How To Align Your Marketing To Your Digital Touchpoints

(Source: Digital Doughnut)

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More often than not, by the time your prospective customers are ready to invest in your product or service, they’ve probably already come in contact with your brand several times through touchpoints in their pre-purchase experience.

The most successful businesses know all their online touchpoints, with several strategies to target and intertwine each one.

Aligning your brand identity and digital marketing strategy with your digital touchpoints opens you up to the omnichannel universe of digital marketing. You can create a seamless experience for all customers at all stages of the purchasing process.

Where are your customers most interacting with your brand before buying? What do you want their digital customer journey to look like? As a full service digital marketing agency in Queenstown, here are a few of our suggestions that we help brands implement.

What Is a Digital Touchpoint?

A digital touchpoint is an interaction between a customer or stakeholder with a brand online. So whether a prospect visits your social media page or comes across your business website, it’s an example of a digital touchpoint. Digital touchpoints have the potential to impact how a customer or stakeholder feels about your brand.

The Importance of Digital Customer Touchpoints.

Suppose a prospective customer visits your website, types a message in the live chat but doesn’t get a reply. Of course, the customer would feel frustrated. Meaning that their digital touchpoint experience with your website’s live chat wasn’t pleasant.

This is just one example of digital touchpoints or brand interactions. Bad experiences on digital touchpoints, whether it be your website or social media, can ruin the experience for your customers, and unfortunately, your brand reputation.

That’s why ensuring your online brand experience is memorable, and overall a positive experience is important. This brings us to why digital touchpoints are crucial for your overall online brand and marketing strategy.

Brand Touchpoints

Say you’re a restaurant engaging your customers and taking them through a whole experience online, from your customers’ desktop and mobile experience to their in-store experience; your brand touchpoints include:

1. Your website when your customers are booking a table
2. Your brand tone of voice when they call to book
3. Your signage when they enter your restaurant
4. Your menu when they’re selecting their food
5. Your uniform when taking their order

But what about the digital side of brand and marketing touchpoints?

Touchpoint Marketing Strategy

Using your brand touchpoints to better your digital presence includes intertwining your marketing strategies. As you’ll read below, your digital touchpoints cover everything from your website to imagery. But your marketing strategy is essentially what the goal is of each touchpoint. For example, you use social media and advertising to gain brand awareness and newsletters and email marketing to gain advocating customers for your brand.

How to align your brand and marketing strategies to your digital touchpoints.

• Everyone knows that a website is the first point of awareness when scoping out a brand online. Organic website optimisation techniques include SEO to rank better on search engine result pages like Google.

• Blogs can be a key part of digital touchpoints. Many brands websites use a simple ‘about us’ page or a gallery as a promotional tool, but considering copywriting services can create a whole new brand touchpoint and experience.

• Nowadays, social media is just as important as your website. A viral social media post can improve a brand or break it.

• If you’ve got a physical office or store, in-store experience can be key. How a customer or client experiences your brand in person can eventually make its way online through reviews and ratings.

• The right advertising campaigns can help hit brand target markets appropriately. While social media presence may be performing well, physical and other paid media marketing, like Google Ads campaigns can back up your online efforts, even for physical and eCommerce stores.

• Aside from a website or social media, a digital presence is important to gain awareness for customers. Think email campaigns and newsletters to keep your target audience up to date. While some customers may not check social media 24/7, many people check their emails quite a few times a day.

• Providing resources is an effective way to keep customers engaged. Following the newsletter idea, producing complementary resources like informative digital downloads can be useful to customers while also keeping those prospects in your contacts list.

• A guideline for imagery and graphics is important in branding and keeping your touchpoints consistent. From website icons to social media posts, create a theme and keep with it to strengthen your brand identity.

Branding And Marketing Strategy Examples

While we’ve touched on brand touchpoints and marketing strategies above, a few key strategies we use and implement for customers include content marketing, often known as blogging, which we’ve discussed in a recent blog post about the importance of content for SEO.

Another marketing strategy example, other than the basics of social media marketing, is email marketing, or known as cold outreach, using platforms like Mailshake and Klaviyo to improve eCommerce purchase experiences.

How Do You Create Digital Customer Touchpoint Engagement?

Every customer goes through many stages in their buying journey. Whether you’re selling a product or a service, it follows a similar roadmap. It starts with being a stranger until your brand awareness strategies introduce your brand to your customers.

Following the buying journey includes multiple steps, as customers proceed to buy from your brand, with the end goal of becoming loyal and lifelong customers. If your customers come across many touchpoints that convince them to purchase, then they will.

Ensure A Positive Experience For Target Customers.

To lay the foundation, think about how you can:

Create a customer journey map

Make each brand interaction consistent

Offer a personalised experience

Use customer feedback to improve touchpoints

Offer prompt and accurate replies to queries

Engaging your prospects at every touchpoint is beyond vital to a successful digital brand strategy. Focus on streamlining your touchpoints and threading them between one another to create an overall experience.

When managing your digital touchpoints, ask yourself if it aligns with your brand and marketing strategy.

Remember, your touchpoints are a form of interaction that your brand and business has with your customers. So here are a few questions to ask when managing your touchpoints:

• Does it clearly represent your brand?
• Does it stand out to customers?
• How does it motivate your customers to take action?

When you’re looking to improve your touchpoints in-hand with your strategy, use these questions as a starting point:

• What is my first thought when coming across this touchpoint?
• How does this touchpoint fit with my brand identity and marketing strategy?
• Are these touchpoints different to my competitor’s touchpoints? If so, how?
• Will my touchpoints attract new customers?
• Will my touchpoints encourage existing customers to act?

Touchpoint And Digital Strategy Examples

An example of touchpoints, or digital content strategies to improve brand awareness, includes all shown above. Think about how your potential customers, whether in person or online, on desktop or even mobile, can interact with your brand.

To state the obvious for eCommerce stores, the internet and your website and social media are essential. But to further expand on your touchpoints and improve your digital presence includes covering every base. Consider the ideas of email focused touchpoints, like newsletters for advocacy or even cold outreach for awareness. Many email marketing addons and plugins can easily be integrated onto popular eCommerce platforms like Shopify.

Find A Partner To Help You Improve Your Digital Touchpoints

So many brands and businesses are doing good things but struggle to tell their story of how they’re doing it. If all your bases aren’t covered, are your touchpoints really bringing the exposure and business they should?

Merging the online and offline customer experience to grow brand and customer relationships has become a major focus for businesses and continues to grow more important.

Contact us today if you have questions about aligning your business with your brand and marketing or if you want help expanding your digital marketing touchpoints and improving your online presence.

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