SMS Contact Cards: What, Why, & How

The dreaded “Happy Birthday!” text from an unsaved number is an extremely uncomfortable experience. There are three options for this situation: 

1. You can ignore the message and feel guilty 
2. “Thank you so much” and hope it works out
3. The uncomfortable “Oh, thank you! But I don’t have this number saved” 

What should have been a great experience of someone in your life wishing you a happy birthday turns into an uncomfortable and confusing situation. You don’t want the same situation to happen with your brand SMS marketing. This is where Contact Cards come in. Contact Cards allow brands to have a more personal connection with their customers. It’s no longer an unsaved number sending texts, it’s someone they know. 

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What are Contact Cards for SMS

A Contact Card contains your company's contact information and allows subscribers to save your number as a contact on their phones with a dedicated image and other essential information. It takes your text from popping up on your customer's home screens from a random slue of numbers to a contact, just like texts from their friends and family. 

SMS marketing is one of the more personal and effective communication channels today. This marketing channel has a 98% open rate and your messages end up alongside messages from family and friends. Contact Cards takes your SMS marketing one step further into personalization and familiarity. 

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Why Should You Send Contact Cards 

If the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) requires that SMS from your brand must include your brand’s name, why should you send Contact Cards? 

Here are the benefits: 

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Minimizing the Risk That Your SMS Messages Are Labeled as Spam 

High unsubscribe rates or spam reports are the last thing you want for your SMS campaign. Just like with email, subscribers can report SMS as spam. As Apple explains, “When you use iMessage, you can report spam messages to Apple. Depending on your carrier and country or region, you can also report spam you receive with SMS and MMS.

In the list of messages, touch and hold the spam message, then tap Report Junk. Or, if you’ve opened the message, scroll to the bottom of the message, tap Report Junk, then tap Delete and Report Junk.

The sender’s information and the message are sent to Apple, and the message is permanently deleted from your device.” 

When customers save your Contact Card, they notice your name and logo as soon as they see the text, preventing confusion and creating a sense of familiarity. 

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Improve Customer Lifetime Value

Customer lifetime value is something every marketer should be working to improve. The marketing metric, customer lifetime value (CLTV), tracks the total amount spent by a customer while they continue to shop with your brand. CLTV gives you insights into your customer experience and customer loyalty. The reason marketers need to focus on CLTV is it’s cost-efficient. It’s anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive to gain a new customer than to retain an existing one. With recent changes in the digital marketing ecosystem, the costs of acquiring new customers are higher than ever. 

Many brands have mitigated these changes by developing brand loyalty and focusing on CLTV through a fantastic customer experience, loyalty programs, and marketing to existing customers. These efforts don’t go unnoticed. Research done by Bain & Company found that a 5% increase in customer retention can increase profits by 25% to 95%. 

Contact Cards help boost CLTV by creating a more personal connection, as well as boosting engagement, driving conversions, and reducing unsubscribe rates. All around, it helps your customers stay around longer and engage with your brand more effectively. 

Not to mention that when customers click on your contact, they have access to your email, home page, and whatever message you would like to put in the notes, making it easy to contact you and shop. 

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Best Practices for Sending Contact Cards 

• Remember to upload a contact picture with your logo. It will make your brand easily recognizable when your messages pop up or if a customer is looking for your text thread. 
• Fill out all the fields of your Contact Card so that customers get the most value out of adding you to their contact list.  
• Add your Contact Card to your welcome series so that new subscribers can add your Contact Card as soon as they opt into your SMS program. 

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How to Send Contact Cards to Your Customers 

Voyage makes it easy to send Contact Cards to your customers. In our platform, you can easily fill out all the information in your settings and then attach your Contact Card to any campaigns you create in Campaigns, Drips, and List Building. 

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If you are already a Voyage customer, click here to read all the details about getting your Contact Card set up. If you aren’t a Voyage Customer yet, request a demo today to see the most powerful SMS marketing and message commerce platform in the world. 

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