Let your prospects know that you are on leave
Taking vacation time off work is essential to remain refreshed and focused on your job. While you are away, customers need to expect that the service will resume as soon as you are back on business. Program a leave message to let your clients know they should expect some delay in the answers.
Turn on the Vacation Responder
To set up the Vacation Responder in your Gmail account, follow these quick steps:
-
Log in to your Gmail account and click on the Settings icon that is in the top right of the screen. You will see ‘Quick settings’ once you have clicked on the icon. Then, click on the light blue menu which says ‘See all settings’.
-
Under the General setting, scroll down the screen until you find the Vacation responder. To send automatic messages to your email recipients, toggle the vacation responder on but clicking on the button.
-
Your next step is to plan the time when the automatic responder should start and end.
Schedule your time off with a Vacation responder
Your next step is to edit the date when your vacation starts. Click on the First-day field. You will see a calendar as soon as you click on the start-day field. From the calendar, select the date when your vacation will start. After that, write the subject of your vacation responder. It can be something like “Limited email access until April 15” or any other suitable subject line. In business, you should take the opportunity to generate more leads from your vacation responder. Do not turn away your regular customers and prospects with a dead-end message. Instead, add some more interesting content in your responder to continue to market your products even if you are away. You can also enhance your opportunity to work remotely by using the vacation responder. For example, you can inspire customers to shop for you if you visit a foreign country.
Edit a smart vacation responder
Gmail’s Vacation responder is a complete tool that can be used as an email-footer. In the text section, you can sign off with your name, title and company name, and contact information, just like in any email signature. Under your personal information, you can add a call-to-action, which invites your customer to call you on Hangout or any other online call provider. It is also a good idea to redirect visiting clients to your social media page or website through an active link. Also, you can upload a promotional banner or select one from your URL in your vacation responder. To insert an image to the vacation responder, click on the image icon which can be found among the other icons in the menu.
Here is an example of an elegant and smart vacation responder for the Christmas holiday on Gmail. You can display your company name using the largest font size in red or green. It should be just under your name and title. Then you may add a link to hang out or to any other instant messaging for your most loyal clients to contact you without any delay. Then, promote your brand and product with a banner featuring the season on the left and your promoted article in the middle. Associate it with a call-to-action and link both the image and the CTA to your website address.
In conclusion, you can use your vacation responder more effectively to invite your clients to more content before you return on business. On 1001 Email Signatures, you can find many ideas to promote sales with a banner and a CTA even if you are away.
