What are Customer Touchpoints & How Many Do I Need In My Customer Journey Map

Major Points of the Article

• Customer touchpoints are necessary to warm cold leads up, also known as lead nurturing

• The number of times someone needs to see your brand before buying has dramatically increased since the invention of social media

• A customer journey map can be a great way to plan how potential customers will see your brand.

Whenever we build a business, we would love to be able to call anyone within our market, ask them to buy our product or service, and then make the sale. However, this is not the case as people shy away from buying products or services they have never seen or heard before.

A touchpoint is a great way to gradually enable your target market to learn who you are and what you do. In fact the more touchpoints the potential customer sees the more likely they will buy from you (to a certain level...).

Technically, a touchpoint is any time a potential customer or customer (client) comes in contact with your brand before, during or after they have purchased from you. For example, customers may find your business online or in a paid ad, see customer reviews, visit your homepage, blog post, or contact your customer support.

But why are these important?

As we mentioned above it helps to, over time, educate your potential customers for them to learn more about what you do. This enables you to warm up the cold leads to eventually become hot leads that are ready to buy and depending on the type of touchpoint it can help build brand trust.

So even if you obtain a lead today and they say no, they will see you, again and again, to potentially buy later. Some people can take over a year to warm up, whereas others can take only a week. It depends on the frequency and type of touchpoints they are exposed to.

Overall, it can increase your sales, customer acquisition rate and grow your business.

But firstly, what are some examples of touchpoints?

Before Purchase or Lead Nurturing

• Social Media

• Ratings and Reviews

• Testimonials

• Word of Mouth

• Community Involvement

• Webinars

• Advertising

• Marketing/PR

During Purchase

• Store or Office

• Website

• Catalogue

• Promotions

• Staff or Sales Team

• Phone System

• Point of Sale

• Initial Quotes/Proposals

After Purchase

• Billing

• Emails & Marketing Emails

• Service & Support Teams

• Follow-ups

• Thank you cards

• Gifts or Merchandise

Some are easy, while others are much more involved such as advertising could require multi-channel promotions on TV, radio, newspaper, social media platforms and much more.

How many are too many?

This is a difficult question to ask and the number is constantly changing. It used to be 8 times, however, with the explosion of social media marketing, people are now exposed to promotions all day long and they have become desensitised to campaigns. It now has increased to more than 25 times and we expect over the next decade that number will increase.

This is when we need to get noticed... Let's not have boring campaigns. What is needed is something that shocks and makes people stop, look, and listen. A wow campaign, humour, or publicity stunt still works. For example, the squatty potty, a rather dull and unexciting product that helps people day-to-day had an explosion of growth with this one hilarious marketing video. With more than 40 million views the video is still talked about today and still draws in potential customers.

You should also be seen in the right places. Take for example if a vacuum cleaner salesman came to your door and said buy my vacuum cleaner. Would you buy it? No, because that campaign would suck and is an outdated method. It is boring, and you would not expect someone to show up on your doorstep. Work out where you need to be seen.

On the flip side, what about the rate... If a sales officer called you and asked do you want to buy my services, you would say no. Then, an hour later, they rang you back with the same message, still no... Then, another hour later, and another hour later. You would start to feel angry and annoyed. This is too often and will only go towards upsetting your potential customers, causing brand damage. The best way to avoid this is to test, gain feedback, and mix up the message. Learn how much is too often and too little.

Considering all that we have covered, it is important to

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Build Your Customer Journey Map

In a nutshell, this is composed of five areas and is a combination of the touchpoint examples listed above and more.

The First Component is Awareness

Much like brand awareness that we have covered in a few other articles, the potential customer has to become aware that you exist. Great places for them to learn who you are can be through social media, conferences, paid media, and Google searches. Google searches can be a great first point as their searches found you, meaning they have already the potential intent to buy your product or service. The same with social media, if they have found you through searches or campaign behaviour targeting then they are likely to buy in the near future.

In order to achieve these two, you will need to have great SEO on your website, Adwords campaign, and/or social media campaigns. Ask us how we can help.

The Second Component is Consideration

This is the area in which they have finished researching and they have entered a greater learning phase. Can they trust you or the product, is the biggest question. It takes time, as trust needs to be built. Repetition of the touchpoints providing information and guidance is what is needed here. Social proof such as reviews, testimonials, and videos can be quite impactful.

The Third Component is Convert

This is your onboarding process, confirming the partnership, they have purchased your product or service. It can involve emails, phone calls, face-to-face, login details to platforms and more. Whatever you use, make sure it is an enjoyable and easy step for the customer/client. This is very important as it establishes the long term relationship or potential repeat purchases.

The Fourth Component is Loyalty

Building brand loyalty is important as it encourages repeat purchases or the continued purchase of the service. The best way to achieve this is to be true to your word, as in achieving what is to be achieved on time. For example, if you were a lawyer and your client was told they would receive the new documents by next Friday. The documents need to be there by next Friday, if you are late then that creates doubt in their mind, however, if you were early then that creates happiness towards your brand. Never be late. Always be on time or early, these can be the best thing in business.

The Last Component is Advocacy

When they become an advocate for your business, it is the best thing to happen as they will promote your business for you. Be it in a testimonial, review, or speaking to others with similar problems (word-of-mouth), it will make your business stronger. One of the other benefits of having advocates is they can enter the cycle again when you launch new products or services, making the launch significantly easier and cheaper. Additionally, even if the potential customer has not become a customer, they can be an advocate from the work they have seen you do, or what the product has achieved for others.

In considering this map let's use the example of a beauty care product. Keeping it simple we

1. Awareness: Put out a paid campaign showing the brand and what kind of products we have. We encourage them to join our mailing list.

2. Consideration: We send them emails containing social proof that the product works. Testimonials, videos, reviews etc...

3. Convert: We send them a voucher to use on our website that encourages them to buy and try one of our products

4. Loyalty: We supply the product and fast. They use it and see the results they were expecting. They make a repeat purchase because they don't want to run out.

5. Advocacy: We encourage them to tell their friends, family, make a post, make a testimonial, all while recommending our product.

The cycle then begins anew with the friends, family etc... seeing the recommendations and becoming aware of our brand. This results in a new loyal customer and new potential customers joining the potential market.

6 months later, we decide to launch a serum to enhance our main product. We send out invitations to try our new product to our advocates and the cycle begins again. More successfully of course because our advocates help promote the new product.

In summary, touchpoints are very important in lead nurturing and creating positive brand awareness. It can help grow your sales, increase customer conversion rates, and more. Create a customer journey map and explore how to engage with your market more effectively.

Within Paradelta Strategy, we provide a tailored corporate and/or business growth strategy to grow your business, along with brand equity building through our marketing campaign management services and more... Over the years, we have helped businesses across Australia to grow and expand, nationally or internationally. To get assistance with your business, simply email us at hello@paradeltastrategy.com.au or schedule a no-obligation discovery call here.