Digital Business Cards in Email Signatures: Generate Leads & Drive Conversions

Data suggests that an overwhelming majority (82%) of marketers use email signatures to boost brand awareness, 48% to drive traffic to their websites, and 34% to generate more leads.

To achieve similar (rather better) results, many professionals now add digital business cards (or e-business cards) to their email signatures to boost their conversion rates.

Why digital business cards, you ask?

Since typical email signatures do not let you showcase your entire value proposition—owing to the limited space—making your digital business card accessible from your email signature amplifies the overall impact of your email. This influences your recipients to take the desired actions, positively impacting your networking efforts.

Continue reading to learn why you should add a digital business card to your email signature. Additionally, we will walk you through the two main ways to add an e-business card to your email signature template so it becomes accessible from every email you send.

Table of contents

1. 3 reasons to add a digital business card to your email signature
2. How do I add a digital business card to my email signature?
3. Make a digital business card for your email signature with Beaconstac
4. Frequently asked questions

3 reasons why you should add digital business cards to your email signatures

1. Go beyond sharing just your basic contact details
2. Let your recipients save your essential information instantly
3. Attract traffic to your other crucial engagement channels

1. Go beyond sharing your basic contact details

Email signatures are meant to be concise and compact, accommodating minimal information. A typical signature block only contains basic contact details, such as a name, business logo, a few URLs, and a contact number. 

Adding a digital business card to your email signature allows you to expand on these basics and share unlimited amounts of information. 

Apart from your name, address, and contact number, your e-business card can house multimedia content such as web URLs pertinent to your niche. These URLs can take your audience to your important landing pages and social channels.

These value-adding pieces of information via your email signature can help position you as a field authority and influence your audience to become a client or customer.

Think of your digital business card as the main hub where your audience can get a clear view of who you are and the value you offer—through your email signature. 

2. Let your recipients save your essential information instantly

Email signatures are interactive. They allow access to all the information you share via hyperlinks. However, they do not offer the option to save all of this information instantly on a mobile device. 

It is reasonable to assume that not all of your recipients will immediately act on the details you place in your email signature. Some may wish to save these details—such as a contact number or physical address—for later use. 

By making your e-business card accessible from your email signature, you provide your recipients with the option to instantly save your essential information on their mobile devices.

Upon saving your digital business card in a VCF (Virtual Contact File) format, all its details—including your photo, contact numbers, emails, and web URLs—become readily available as a contact list entry.

What’s convenient about the VCF (Virtual Contact File) format is that it is readable across all devices and your recipients can save your business card details regardless if they use a smartphone, tablet, or PC.

3. Attract traffic to your other crucial engagement channels

Let’s look at a scenario:

Suppose you’re using an email signature to generate leads for your professional practice. Your email signature might present a contact number, an address, or a link to an official website. These details might entice a potential lead to get in touch with you.

However, as a professional, there is a likelihood you are also using multiple channels to promote your practice and increase your influence. For instance, you might actively use YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn to publish value-adding content.

Now, as previously stated, email signatures are meant to be concise. Using it to showcase too many details can beat its purpose. That said, it’s unlikely you can use it alone to drive traffic to your other engagement channels.

Overcome this limitation by linking your digital business card to your email signature. Upon access via a click or a scan, your audience can view all your relevant online destinations in your e-business card–regardless if they are website pages, social media profiles, or instant messenger handles.

Further reading: How to create a digital business card with social media links

How do I add a digital business card to my email signature?

Adding a digital business card to your email signature is easy once you have the card ready. If you don’t have one already:

Create your digital business card

The most efficient way to create an e-business card is via a robust digital business card solution. Using a dedicated platform, you can access a full range of features that make e-business card creation and distribution convenient and—most importantly—ROI-driven. 

You can learn more about e-business card creation by referring to our easy-to-implement guide on how to create a digital business card.

Next, add your digital business card to your email signature via a QR Code or hyperlink

Once you create a digital business card, you can add it to your email signature in two ways: as a QR Code or a hyperlinked text. 

1. Add your digital business card to your email signature as a QR Code
2. Add your digital business card to your email signature as a hyperlink

#1 Add your digital business card to your email signature as a QR Code

With Beaconstac, each e-business card you create is accompanied by its own dynamic QR Code. Your recipient can scan this QR Code to access your digital business card directly. You can download this QR Code from the dashboard as an image file to add it to your email signature. 

You can add your digital business card QR Code in three simple steps: 

Step 1: Download the QR Code created with your e-business card

As you conclude your e-business card creation, you will get to the final section where you can download its corresponding QR Code (as shown below).

Click the Download QR Code button to download your e-business card QR Code in the image format of your choice. Choose between PNG, JPG, SVG, PDF, and EPS.

Step 2: Go to your email account and access its email signature settings

Most email providers allow users to configure and customize their email signatures. Access this functionality by going to your provider’s email signature setting.

Pro tip: Ensure a suitable call-to-action with your digital business card QR Code to prompt your recipient to view your e-business card. This CTA could be as simple as a ‘Get to Know Me’ text below your QR Code.

You can conveniently add this CTA text inside a frame as you customize your business card QR Code.

#2 Add your digital business card to your email signature as a hyperlink

Each digital business card you create will be assigned its own unique URL. You can copy this URL and embed it on a suitable anchor text in your email signature.

Here’s how to do it: 

Step 1: Copy your digital business card URL

Go back to the dashboard and click QR Codes on the left panel.

This opens the list of all the digital business cards you have created.

Each digital business card will have a URL labeled as Link, as shown in the screenshot above. Simply copy the URL for the card you wish to add to your email signature.

Make a digital business card for your email signature with Beaconstac

A digital business card adds a powerful actionable element to your email signature but is merely the first step of converting them into customers. You must ensure your e-business card can convince your audience to take the desired actions.

So how do you create digital business cards that garner results? By choosing the best digital business card solution. In addition to providing the functionalities you need to efficiently create, customize and distribute professional e-business cards, Beaconstac offers several advanced capabilities, including: 

1. Digital business card sharing via Apple Wallet or Google Wallet for contactless networking
2. Bulk creation and automation to diminish the time to generate e-business cards
3. Industry-leading, enterprise-grade security—GDPR and SOC 2 Type II compliance and other security measures
4. Robust team-level analytics and tracking

All of these functionalities are accessible without you ever needing to download an app. 

To learn more about the above capabilties, refer to our article on the 5 features that make Beaconstac the best digital business card solution available today.

Frequently asked questions

How do I create a digital business card for my email signature?

Here is an easy-to-implement guide on creating an e-business card using Beaconstac’s digital business card solution:

1. Log in to your Beaconstac account, click Create, and choose Digital Business Card.
2. Choose a digital business card layout.
3. Fill in all the fields in your profile information.
4. Design your digital business card to match your branding.
5. Include all your contact details.
6. Add your social media links to your e-business card.
7. Customize and download your digital business card.
8. Add your digital business card to your email signature as a QR Code or a hyperlink.

Why should I include my digital business card in my email signature?

Email signatures are compact by nature. They only showcase essential details, such as a name, physical address, and contact number. For this reason, they seldom convey your whole value proposition. Including a digital business card in your email signature allows you to provide more information about yourself and your business. 

How do I include my digital business card on my email signature on Gmail?

Here is how you can add a digital business card to your email signature in Gmail:

1. Sign in to your Gmail account. 
2. Click the gear icon in the upper-right corner to access the Settings menu.
3. Click See all settings.
4. In the General tab, scroll down into the Signature section.  
5. Click +Create New and assign a name to your new email signature template.
6. Write your email signature in the block provided.
7. Attach your digital business card as a QR Code or hyperlinked text.
8. Scroll down to the bottom and click Save Changes.

How do I add a digital business card for my Outlook email signature?

Add a digital business card to your email signature in Outlook by following these steps:

1. Open the Outlook app and sign in.
2. Access the File menu and choose Options. 
3. On the Options window, choose Mail in the side menu, then click Signatures.
4. In the Email Signature tab, click New and assign a name for your email signature template.
5. Select the name of the email signature you created under Select signature to edit. 
6. Design your email signature under the Edit signature section.
7. Add your digital business card as a QR Code or hyperlinked text.
8. Click OK to save your signature template.

• Author Details

Author Details

Reuben Isidoro

Reuben is a Content Marketer who helps businesses drive audience engagement and conversions through compelling content narratives. Currently, he explores the profound impact of simple yet innovative business tools, such as digital business cards, on organizational ROI.

https://blog.beaconstac.com/

[email protected]