Professional Email Signatures for Your Piano Teaching Business

This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase something through an affiliate link, I will receive a small commission at no cost to you. For more information, read the disclosure statement here.

I’m working very hard on branding my business right now to create a cohesive and beautiful look that is really “me”, and while most of my branding is almost done, there was a major “little” loose end that I needed to tackle. I kept putting it off, but it was bugging me that I hadn’t completed it, so I jumped in and took care of it.

What am I talking about? Branded email signatures for my personal Gmail and Yahoo accounts! And the best part? You can create them for absolutely zero dollars. Below you can see what mine look like, and when they’re set up properly, they’re automatically appended to the signature area of your emails.

They can add another level of professionalism and style to your email accounts, which means another level of professionalism to YOU, no matter what you use those accounts for!

iMac computer sitting on a desk

Ready to get started? Here we go!

Here are some of the images I created specifically to use in my email signatures, and you’re going to learn how to create your own beautiful image in just a few minutes, in Canva.

 

Sample professional branded email signature

 

These screenshots are some of the actual email signatures I’ve used. Aren’t they pretty? You’ll have your own customized email signatures that suit your individual style by the end of this tutorial! Exciting! The left is Gmail, and the right is Yahoo.

      


Materials Needed:

1. To complete these tutorials, you’ll need a branded image, a stock image, or your logo image. What’s a branded image? It’s an image that conveys who you are, who your business is, your look, your style. It can be any image of your choice! I am using professional styled stock photography for my background image. Where do these images come from? Lots of places! I mostly use Haute Stock and Her Creative Studio images.

There are TONS more places to find beautiful stock photos, but these are the ones I tend to gravitate towards because they are so feminine and beautiful and suit my current style perfectly. If these are not your style, look on Etsy and Creative Market and you’ll see lots of different colors and styles.

Or maybe you already have an image that you love, such as your blog header or Facebook header, that already coordinates with your brand’s look. Or maybe you love taking photos and want to take your own styled photograph. Do whatever works best for you!

However, DON’T use images that you found in a Google search. Most of them are under copyright. Please obtain the images in the correct way. Be sure of the terms of use of the image you select. Haute Stock DOES allow email signatures. I already asked her 😀

2. You’ll also need Canva (free account)
3. WiseStamp (free account)
4. Your computer
5. Plus your Yahoo and/or Gmail email accounts. We’ll be putting most of our focus on Yahoo today.

Which tutorial is best for you?

Before we get started I wanted to show you a closeup of the Gmail and Yahoo signatures so you’ll know where we’re going with these two tutorials. Pretty and professional, right? Also clean, uncluttered, includes my name, relevant social links or text links, one of the photos that I’m currently using on all my online touch points, and a beautiful branded styled stock image in the background.

If you want your Gmail signature to look similar to the first image below, with the “Follow Me” text and social media icons with links to your social media accounts, you’ll want to use this tutorial by The Virtual Savvy, along with a few of my own tips below, in the “Tips for the Gmail Tutorial” section.

If you want your Gmail signature to match your Yahoo signature and look similar to the signature below, with more text, then you’ll want to use the Yahoo Tutorial, further down this post. OR, you can do what I did, and complete both tutorials, one for each email account, and see what you prefer.

No matter which tutorial you choose, go ahead and complete the Canva section of the tutorial by The Virtual Savvy because you’ll need the completed image for both email signatures (start at :50 and stop at 4:05), UNLESS you already have a rectangular image such as your blog header or Facebook header that you’d like to use instead. Since this was my first time using Canva, I quickly learned to give myself some extra time and grace to complete the job, and I believe I got beautiful results. Thanks for your amazing tutorial, Abbey! It was clear and easy to follow, and I’m so happy I found it!

One of my Canva images:

Before you decide which tutorial to follow, please note:

**The Yahoo tutorial signature can be used in all your email accounts, including Gmail, but the Gmail tutorial is specifically for Gmail accounts and cannot be used with other accounts. 


Tips for the Gmail Tutorial

As I completed the steps of Abbey’s tutorial, I decided to use social share buttons from IconsDB since I was familiar with that site and had used them before. The best thing about these icons is that they’re free, and you can choose ANY color to match your brand or blog colors! Select your color from the preset colors at the top of the screen, or choose a custom hex color using the #hexcode (for example, FFFFFF is white, FEE8F2 is the light pink I used, 000000 is black. Then search for the icons you need (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Blog, Shop, etc.) and download them individually to use in the tutorial. Here’s what part of the page looks like when I type in my custom hex code.

Want to choose specific colors on IconsDb and need a little extra help with hex colors? If you’re using a Mac, you can use the eyedropper tool (the easiest way for me to use the eyedropper tool is when choosing a color for some text). Select the text, then choose the eyedropper and click any color in your branded image with the eyedropper. Then select the RGB sliders at the top (second from the left) and copy the hex color # to IconsDB. You can then use that same code in Canva if you need it, as well as in WiseStamp. You might want to write the code down and save it in a document listing all your brand colors, or screenshot your color like I did here.

If you’ll follow Abbey’s tutorial, along with these additional tips, you’ll have a beautiful Gmail signature before you know it!


Yahoo Signature Tutorial

The process for creating a Yahoo signature is completely different from the Gmail tutorial. However, I was able to find a way to do it and still use the same image I created for my Gmail account. Talk about efficiency!

The first thing you’ll need to do is follow the Canva part of the tutorial by The Virtual Savvy (start at :50 and stop at 4:05) to create your actual image that we’ll use as part of the Yahoo signature tutorial, unless you already have a rectangular image, like I mentioned earlier. Once more, here’s an image I created in Canva. Keep in mind though, that your image can look however you want it to look! You can tell from the Gmail tutorial that my image and Abbey’s image look really different from one another. Make it your own!

After you’ve created and downloaded your image, go here. https://www.wisestamp.com

Scroll down to the footer (bottom of the page) and click the signature you need. For this tutorial, I’m using Yahoo https://www.wisestamp.com/yahoo-email-signature but there are several different options.

Click the green “Get it Now” button.

You should see a page like this:

It MAY ask you to go ahead and connect your WiseStamp account with your Yahoo account. If that happens, go ahead and do it. If not, I’ll show you how I connected mine at the end of the tutorial. Since I had an older version of WiseStamp already installed, I realized at the end of this process that I had to uninstall the old version and install the new one, so I will be linking the two accounts at the end. When you link doesn’t matter. What matters is that you are linked. Now, here’s where the fun starts!

Let’s do this!

Click “your name” in the upper left, and a sign up box will appear. Create your login information and click the orange “Sign Up” button and you’ll be taken back to the email signature page.

Once you’re back at the email signature page, the first thing you’ll need to do is scroll down the left half of the screen until you see the gray or black Banner button under the Signature Apps category. Click it.

Then follow the prompts and upload the image you created in Canva. Link it to your website, blog, shop, etc., if you like. I linked mine to my website here at melodypayne.com since this is my Grand Central Station, if you will, and all of my social media, shop, blog, and everything else can be accessed from right here.

Then click the green “Add to Signature” button.

Scroll back up to the top of the screen to the “Email Signature Details” section and enter your name, additional links, and social media if you choose.

I typed my name and company, then scrolled down to “+add another” to enter custom labels and fields for my website, blog, and shop, in that order.

Play around with it until you have what you need. You’ll be able to see the live preview on the right side of your screen as you go. Do NOT add a signature picture/logo if your Canva image already contains your picture and logo. If it doesn’t, feel free to add them.

If you want your Canva image to appear above your name and other links like mine, click and drag it to the top of the preview area. I elected not to use social media links in this signature because I couldn’t customize the icons enough in the free account. However, do whatever is right for you. Enter your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, or any other social information and you’ll see the social media icons appear in your signature preview. You could also use more of the custom fields to add your social media if you want.

Remember that hex code # from earlier? Here’s where you’ll need it again. Click “More colors” beneath your preview, and then enter the custom hex code # in the box. Mine is FEE8F2 because I want my colors to be light pink to match my photo and the styled stock image in the background. When you’ve entered the hex code #, click “choose” at the bottom right.

Once your color, information, and banner are set, we’ll choose a template for your snazzy new signature. Click “Choose signature template” above the preview area and you’ll see all the different free templates that are available, as well as how your custom hex colors look. Don’t worry that your image is larger than the template screen. It won’t be when you finish this process. Hover over the template that you like and click “Choose this template”. You will then be taken back to the preview page and you can see how everything looks.

Feel free to continue tweaking colors or layout templates until you have the perfect email signature. I’m going to tweak mine a bit more and replace “The Plucky Pianista” text with “Music Educator, Pianist, TpT Author”, since “The Plucky Pianista” is already in my image that I created in Canva and I don’t want to be redundant. Here’s the final version of my Yahoo signature.

When you’re ready to add your beautiful new email signature to your Yahoo account, save your changes, and if you’re using Safari, your Safari extension will automatically download. If you’re not using Safari, you might need to check their help forum if the extension doesn’t automatically download, or if you don’t see a window pop up telling you how to connect WiseStamp with your email account. Whatever happens, it should be a really simple process.

Once the extension downloads, find it in your downloads folder (or wherever your downloads go) and double-click to install it.

Since WiseStamp is now enabled in Safari, that means it will be enabled in EVERY email account that you use, which is totally FINE if you want to use this signature with all of your email accounts. It looks great and works well, so why not! However, we DON’T want that if you are using a different email signature for Gmail like I am. Here’s how to enable it only in your Yahoo account and leave the others alone.

Go to your WiseStamp page, and in the top center select “Manage”, then “link to email address”.

You’ll be taken to the Signature Settings screen. On this screen, set it up like you see below, and that means that your new email signature will only show up in your Yahoo account.

Then go to your Yahoo email account, login, and compose a message. Do you see your amazing new email signature? Yes? Then congratulations, you have completed this tutorial and you now have a fabulous email signature to show for it!

No? If you don’t see your email signature, at the bottom of your email window, on the very right of all those tiny icons, you’ll see a WiseStamp icon. If it’s gray, click it to enable WiseStamp. Your email signature will appear, and you’re ready to start sending emails with your professional new signature!


You probably already noticed that the WiseStamp “stamp” is there, at the very bottom of your signature. I’m totally OK with that, since I’m using WiseStamp for free, for this email account only, and it’s not my primary business account. However, if you’re not OK with it, you can always upgrade to the paid WiseStamp account to make it disappear. Or you can just roll with it. Whatever floats your boat!

Now, send yourself an email so you can have the pleasure of being the first one to open an email with your brand new beautiful signature! Be sure to say something really awesome about it when you email yourself! Don’t forget to send an email to me at [email protected] so I can see your creation! Have fun, and enjoy your new signatures!

If you have questions and need to troubleshoot when using WiseStamp to add your email signature to your Yahoo account, click here.

Know someone who would benefit from this tutorial? Use the sharing buttons below or pin the image at the very top of this post to let your friends know about this unique way of expressing your brand!

 

More piano studio blog posts:

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

Don't miss out!

Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, join our Facebook group for piano teachers, and subscribe to the newsletter to get helpful teaching tips, resources, and tutorials delivered straight to your inbox every week. 


Melody Payne

Melody Payne

Dr. Melody Payne is a pianist, teacher, and educational resource author who believes that all piano students deserve the best musical experiences possible, in every single lesson. Melody self-publishes pedagogical materials for piano students as well as piano teaching articles and professional development courses for piano teachers. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Music with emphases in music education and piano pedagogy and a Master of Music in Piano Pedagogy from Louisiana State University, and a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from William Carey University in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She is a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music through the Music Teachers National Association. Melody and her husband Greg live in Marion, Virginia, a small town nestled in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, where she teaches children and adults of all ages and abilities in her online piano studio.

This Post Has 2 Comments

    1. Melody Payne

      My pleasure, Sarah! Thanks for reading 🙂

Leave a Reply to Melody Payne Cancel reply

Welcome!

Hi! I’m Melody Payne, a pianist and piano teacher, educational resource author, a fun-loving wife to the most wonderful and talented hubby I could ask for, and a lifelong learner who loves to share. I want to make your life as a music teacher easier by writing and sharing helpful and relevant music teaching articles, and by creating educational resources with your very own students in mind. If you are a parent who wants to enroll your child in piano lessons, I’d love for us to get started building those skills that can give your child a lifetime of musical enjoyment!

Looking for Something?

Blog Categories

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Let's Connect

More Articles to Enjoy