Does Anyone Read Your Email Signature?

If you spend as much time in email as I do, you’ve probably seen many email signatures. These bits of text (and sometimes images) are automatically added to the bottom of every email to identify the sender. Often, the signature is also used to promote the person’s company or latest projects.

For at least the last two years, my signature has looked like this:

Find me: adamd.org – @adamd – adam.coffee

Though instead of direct links, I used Bitly to track the clicks. That was because I wondered whether anyone actually read and followed the content in my signature.

Well, over the years I’ve learned that people definitely notice the signature. One element of it specifically has received attention in replies, as well as in person.

People Love adam.coffee

Though I try really hard not to buy domains I never use, I lined up on opening day of availability of the .coffee domain extension to grab adam.coffee. At around $30 a year, it felt like I should use the domain rather than just sit on it (sadly, over 60% of .coffee domains are parked, meaning they aren’t being used). I’m not enough of a coffee snob to review coffees or perform tastings. Without any more creative ideas, I simply hooked it up to my calendar and let people book time wth me on certain days.

Frequently, I’ll get replies like this to emails:

"I want to sign up for coffee with Adam! I just followed the adam.coffee link and that’s cool.”

"I’ll use your coffee link (which is brilliant btw