Powering Up Your Brand Touchpoints

Every single connection and conversation that you have with your audience, matters. In fact, it’s not just the “active” conversations you have that are important: every single time one of your prospective clients or buyers comes across you, they are forming and reinforcing an impression of your brand.

What are brand touchpoints and why are they important?

Any digital or physical contact point between your brand and your customer/prospective customer is a brand touchpoint – everything from the obvious and deliberate ones (like your website, in-person meetings and calls, the images in your adverts, or the graphics in your sales pitches) to the subtler, more invisible ones (like the pen you use to sign a contract, the signature at the bottom of your emails, or the packaging you send). Most companies have hundreds of these brand touchpoints, though may not always be paying attention to, or leveraging, the power of every single one.

You may have heard that it takes “seven interactions” between a consumer and a brand before that customer is ready for a purchase. In fact, some studies say that it is over 20! This marketing rule refers to the fact that consumers need to build trust, they need to come across you, be reminded of you, be impressed by you, and – over the course of these several touchpoints – associate you with positive, aspirational feelings. As business owners, we can anticipate brand touchpoints in advance, thus creating the most stress-free and authentic journey for our clients, from first touchpoint to last.

When you genuinely elevate your customer experience, you make real, bottom-line impact on boosting sales and on creating customer loyalty. How your audience feels about your brand will be the single MOST important factor determining whether they are happy to invest in you, your products, and your services. When you concentrate on providing a consistent, engaging experience, your audience notices – and will engage right back with you. This engagement and emotional connection allow you to do more fulfilling work, to charge your worth, land more business, and stand out against your competitors.

What are some common examples of brand touchpoints?

Of course, not every touchpoint will feel right for you, your brand values, or your ideal client. Ask yourself where your audience spends time, where they shop, how they communicate, and where they are likely to form impressions of your brand. How your customers find you, what journey they are led on once they do, and what they experience when purchasing from you – these are all opportunities for showcasing your businesses in a positive light.

Social media is a very powerful and active community in which to connect with your audience and allows you to express your brand voice visually through posts, videos, collaborations, adverts, re-shares, and direct conversations with customers too. Other content could be your podcast episodes, your videos, any graphics you create, any reviews you receive, blog posts you publish, email marketing campaigns you send, product announcements you launch, and so on. If you sell products or services, you should have a well-oiled point of sale, feedback mechanism, and customer service process; the latter in particular is essential to ensure you can take responsibility for problems, solve them, and answer questions.

Other touchpoints could be the background of your Zoom call, the notebook and pen you write with in your in-person meetings, the details of your website and digital profiles, or the contact form your clients fill out to enquire with you. You might have a fantastic logo, but if your website is slow to load and your Instagram profile feels amateurish, I can guarantee you’ll be losing potential clients and sales.

Of course, not every instance of connecting with a customer need to be sales-focussed – it’s better to have a balance of sales touchpoints alongside educational and entertaining ones. The goal is brand awareness, trust, and genuine engagement that keeps your customers coming back to check in with you.

How can you elevate your brand touchpoints?

Nobody knows your business better than you – and you will be the one experimenting with which touchpoints best suit your ideal clients. With that said, there are a few key questions we recommend all business owners to consider:

• Do you understand your audience? Do your homework, research the market, and dig deep into the various subgroups of consumers you are speaking to.
• Do you know what touchpoints you already have? Are they consistent? Do they all embody the values at the core of your brand? Do they all improve the customer experience in some way?
• Are there areas of the customer journey where you can do better? Are there details and nuances you might be missing out on?
• Make a plan, and work with a branding designer to create a seamless, bespoke suite of branded touchpoints that you can use and re-use over time.
• Your business will adapt and evolve over time, but to ensure it does so effectively, keep asking yourself the questions above, again and again. Make sure you never stop learning, and never stop working towards creating a brand you are proud of.

At the very heart of it, brand touchpoints are stops along the way of your customer journey – and you should be optimising them so that each stop makes your customer more engaged, better served, and more likely to take the rest of the journey with you. Shopping and supporting companies have become active choices, and each and every customer out there wants to feel connected with you. Touchpoints will be working for you even when you’re not in the room.

We hope this blog post has given you some helpful food for thought. And if you want to be proactive with your brand touchpoints, grow your audience, make your sales process easier, and create a brand that is recognisable and trustworthy, the team at Creative ID would love to help.

About Vaishali Shah

Vaishali is the Founder and Creative Director of Creative ID. At Creative ID, we create aspirational branding and marketing for inspirational brands. By joining the dots between branding, marketing and customers, we ensure your brand gets noticed and creates long-lasting connections. Our creativity and experience drive us to develop brands that clients believe in and that bring their businesses to life. We understand that to create successful brands, we need to build the whole brand experience. Ensuring consistency in that experience is key for unlocking a brand’s full potential and driving growth.

Download a Free resource from Creative ID: Unlock the potential of your business. Get our Touchpoint Checklist from our Resources area and discover the touchpoints you might be missing.

Little note from Jude

When it comes to getting your brand right you need to work with the right brand designer for you. Vaishali has created some gorgeous brands and she might be right up your street. We also offer branding so if you have read this and realise your brand touchpoints really need working on then make sure you take action and reach out for a chat with the right person for you.