Do you know how customers find and interact with your business? These are called 'touchpoints' and can range from social media, product reviews, subscription renewals, customer loyalty programs and beyond. This post will explain how to frame the exercise of plotting customer touchpoints for your business and evaluating their performance.
Photo by Jacqueline Munguía on Unsplash
There's a lot of discourse in the e-commerce space about the number of touchpoints a potential customer must interact with before converting but for the purposes of this post consider 8-10 touchpoints. Make sure that the combination of touchpoints complement one another and don't present conflicting information.
Where is your brand 'visible'?
If you've taken the advice to have a website for your business you might consider that as the primary touchpoint, or the first place a potential customer will interact with your brand. But alas, there are many, many other places online and offline where individuals can learn about your services or goods.
HubSpot has a fairly robust list of customer touchpoints:
Social Media
Online Advertisement
Digital Marketing Content
Company Events
Peer Referral
Conversations With Company Representatives
Product Catalogs
Ecommerce
Product Reviews
Point of Sale
Thank You Letters
Product Feedback Surveys
Upsell/Cross-Sell Emails
Billing Actions
Subscription Renewals
Customer Support Channels
Customer Success Programs
Customer Onboarding
Customer Loyalty Programs
Self-Service Resources
Chances are more than a few of these had you going 'Oh, yep' or 'Not yet!' and that's why it can be hugely important to regularly audit your customer touchpoints and the 'image' of your brand they are promoting.
How are you using your touchpoints?
Customers researching a new product for the first time want to be made feel they've learned something about said industry or good. Across touchpoints a consistency of messaging on USP (Unique Selling Point) and commitment to educating before conversion is important.
Prepurchase:
Here are 3 customer touchpoints and some recommendations for how to best utilize them prepurchase:
Social Media: The 'hard sell' is not always going to work -- in fact it may alienate new, curious potential leads. A good rule of thumb should be to centre your content around information or at least, the customer's needs/wants. Good social media content matches current customer UGC with future customer curiosity.
E-Commerce: Make sure your website performs to the best of its abilities! Prioritizing user design and experience will, in the long run, mean more for your business than a 'flashy' webpage. Make exploriation easy and provide relevant information up front.
Bonus tip: Customer Support is not something to flake on! Put it several places and always, always respond.
Product Reviews: A great way to inform future customers is to let your past customers do the leg work! Featuring a product review on your social media or in digital marketing channels means that you have seen a customer need similar to the users before and not just met the demand, but excelled enough for them to leave a review. Good reviews are gold dust....treat them as such!
Postpurchase:
You should always be on track to acquire new customers but never at the cost of current customers. Here are 3 touchpoints for postpurchase to consider:
'Thank You' Letters: Digital or analog recognition of conversion is a simple way to make your customer feel the experience is personalized to them. This can done using email marketing or direct mail, depending on your brand guidelines.
Product Feedback Surveys: Asking for feedback on the experience or product/service sold is a great way to learn more about what future customers and current customers are looking for from your business.
Customer Loyalty Programs: Rewarding regular conversion goes a long way! People like to feel part of a community. By creating a Customer Loyalty Program with points or tiers you are inviting customers to return and re-experience your brand.
There are numerous combinations of touchpoints that your customer could interact with before and after landing on your sales page. Making sure that they all speak to one another harmoniously is a good use of resources and time. Don't be afraid to experiment and tweak but always keep track of brand messaging!
Summary:
Auditing where and how potential customers interact with your brand online and offline is a worthwhile exercise. You may discover new ways to reach out or opportunities to update branding to remain consistent across platforms. Remember to always keep the customer experience in mind when designing your marketing map.
Get in Touch:
Learn more about customer touchpoints and how to enfold them in your marketing map by reaching out, today. Write to us....liz@litirmarketing.com
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