What is Touchpoint Branding?
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Touchpoints consist of all the ways customers interact with your business and brand. That's before, during and post-sale. Touchpoint branding has expanded into realms impossible to imagine even a decade ago. Millennials are retail's future, and this generation demands dependability in branding. The fact that millennials use a panoply of different devices does not make the branding task easier. The adage still applies: "You only get one chance to make a first impression."
Branding in the Digital Age
Before the explosion of social media, retailers could control most of the channels through which their customers connected with them. Back in the day, this was word of mouth, display windows or through print, radio or TV advertising. Now, your touchpoints include your website, all forms of social media, and the viewpoints of bloggers. It is crucial for your brand to identify every possible touchpoint and ensure consistency for consumers - no matter what device they use. Here are some basics:
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Marketing Emails
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Telephone System
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Online Support
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Apps
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SEO
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Coupon and Discounts
The list goes on and changes constantly. New devices, platforms and software mean change is more rapid than ever, and your touchpoints must keep up. Telling the Story
Touchpoints tell the story of your brand, and that story must be consistent, authentic and trustworthy. The more touchpoints involved, the harder it is to achieve consistency, but that is an issue facing all retailers. Because modern consumers are surrounded by media virtually 24/7, the majority of brand stories are ignored. Ensuring that yours isn't requires telling a compelling story that engages customers - a story that is absorbed and remembered. The story must stand out from the crowd, and that story must be conspicuous among all touchpoints.
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April 2016
Volume 6, Issue 4
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Stay Connected
 
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We work with business owners (like you) to grow and increase their profits by doing their online marketing for them.
Our specialty is making sure future customers can find you online and choose you over your competitors, even if they don't know your name - with Social Media, Search Engines and Mobile devices
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Increasing Brand Awareness
Increasing your brand awareness involves marketing to major platforms and branding channels. Facebook and Google+ ads, tweets, pay-per-click marketing and the like all play a role, but it's vital to concentrate on the markets that best suit your brand and clientele. A touchpoint on one platform should lead a customer to another touchpoint providing more information, but connecting these touchpoints is both an art and a science.
The future is here, and your business needs appropriate touchpoint branding.
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Use Twitter to Build Your Brand
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Anyone can tweet: six year olds have Twitter accounts. However, if you have a brand of some sort, as a business or entrepreneur, you want your tweets to actually connect and cause followers to engage with you, use some of these strategies.
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Offer encouragement to motivate people. Tweets can be personal and offer validation to followers.
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Share tweets from followers to help them feel respect for their thoughts.
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Use a hashtag that will create a conversation, preferably about your brand.
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Respond to customers who seek help.
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People enjoy contests, so hold one.
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Offer content that will help followers solve a problem.
Follow one or more of these steps and people will find you and your tweets to be relevant, and it will encourage them to forward your tweets to others. This is how you use Twitter to build your brand.
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Unhappy Customers Go Social
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For a business owner, social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Yelp can help you stay in touch with current customers and reach potential customers. But with more and more people using social media for more than just digitally staying in touch with friends and family, social media can also have a dark side when it comes to your business - specifically, when your customers have a bad experience.
Customer complaints are part of owning a business, but it's how you handle them that really matters. So if you start seeing negative social media posts regarding your company, don't freak out - just handle it properly. Here are some tips that will help:
- Fast responses: Don't sit on negative comments or ignore them altogether. Address them - and do it quickly.
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Make conversations private: Using direct messaging on Facebook helps create a better one-on-one dialogue with the customer, and it also stops other people from jumping in and ganging up on you.
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Admit mistakes and make it right: Mistakes happen, and nobody is perfect. If you get called out on it, don't hide from it - own it, make it right for the customer and learn from it.
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Follow up: After a resolution has been determined and you've made everything right for your customer, be sure to follow up a week or so later to ensure that your customer's expectations have been met.
Customer complaints are a part of doing business. Beyond all, just make sure that your customer knows that they matter.
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Copyright © 2016. All Rights Reserved.
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