Save Our Digits: How to Use Contact Cards to Build a Better Subscriber Experience

When customers check their email, it’s very obvious who the sender is—whether it’s Aunt Carol or their favorite brand. 

But their text inbox is different—especially if you aren’t a saved contact. As more and more brands adopt SMS to get messages to their subscribers, more and more short codes and phone numbers show up in those subscribers’ text inboxes—making for an increasingly chaotic experience that could look like this:

If you encourage subscribers to save you as a contact, though, the experience is much more phone friendly:

This is one of the many reasons why we love contact cards. They let your subscribers add you as a recognizable contact, which makes it easy for them to identify when a message appears from you. And it’s a great way to rise above the clutter during promo-heavy seasons like BFCM—when stores that normally snooze on their SMS sends are ramping them up.

And psychologically, it helps move your brand into more of a friend zone than a brand zone, which is exactly where you want your SMS marketing to land.

Contact cards are digital "business cards" containing your brand's contact information—including phone number, email, notes, and more—that subscribers can easily save to their personal contacts. 

You can share your contact card at any point in the customer journey by including them in keyword replies, automation flows, and campaign flows. 

Sending a message with a contact card will cost the same as sending an MMS message (which allows you to include up to 1600 characters in your message).

You can learn how to create one in Postscript here. 

Here’s a few things to make sure you add to your contact card before sending it out to subscribers.

Brand Name: While this seems obvious, you could also have fun with how you want to show up among your subscribers’ texts. For example, including something like “Your Pals at XXXX” or your CEO’s first name could help add a little personality.

Picture/Favicon: Help subscribers locate you at a glance by making sure your brand logo is saved in the card.

Tagline: This an opportunity to include a little something about your brand, whether it’s your company mission, a one-liner about what you sell, or something quirky like, “The brand that gives you the best texts ever.”

Website URL: A no-brainer.

Contact email: Include the best email for any customer support requests.

We’re always looking for ways to improve content cards within our Postscript app, so if you have ideas, be sure to get in touch here. 

One of the most talked-about reasons for driving contact card adoption is the iOS 16 update—which gave users the “Report Junk” option directly within a text thread with an unknown contact. We dive into this more here. Although this change was meant to target phishing attempts, iOS sees all unknown numbers as just that—unknown. 

Encouraging subscribers to add you as a contact will help you stay out of the junk pile and in their inbox.

And don’t be afraid to remind them of how contact cards work. Here’s a great example from bodycare brand Native. It encourages people to save them as a contact and includes a quick tip on how to do it.

It’s important to think about how you search through your own phone’s inbox when you’re looking for something. It’s much easier for your subscribers to access a promo code or text you a customer service question when they can find your number with a quick search through their contacts. 

Wondering when to send subscribers your contact card? Here’s a few ideas.

While we see a lot of brands sending a contact card as the first message in their welcome series, that shouldn’t be the only time you share it with your subscribers.

If you’re incentivizing visitors to opt into your SMS list for a coupon, their first priority will be to use that to (hopefully) make a purchase. Saving you as a contact might not be top of mind.

We’d suggest promoting your contact card in the second or even a third message within your welcome series automation. You still want to send it early in their journey, but perhaps not as the first message they get from your brand.

Pro tip: Use Flow Builder to add a “Wait For Event” branch giving new subscribers a certain amount of time to make a purchase. You can then send two different messages based on if someone has made a purchase within that window or not.

If someone has placed an order, they could receive a message like this:

You’re already a loyal customer, so let’s make it official. Add us to your contact list so we can text on the reg.

And prospects might receive something like this:

Don’t miss any upcoming product drops (or wonder who’s texting you) ever again! Save us as a contact.

Remind subscribers that a perk of being saved in their contacts is that they’ll be able to spot your texts.

Send the card in a campaign reminding people to save you as a contact because a big sale event or new product drop is coming and you don’t want them to miss out.

Target your existing VIP customers to make sure they’ve saved you as a contact in their phone. Let them know you recognize that you’re already besties since they’ve placed orders from you before—and now it’s time you all made it official. 

Why not make a goodwill gesture by letting your subscribers know that you want to be saved as a contact on their phone and offering a little promo code as a thanks in advance. Here’s a great example of how to nail this approach from apparel brand Woolx.

You could even send a one-time promo code within the “notes” section of a contact card. Just be forewarned that you would have to include a static Shopify promo code, not a dynamic one—so you’ll want to be mindful of restricting how it can be used inside your Shopify store.

Now is the perfect time to get some contact card campaigns out to your subscribers. With BFCM just around the corner, consider this campaign idea along with your other Cyber Week strategies. Still planning out your BFCM efforts? Download our Ultimate BFCM Planner right here for tons of ideas and inspo.