Purpose
Centrally managed email signatures enable organizations to ensure consistent branding and across teams and departments. Used by Government entities, large enterprise companies, educational institutions and businesses with multiple departments, central management of email signatures ensures compliance and consistency.
What Is Central Email Signature Management?
Central Email Signature Management is a software-based solution that allows Administrators to create and manage email signatures at an organization level. These tools make it possible to create templates and groups, so that when people send outgoing emails recipients get consistent signatures, regardless of who sends the email or what device is used.
Why Would an Organization Want Email Signature Management?
There are six core reasons why organizations choose to employ signature management.
1. Branding consistency. Consistent branding is essential. If individual employees or teams are responsible for creating their own signature, the organization will have a wide, and often undesirable, variety in their email signatures. Some employees won’t have a signature at all, while others might use undesirable elements, such as animated gifs. Central management of signatures allows the organization to ensure consistent messaging across the organization.
2. Technical Optimization. There are a lot of technical considerations that go into an email signature. For example, some email clients might block images from loading. In cases such as this, appropriate consideration needs to be taken to ensure that fallback text is properly displayed. Images should be compressed to ensure that emails load quickly. Links need to be checked to make sure they aren’t broken. Most employees are not going to do these things. Central management ensures that this is done right for every employee. Most people aren’t going to pay too much attention to their signature.
3. Legal Compliance. Employees aren’t going to be educated on all of the nuances of disclaimers and compliance requirements. Central Signature Management ensures that outbound emails don’t run afoul of compliance obligations and provides the legal department assurance that the organization is adhering to all legal requirements. Disclaimer requirements change frequently, especially for multi-jurisdictional organizations. Central signature management makes it easy to update these when required. Whether its for Confidentiality Disclaimers, Legal Notifications or IP Protection, organizations that need text attached to every communication require central signature management.
4. Updates. When information changes, updating email signatures is manageable. Instead of asking all of your employees to change their signature anytime there’s a change, it can instead be handled by a few clicks of a button.
5. Segmentation. Different departments will have different signature requirements. For example, a Marketing Department might need a specific disclaimer that is distinct from other Teams or Departments. Segmentation allows for admins to customize signatures for different segments of an organization. A legal department can have a distinct signature from the marketing department, as an example.
6. Security. Phishing attacks and other malicious actors are constantly targeting companies. If a malicious actor gains access to an employees computer, admins can prevent them from arbitrarily changing their signature.
How Does It Work?
Once an organization determines they could benefit from signature management, it’s implementation is generally broken down into two phases. First, a template is designed that incorporates everything needed for the signature. Templates will usually consist of the employee name, contact information and company name. It will usually also display the company’s tagline and logo. After the template is created, the platform will integrate directly with the email service provider.
Use Cases
Imagine a scenario where an organization has just completed an acquisition and is adding fifty employees. Management may want these employees to have a transitional signature, letting recipients know the new name of the company.
Here’s another scenario. A new template may also be created for holidays, to celebrate a milestone within the company (like a 10 year anniversary), or other time-constrained needs.
Tracking
Many organizations want to include email tracking, often to integrate with CRM’s or to get open notifications. Making sure that tracking links and pixels are properly installed can be tricky. By using Central Signature Management, the tech team can handle it, one time and for everyone, to make sure everything is connected and working.
Multi Language Support
If your organization is operating in a multilingual environment, you can ensure proper translations. Providing a signature in multiple languages help showcase the compies multicultural diversity. it is a professional way to state your inclusiveness.
Conclusion
Whether it’s for branding, promotions, legal compliance or security, email signature management provides organizations with a simple and streamlined way to centrally administer signatures across large, complex diverse organizations.
Enterprise solutions are available now – Visit our Enterprise page to learn more.
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