How important is sig advertising?

There is no question in my mind that including a url to your website in signitures on forums is a great way to promote your product/service for free to a wide audience.

I change my sig from time to time to test how particular fonts/sizes/colours and text effect the rate of response from the viewers. I personally think sig advertising is very important and without it launching a new website (particulary on a low budget) would be almost impossible.

Does anyone else agree that it's an important marketing technique? Does anyone have any special tips that work for them?

Signatures are a good way to advertise especially if the site are forums
I have joined a number of sites by clicking on the links in the signature.
But whether your site is a success really depends on how good and user friendly the site is and if you are giving what the users want at the time.

I think sig advertising is really effective. That's how I found this site .

I haven't made a single sale from signatures. But then I am only really using them for boosting my link popularity and SE rankings.

I get loads of traffic from signatures I believe that they get hits, you then need to channel those hits into registrations (if your site requires registration)

IMO signature advertising only works when you choose a signature and stick to it. If you do this, you are sub-consciously building up a brand image to everyone who looks at it. If, for example you use this signature for talkfreelance…

(talkfreelance)

Every time you make a post, because of the unique colours and unique way it is laid out, even though someone may not click on the link you are building up a brand image in there minds. This is even more effective if you can get two or more people to use the same signature. Eventually, people will click the link they keep seeing out of curiosity.

Think about it, if you keep changing your signature people will become “blind” to it. If you saw the above signature 50 times a day on your forum posting travels you would no doubt click on it.

Robson, feel free to use the (tf) sig if you like it.

Originally Posted by jon IMO signature advertising only works when you choose a signature and stick to it. If you do this, you are sub-consciously building up a brand image to everyone who looks at it. If, for example you use this signature for talkfreelance… (talkfreelance) Every time you make a post, because of the unique colours and unique way it is laid out, even though someone may not click on the link you are building up a brand image in there minds. This is even more effective if you can get two or more people to use the same signature. Eventually, people will click the link they keep seeing out of curiosity. Think about it, if you keep changing your signature people will become “blind” to it. If you saw the above signature 50 times a day on your forum posting travels you would no doubt click on it. Robson, feel free to use the (tf) sig if you like it.

I agree!
Bright colourful text in your sig will make people curious and will click it out of 'curiosity' like Jon said

Normal text won't be much affective , do the size Jon has in his signature , might be more affective yea

I'm using the larger than normal text size in all my sigs across the field...it's difficult because alot of forums have restrictions on different size fonts/colours and you have to customise it for every site. My current sig is almost identical to the one jon posted (except the brackets).

word.