Promote & Publicize Your Latest Blog Post With An Email Signature

If you are a blogger like me or even if you happen to like a blog post by another hand, using your email signature could be the easiest way to spread the word. There’s no promotion like self promotion. Quite logically, wouldn’t we like our first readers to be the ones we touch base with through emails? It should be the easiest job in the world to enlist their help to promote your blog. In the ‘Digg’ and boost world of the WWW, grabbing a few eyeballs is what counts. Think of the humble email signature as a no cost viral way to publicize your blog.
Adding a link to your latest blog post not only spreads the good word but also spices up your signature.  If you write about something specific, then a blog post signature link adds to your ‘brand’. In today’s ever changing world, an active signature could be like those 30 second filler adverts which play in staccato sequence. They grab our attention because they keep changing.
All it takes for a little bit of PR are these two ways and of course the habit of writing regular and relevant blog posts.

BlogSigs

BlogSigs attaches the link to your latest blog post in your email signature. This utility with a simple function works with a number of email clients like Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and Entourage.
Additionally, there’s also a Firefox add-on available which makes it the right fit when we send mails using the browser. The Firefox add-on, though free, comes with a BlogSigs promotion link in all emails. Purchasing a BlogSigs Registration Key removes the BlogSigs promotion link (note: the add-on is still not compatible with Firefox 3.5.2).
To get back to the Windows version, here’s how it runs from the system tray.

1. BlogSigs can be setup using the single configurable window.

   

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2. On the first run, BlogSigs detects the signatures saved for your Outlook accounts. If not, create a signature from the Outlook Menu path – Tools – Options – Mail Format – Signatures.
3. In the BlogSigs options window, choose the accounts you want to use BlogSigs for.
4. Specify the RSS feed of the blog you want to use. BlogSigs pulls the latest post from the RSS link and sends the headline as a part of the signature.
5. Append an optional stylized text before the blog post. Set the update in days, hours or minutes for BlogSigs to update the link.

The little app worked well notwithstanding a few errors. BlogSigs is a 646KB download and compatible with Windows 2000/XP/Vista and Mac OS X.

WiseStamp Email Signature

This Firefox add-on nearly came head of the class in the brief review I did last year in my post on 5 Ways To Create Custom Multiple Signatures In Gmail. Just to refresh, WiseStamp lets you setup rich personalized signatures using a simple WYSIWYG Editor. The app supports Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL and Hotmail.
If you have come over from my earlier post, WiseStamp has added a few new features since then. Automatically sharing of blog posts is what caught my eye.
WiseStamp’s Feed tab allows us to easily include our favorite personalized feed and it automatically updates in our email signatures. Now we can share not only our latest blog posts but also bookmarks, videos, pictures, events and much more. This is a excellent way to promote your blog.

• Download and install the WiseStamp add-on.
  

  

• Access it from the browser’s Tools menu or right click on the little WiseStamp icon near the bottom right of the browser (Right Click – Edit signature).

• Design your signature in the WYSIWYG editor.

• Click on the RSS tab, enter a Feed title and the Feed URL. WiseStamp automatically validates the URL and OK’s it.

• You can preview the signature before clicking on Apply and OK.

• Open your email account to compose a new email. Right click on the little icon located on the formatting toolbar or the one at the bottom of the browser window to choose a signature (i.e. if you have more than one). The signature gets automatically inserted with the latest blog post.

Download the WiseStamp Firefox add-on for rich email signatures.
Familiarity may not breed contempt but it certainly lays the grounds for boredom. In a medium where it takes seconds to go from reading a mail to consigning it to the trash, an interesting link attached to the signature might just make someone pause. Who knows, following that link may make someone’s day a lot better.
There are of course many, many innovative ways to promote your blog post. Using your email signature to showcase your latest blog post is comparatively a modest one.