10 Highly Important Brand Touchpoints Your Business Must Have

Consider this, a potential customer comes across your flier and realizes that they need your services or products. They then do a quick search for your brand name on Instagram…but you’re nowhere to be found.

They do a Google search, your website doesn’t pop-up. They search for your brand hashtag on Twitter, still, nothing. Then they throw your flier on the floor and move on with their life.

You have lost a potential customer.

A brand touchpoint is any bit of interaction or communication an individual makes with your brand.

Brand touchpoints are very necessary because they help to shape people’s perception of your brand. A brand touchpoint or brand contact refers to any information-bearing experience a customer or prospect has with your brand.

In this post, we’ll be looking at 10 highly important brand touchpoints your business must-have.

1. Your Website

Your website is the most important brand touchpoint your business must-have.

This is mostly because a lot of people will be searching for you online, and a well designed, highly optimized touchpoint is what will influence their perception of your business.

Optimize your website for search visibility. To do that you need to understand how SEO works. There are lots of SEO tools and software that you can use to improve your website visibility. Another important thing to do is to submit your website to Google Analytics.

You can check out my post on how to prepare to build a website for your business

2. Your Social Media Platforms

Social media is the second largest search engine in the world. Results have shown that 65% of the people will do an Instagram search of your business before reaching out to you.

In order to make sure that your social media pages are converting, here are 5 things to do:

1 — Align all your social media handles with your brand name: Most people will do a name search of your brand on social media, and you want them to be able to find you with the name you are publicly known as.

So if your brand name is ‘Tasty & Spicy’, make sure that you are using it or variations of the name as your social media handles. Although sometimes, the name might have been picked, it’s best to secure them as soon as you start a business with that name.

I had a client once, who came to me to help her secure a domain name and social media handles before they got picked by someone else. The business was still an idea, but because of her understanding of the impact of social media, we were able to secure the name.

2 — Complete all the sections provided by each platform: I see people make the mistake of leaving some sections of their profiles blank. All the sections on each platform have its own purpose.

For example, on your Facebook page, your about section is the best place to sell your business and write compelling sales copy. Edit your business details and infuse your brand story in the story section.

It provides sections for your business email address, your website link, and your phone number.

It’s similar on Instagram. You have just about 150 characters to write a great bio, detailing what you do and who you do it for. You also have a section for your website link and your name, assuming you are using a business account.

By completing all the sections, you optimize your profile for search visibility. Including the highlights section in your bio is a great way to show your audience behind-the-scenes photos and videos of your brand.

3 — Have an attractive feed: You must have noticed that most Instagram users make their feeds look really amazing with the kinds of content they post.

So, determine a style that will fit your brand perfectly, and then stick to it. If you post 3 times in a day, you can do this perfectly. Just make sure that you are consistent with your style and themes.

4 — Treat your DMs as your customer support: Upon finding you on social media, your direct messages is where people will go to make inquiries. Treat the people in your DMs well.

I know that some people ignore their DMs because it may be overcrowded, but unless you are a celebrity, or you’ve started to make over a million in turnover, you should respond to people in your DMs respectfully.

Some small businesses on Instagram will put a “No Dms” rule on their profile, that’s just so wrong. Who will be comfortable asking for prices or negotiating in the comment sections? Think about it.

3. Your newsletters

When it comes to important brand touchpoints your business must have, email marketing is one of the best ways to relate with your audience on a very personal level and make them feel connected to you. If you are not building your email list as you build your brand online, then you are making a huge mistake.

Building an email list is crucial because it’s the best way to build a relationship with potential customers in an intimate way. Creating email newsletters is the most effective way to build stronger customer relationships and grow your business revenue.

Even though several new messaging technologies have emerged, people still prefer emails for business discussions. They would rather discuss business in their emails and casual stuff on social media than the other way round, so this is the best place you can reach them.

Studies have shown that email marketing has a much higher ROI than any other marketing strategies. Email marketing is also a great way to convert your prospects.

4. Your Brochures, Catalogs and Magazines

As you put a lot of effort into branding and optimizing all your online touchpoints, don’t forget to put the same effort into all your offline touchpoints as well. They are a very important brand touchpoints your business must-have.

Your brochures and magazines are the best offline touchpoints for your brand. At any chance you get, make sure that they are well designed and contain accurate information for your audience.

Ensure that your designs are cohesive across all touchpoints.

If you are a non-designer, check out this post on how to approach design for your brand

5. Your Stationery

Your business stationery includes your office writing materials, customized books and pens, cards, notebooks, postcards, worksheet, envelopes, and other office materials.

Although the rise of digital has somehow overshadowed the use of stationery, it’s still being used by many business owners.

Sometimes, you may gift clients some of these stationeries, make sure that it carries adequate information about your business.

If you are giving out a pen, for instance, you can have your business name and emails printed on it.

6. Booth Exhibition

I went for an event organized by touchpoint Africa early this year, and there were a lot of brands exhibiting their products at the event.

From law firms to gadget sellers, web hosting companies, real estate companies, and even gift items vendors.

They all had nice looking booths with their logos boldly printed on them. They also handed out flyers and gifts to us as we visited.

Make sure that your booth has a visual appeal because people will visit you to know what your brand is all about. When they come, provide seats and things to snack on to make them stay longer.

Your booth’s layout and general look and feel influences whether attendees will wander into — or away from — your set-up. Organize your booth so attendees can easily navigate the area.

7. Flyers/Business Cards

Printed collateral is important for your business, that’s why you need to put a lot of thought and effort into your flyers and card designs.

It’s often said that one needs roughly at least 7 touch-points to generate a viable sales lead, and print material can be a one or more of those connections. For example, something as simple as a business card could lead be a great starting touch-point.

Your printed material should blend well with your digital presence such as your website, social media, emails, etc.

8. Digital Products/eBooks

If you want to start selling digital products on your website, you have to create a good design strategy for it.

Apart from good design, relevance and value also determine if people will buy your product or not.

So start thinking of it as a touchpoint too and let your designs be on-brand.

9. StoreFront and In-store Experience

Your storefront is the first touchpoint customers have with your physical location, so how do you appeal to their visual sense?

Are you in an overcrowded location? Or is your physical shop littered and unkempt? Is it well painted, well-structured and has the right signs?

Also, how easy is it for people to locate?

All these are questions to answer as you work on your physical location.

When they finally get inside your store, how do they feel? Are your items neatly organized? Will they need an assistant to go with them explaining each section or can they understand it themselves? Are your products placed with care?

As a store owner, you need to decide how they want to engage with customers, down to minor details like whether customers will turn right or left when they step inside.

How do you improve your in-store customer experience?

1 — Create the mood: You can set up nice and cool background music, not too loud so that customers can hear themselves. Make sure your store is not too hot or too cold as well.

2 — Let your space be kid-friendly: When shoppers see that their kids have a good environment to walk in, they will stay longer at your stores. So offer a kid-friendly environment.

Make sure also, to include a bathroom space so that the kids and even the adults will use. But don’t include a bathroom if you won’t keep it clean because a clean bathroom will go a long way.

3 — Improve your checkout process: You don’t want your customers to queue for hours just because they are trying to check out. It can give them a bad experience and occasionally, people who walk in my walk back out once the spot the long queue.

10. Your Employees

Your employees are one of the most conscious touchpoints that customers interact with.

Remember that a happy customer will come back, but an unhappy one will tell 9 more people about their experience.

So train your employees to be courteous and kind to your customers. You, in turn, should treat your employees right. Do your best to create a team that is more deeply invested in the purpose of your brand.

Conclusion

Never forget all these points and research more on how to improve your branding across all touchpoints. If you’ve found this post useful, please share them on your social media.

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