You Need to Be Touchy

Welcome to the second article in our series of Brand Strategy posts. Here we dive deeper into touchpoints:

 

• What are they,
• How to rank them,
• Why you need to unify them.

If you recall from our introductory brand strategy post, your Brand is how your customers perceive you based on your interactions. It’s that feeling they get when they go to your website or hear a jingle on the radio.

 

As a business owner, you are trying to procure and retain customers to grow your business. You want them to have the warmest, fuzziest and most pleasant feelings you can, so answer the three questions above.

What are your Touchpoints?

This step is pretty straightforward. Identify all your touchpoints, big and small. Here are a few touchpoints to consider (this list is not exhaustive, but meant to start you on the right path):

Consider grouping touchpoints by pre-purchase, purchasing experience, and post-purchase.

Ranking your Touchpoints

Your next task is to rank each touchpoint in each of your groupings. Some touchpoints are more important, or to be precise, they are more influential in creating that positive feeling you are going for.

 

Ask yourself questions such as: In the pre-customer group is your business card more influential than your print advertisements?

 

However, even though you may rank the sales receipt lowest, it still needs your brand strategy applied. It is a part of the entire experience of a customer and gives you a chance to wow them once again.

Touchpoint Unification

What does it matter if you use a different font on your business cards from your website? Is it really noticeable if your printed brochure has a different yellow from the yellow in your logo? What if you decide to use animation when all your other videos are one-on-one interviews? The customer doesn’t care about these nuances, right? Well, you’d be surprised at how subtle the impact of unification is. Just like children at bedtime, an expected routine (touchpoint unification) makes them (your customer) feel secure.

 

It’s not only the security or trustworthiness you are going for, it’s also the wow factor. Each touchpoint is an opportunity to be different and impress. If you have established yourselves as a grammar authority, it may backfire to start posting to twitter using slang and text messaging abbreviations. Use your social posts to impress your followers with what they have come to expect.

Conclusion

Identifying your touchpoints, ranking them and unifying them isn’t a project that you will complete in an hour. Take the time to outline your goals for taking on this brand strategy task and document each step of the way.  It isn’t unusual for businesses to re-brand themselves occasionally, so you will be mighty glad that you have the documentation for how you are doing things now. Strengthen that positive feeling customers get when they see your brand, with unified touchpoints.

 

If you are ready for a new brand strategy or need advice on unification contact Caffeine to hear how we can rev up your brand.