employee photos, email disclaimers, social media icons, and promotional banners into email signature content. The designer can also run targeted marketing campaigns based upon criteria such as department, individual sender, or date-range.
Their Office 365 version offers full integration with Office 365's contact directory.
This email management system also includes support for all types of devices (including mobile) and mail clients. In addition, Exclaimer has been awarded their ISO 27001:2013 Certification which reflects their commitment to high levels of security and control.
Exclaimer offers a free 14-day trial for their management system. After upgrading to a full license, they charge $1.25 per unique email, per month - this fee can be paid annually as well.
CodeTwo
CodeTwo is another cloud-based option that allows you to have complete control over your Office 365 email users through its centrally managed web service.
Source: CodeTwo
Their service provides an easy setup guided by automatic wizards -- a built-in signature template editor that intuitively speeds up the process of creating signatures so that you don't have to build your email signature from scratch (although you do have the option) for faster deployment.
You can also use your email signatures for marketing and track the results with CodeTwo's Signature Template Editor to advertise promotions and marketing campaigns, and track its results. You can even take advantage of the client-side signature mode and let your users choose the appropriate, customized template every time they compose an email in Outlook.
CodeTwo Email Signatures for Office 365 comes with technical support and secure monitoring, developed and supplied under the ISO-certified management system. Emails are not stored or read and your credentials are safeguarded by OAuth 2.0.
You can choose to subscribe monthly or annually. Pricing is dynamic based on the number of mailboxes, but you can expect somewhere around $1 per user when paid monthly -- annual rates start at around $10 per user. They offer a 14-day free trial so you can make sure it's right for you before buying.
If you're moving from Exchange Server to Office 365, you can get CodeTwo Email Signatures for Office 365 at a lower rate. Contact CodeTwo to learn more about these discounted rates.
Comparing Email Signature Management Solutions
All four product lines offer an easy-to-use interface, making creating and maintaining professional-looking corporate email signatures a breeze.
- They all include the ability to customize ad campaigns, as well as details such as who sends them, date ranges of sales campaigns, etc.
- They all work exceptionally well with Microsoft Office 365, as well as other popular office productivity tools such as Gmail.
- They all support multiple devices for emailing on the go or at the office.
For business owners most concerned with integrating their email system with other tools, Sigstr has additional tiers that integrate with several types of platforms, including those focused on sales, marketing, hr, and more.
If pricing is the main factor in your choice, Crossware and CodeTwo offer the lowest rates with a price tag of around $1.00 per user or less vs. Exclaimer's rate of $1.25 per user. Sigstr may be able to beat or at least match pricing, upon inquiry.
If you're an Accent client and would like to know more about which email signature management option is best for your needs, reach out to your Technology Advisor. We'd be happy to help you evaluate your options.
Not yet using Microsoft 365 for email? Contact us today to learn more about Microsoft 365 and how an IT partnership may be just the solution your company has been looking for.
