How to Create an Actor Email Signature

The humble email signature is often overlooked by actors, especially when pitted against other (lets face it, far more alluring) marketing assets like your headshot and showreel. But think about it logically for a second. It’s not 2003 anymore, casting directors and agents practically live in their email inboxes. A great actor email signature allows you to communicate key information and link all your work without coming across as pushy or desperate. When you think about how many emails you send a day, why wouldn’t you take advantage of that unassuming little sign off at the end of your message?

Your email signature will work for you 24/7 for free to share your talent. So let’s find out how to turn the blank space at the end of an email into a gold mine.

What to include in an actor email signature

This is going to be slightly different depending on the stage of your acting career. Here are a few examples of what information you might include in your signature:

• Name, phone number, location (if you’re in a major market)
• Links to casting profiles or own website (ie. Spotlight, Showcast, Actor’s Access, etc.)
• Union affiliations (ie. SAG-AFTRA or SAG-AFTRA eligible)
• Social media (Instagram, Vimeo) and/or IMDb
• Representation name and website

It’s a great idea to include your headshot as part of your email signature, as emails that have attachments or large image files (AKA, a headshot!) often get flagged by email servers as spam or junk. Headshots also act as a quick visual reminder of who you are, and they are a key part of your branding as an actor.

“What you look like, and some sort of link to your work. A clean email signature is the loveliest way to receive an actor’s email.” — Bailey Frances (Casting Associate, Shakyra Dowling Casting)

If you’re adding the headshot to your signature as a separate image, aim to keep the pixel size relatively small (less than 200 x 200 pixels) and the image size less than 100kb so it loads quickly for the recipient. You can use an online image compressor to reduce the file size while retaining the image quality.

How to format your email signature as an actor

You’ve got options! There are so many guides on the internet that will take you through how to format an email signature. You have two main options here: to rely on a template, or to create you own signature.

Actor email signature templates

These websites will help you create an email signature with customisable free templates. The HTML signature can then be copied directly over into your email provider.

Here are 3 great options to get started:

1. HubSpot
2. wisestamp.com
3. MySignature

There are also literally hundreds of email signature templates available on Canva. These templates and the easy to use editing interface will help you quickly design a beautiful signature that you can either download as full image, or components of a signature that you can then combine in your email provider’s HTML editor to create quality graphic design elements.

Something to keep in mind with Canva is that if you want to include clickable links in your signature (which you probably do!) you will need to link the images separately. For example, you may need to create a Vimeo logo graphic, an IMDb logo graphic, and an Instagram logo graphic. Then, you would need to link each separately to the appropriate account in order for each to work.

Creating your own email signature

This is my personal favourite way of creating an email signature. There are so any ways of formatting your own email signature, but I personally like the side by side layout displayed below. This keeps everything nice and aligned, and means the agent or CD won’t need to scroll down to see the links to your work!

You can easily create a layout like this in Google Docs, and copy and paste it into your email provider as a signature template. The trick here is to create a table in Google Docs that is 2 side by side cells. You can make the lines of the table transparent, and add your headshot into the left column and your details into the right.

Email signature for actors general guidelines

In general, you want to keep the email signature looking clean and professional. If in doubt, less is more! The goal here is to provide a snapshot of yourself as an artist, not to make the most beautiful designed-within-an-inch-of-its-life jumble at the bottom of the email.

Ask yourself these questions before deciding on the final design of your signature:

• Does it give a clear idea of who I am in a professional capacity? (ie. actor, voiceover artist, etc.)
• Is there a link to my work?
• Is it visually pleasing? (not cluttered with too many colours, fonts, logos, etc.)
• Do all the links work?

As a final step before you send out your new signature, test it in an email to yourself or a friend and make sure they can see and access everything you have tried to include. There’s nothing worse than linking to your casting profiles only to realise, oh no, you’ve copied the link to editing your profile instead. Which means its completely broken for anyone not logged in to your account.

Final Thoughts on Actor Email Signatures

There is no one right way to create an actor email signature. Different things will work for different actors at different stages of their career. But one thing is for certain: they can be a powerful and non-pushy way to share your work with a wider audience, and open up opportunities that didn’t exist before. Whether you’re pitching an agent or manager, submitting yourself to a casting director, or chatting with the production team of an indie film you’re auditioning for, a great email signature can be your secret marketing weapon!