Website
Your website is often the first place a potential customer will visit when researching businesses like yours so first impressions count!
When it comes to branding, your website should clearly evoke your brand values and personality. From a clear, high quality logo, appropriate colours and fonts (large enough to read on mobile) to the tone of voice used to explain your business and its services, these website fundamentals support you in sharing the brand you want the world to see.
Customers don’t want complexity, confusion or overload so your website needs to be easy to navigate and the engagement process. Whether that be making a booking, subscribing to your database or downloading your treatment menu, make it seamless. Remember, many will be seeing this site on their mobile phones to ensure you’re crafting a positive impression of your brand from any platform.
In-store experience
A customer’s experience within your business is a powerful branding touchpoint that shapes the way they feel about your business in the long run.
Features such as a friendly greeting at reception, the on brand music playing in your treatment rooms, a tea offered in the waiting room, ease of purchasing products to even the tissue paper and bag their products are packaged in are all branding touchpoints that create meaningful moments between your business and customer.
Social media presence
It goes without saying that social media is a powerful brand builder in the Tech Age. Like any digital marketing activity, the content you share on social media needs to align with your business values, mission and offerings.
In a crowded feed, that includes many of your competitors, it’s crucial to be posting with purpose on social media. Your social media content pillars should share a holistic view of your business so that you’re creating brand touchpoints about not just the products and services you offer but emotional ones between potential customers and your team, client experience and values.
Knowing where you’re located, accessing a list of your services and how to get in contact with your business should be seamless and easy to navigate.
Social media is also a space where… you guessed it; people are social! Online referrals are a powerful branding touchpoint too. We’ve all had moments where a friend has spoken about their experience with a new brand and recommended it to us. Shortly after, they’ve tagged us in one of their posts on Instagram and we’re down the rabbit hole of checking out their feed, other people’s experiences there and what they’re all about.
By nurturing our offline touchpoints like the in-store experience, we’re creating opportunities to see our online touchpoints flourish.
Printed marketing assets
Print marketing like business brochures, treatment menus and gift vouchers are branding touchpoints that someone is inviting into their home.
Like every branding touchpoint, it needs to reflect the quality and values of your business. You might be thinking right now, “Sarah, it’s a piece of paper” but truly, from the quality of the paper you print it on, the prominence of your gorgeous brand colours to the way you excite and entice customers with on brand language, that piece of print marketing will act as a touchpoint on multiple occasions as they stick it to their fridge or put on their office desk and refer to over and over again before making that booking.
Team uniforms
The way your brand message is conveyed through clothing is often overlooked but every single one of your team members is an ambassador for your brand and are their own touchpoint.
The choice of colour, material and style of your brand uniform are all subtle yet impactful nods to your brand the experience you want to convey.
Uniforms as a brand touchpoint also create familiarity for our customer. They create a sense of consistency within our brand that can be carried on to their perception of other touchpoints.
For example, think of when you’re flying somewhere and the cabin crew are all polished in their identical, high quality outfits, sleek hairstyles and uniform lipstick. We expect to see that touchpoint every time we board a flight and it becomes synonymous with our brand experience.
Reviews and recommendations
Similar to social media, the way others perceive our business and share that experience online creates brand touchpoints that build trust and authenticity.
The reviews about our business online and recommendations from your existing customers play a significant role in customer decision making. Positive reviews and recommendations are social proof of the brand experience you’ve created for your customers.
A touchpoint that supports the other 15+ they’ve engaged with, these endorsements can be the final touchpoint required for a customer to pick up the phone and make that appointment.
Harness your loyal customer base and ask them to share their experience on social media and your Google My Business (if you don’t have a GMB, what are you waiting for?!) and start crafting powerful touchpoints that are just waiting for new customers to engage with.
