We all know by now that first impressions matter. So does the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh impression! (That’s not a random stopping point, by the way. On average, a person needs to interact with a brand seven times before they’re ready to make a purchase.) These impressions, or connections between you and your clients and customers, are also known as brand touchpoints.
Your company has countless brand touchpoints, from your website and social media content to customer service conversations, physical merchandise, and more.
Need to Skim? Key Takeaways:
- Brand touchpoints matter, because they add up to ultimately influence one’s perception of your brand as well as their willingness to recommend your business to others.
- The 3 types of brand touchpoints are pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase touchpoints.
- Imprint Engine has done countless brand touchpoints, but three that stick out are for our clients Uber, Gopuff, and Postman.
Table of Contents
- Types of Touchpoints & Why They Matter
- How We’ve Built Touchpoints That Make a Splash
- Build a Memorable Brand Experience With Us
Types of Touchpoints & Why They Matter
Brand touchpoints entail every interaction someone can have with your company — both intentionally and unintentionally. These interactions can be as physical as a brick and mortar store, as digital as a website or social media page, or as personal as an in-person conversation or online chat. These points of contact may seem insignificant on their own, but they add up to ultimately influence one’s perception of your brand as well as their willingness to recommend your business to others.
Pre-Purchase Touchpoints
Advertising:
Advertising is a classic pre-purchase touchpoint. Ad campaigns, whether out-of-home or digital, are often one of the first brand touchpoints for potential customers. Targeting ads so that they reach the right people is the key to making these touchpoints worthy investments.
Social Media:
Can you believe 66% of businesses use social media to build their brand reputation? It makes sense, considering more than half of the world’s population uses social media and 76% of those users have bought a product or service based on a brand’s social media presence. Building an engaged community on social media is one of the most trusted marketing avenues out there. These pre-purchase brand touchpoints include not only organic posts, but paid ads, influencer collaborations, personal engagement with followers, and more.
Content Marketing:
Content marketing includes touchpoints such as blog posts, podcast episodes, announcements, case studies, and more. Whether the content is informational, entertaining, or focused on lead generation, it must be high quality. The overall goal is to boost brand awareness and build trust, so keep content on-brand and authentic.
Public Relations:
Public relations touchpoints like press releases and media coverage are great for building trust and shaping brand perception. Reviews or announcements written and published from outside of your company lets consumers know not only what’s happening with your brand, but that other people are buying in and talking about it.
Word of Mouth:
Word of mouth is more than just the ‘he said, she said’ about your brand. Consumer trust and peer recommendation are powerful tools for success! Online customer reviews, referrals, influencer reviews, viral social media posts, and even a quick verbal recommendation all count as word of mouth touchpoints. Branded merchandise can also provide endless opportunities for word of mouth touchpoints. When people wear your brand or carry it around on their tote bag or water bottle, others are bound to ask about it. Read more about why branded merch is important.
Purchase Touchpoints
Website:
Your website exists as a touchpoint throughout the customer journey, so its functionality is critical. This is where many customers go to answer frequently asked questions, discover more information about your brand, browse products and services, locate contact details, and perhaps even conduct their purchases. The organization and user-friendliness of your website can be a big influencing factor in whether or not people become repeat customers.
In-Store Experience:
An obvious touchpoint is the one that takes place face-to-face with customers. The in-store experience is a tangible brand touchpoint that includes not only your in-person customer service, but sensory elements like lighting and music as well as logistical elements like store layout and product organization.
Customer Service:
Customer service interactions are key brand touchpoints that influence a customer’s likelihood of coming back. Regardless of how the interaction takes place — via phone, email, live chat, or social media — it has to be efficient. People generally understand that shit happens, but it’s how you remedy the situation that impacts your relationships. Excellent customer service will make 78% of consumers want to do business with you again, even if you made a mistake.
Post-Purchase Touchpoints
Delivery/Unboxing:
Have you ever opened a package and thought, ‘Hm, well this is underwhelming for how much I spent.’ Or worse, ‘Holy crap, this is a ton of packaging for one tiny item!’ Creative and efficient packaging that stands out to customers is a touchpoint that is often overlooked but leaves a stellar impression. Part of our mission as your brand experience partner is to reduce our impact on the environment through sustainable and efficient packaging, so even our largest clients can delight their end consumers with a pleasant and unique unboxing experience. Read about our sustainability program, Imprint Impact.
Welcome Kits:
Welcome kits as post-purchase touchpoints communicate to your customer that you’re happy to have their business. These can come in the form of promotional materials for future purchases, new product samples, personalized goods, or something as simple as a thank you card. These touchpoints following a purchase foster brand loyalty and keep you at top of mind, even after the deal is done. No one does welcome kits quite like Imprint Engine. Check out our brainstorm list of small welcome gifts.
Build a brand experience that lives on
Follow-Up Communication:
Follow-up communications can sometimes be the most valuable touchpoint for securing a loyal customer relationship. Collecting feedback via personalized email survey once the customer journey is complete will help you understand how their decision-making process works as well as where your team can improve in the future. Customers notice when you factor in their feedback! Read more about how to maintain a good relationship with your customers.
Loyalty Programs:
When it comes to brand touchpoints, loyalty programs are in a league of their own. 83% of customers say that belonging to a loyalty program influences their decision to continue purchasing from a brand — and that’s because loyalty programs consistently keep your line of communication open! Included in the loyalty program brand touchpoints could be tiered memberships, emails containing exclusive offers, point-based programs, or subscription services. And it’s a win-win; not only do these programs establish a loyal customer base for your business, rewarded customers are twice as likely to recommend your brand to their network.
How We’ve Built Touchpoints That Make a Splash
Creating impactful brand experiences is what we do best. We treat our clients like an extension of our team and get to know their customers as if they’re our own, because by understanding their unique journeys, we can better reach them from all over the world. Read more about how we’ve built a global operation. Here are a few touchpoint examples from three of our clients: Uber, GoPuff, and Postman.
Unified Uber’s Brand
Our multi-year partnership with Uber Eats involved several in-person brand touchpoints such as event activations, uniforms, in-store advertising, and onboarding kits as well as digital brand touchpoints like restaurant activation software, online stores, and marketing collateral.
They needed our help with logistical efficiency and branding consistency. First, we supplied high-quality, on-brand physical assets to each market swiftly. We concurrently developed and implemented a large-scale program focused on unifying branding across all collateral. By centralizing production and distribution, we successfully streamlined logistics, reduced costs, and aligned branding across all Uber Eats markets.
Read the full case study: From Chaos to Cohesion: Rethinking Logistics for Uber Eats
Boosted Brand Awareness With GoPuff
GoPuff wanted to boost brand awareness among college students through their Back to College Campaign, but needed our help with creating and distributing 4 million deliverables to more than 300 campuses in a tight 3-week timeframe. These 4 million in-person touchpoints included branded merchandise and product samples that were handed out at universities across the nation. Thanks to our direct relationships with suppliers to enable timely procurement and our hands-on approach for efficient production, reproduction, and distribution phases, all items, AKA physical brand touchpoints, were produced and distributed on time and on-brand.
Read the full case study: Navigating College Complexity with GoPuff
Built Consistency With Postman
Postman is a massive API platform that initially took on the challenge of managing their broad range of brand touchpoints. This proved more challenging than anticipated, so they brought in the big guns. (That’s us.) Offering a full-service approach, we took charge of their Swag program and every brand touchpoint it entails. The Shopify site, product packaging and distribution, customer support, and the merchandise itself are just a few brand touchpoints we transitioned into one centralized location to maintain consistency and efficiency.
Read the full case study: Streamlining Global Distribution & Consistency with Postman
Build a Memorable Brand Experience With Us
Each brand touchpoint is a new opportunity to creatively reach your customers. We take a full-service approach to ensuring every single touchpoint is strategically and efficiently contributing to your goals, whether we’re boosting brand awareness, increasing sales, building brand coherence, consolidating logistics, or all of the above.
Contact us to get started.