How to reach more customers across multiple touchpoints
Posted: Fri 5th May 2023
Are you struggling to reach customers effectively? With consumers accessing information through various "touchpoints" – from social media to email and in-store experiences – it's crucial to engage them where they are.
To thrive in this competitive landscape, businesses must adapt their strategies to make effective use of all available touchpoints. Doing so not only improves the customer experience but also expands your reach and boosts engagement.
Here's a guide to effectively connecting with your customers across a number of different touchpoints.
What are customer touchpoints?
Customer touchpoints are the various moments and channels where a customer interacts with your business, product or service. These can range from seeing your advertisement on social media, visiting your website or receiving an email.
Every touchpoint plays a role in shaping the customer's journey. As a small business owner, understanding these touchpoints helps you work out how to meet your customers where they are and deliver a seamless experience that encourages them to choose your brand.
Why is using multiple touchpoints important?
In the past, a single touchpoint – like a flyer or a phone call – was often enough to win over a customer. Today, customers expect a richer experience. For example, they might:
discover your business on Instagram
read reviews on Google
visit your website for more information
receive an offer in an email newsletter
By engaging customers across multiple touchpoints, you create more opportunities to build trust, provide value and stay top-of-mind throughout their decision-making process.
How to identify your customer touchpoints
The first step in taking advantage of customer touchpoints is identifying where and how your customers interact with your business. Here's a simple framework to help:
1. Map the customer journey
Think about the typical journey a customer takes from discovering your business to making a purchase. This might include the following stages:
Awareness: How do customers first hear about your business? Examples include ads, word of mouth or social media.
Consideration: What resources do they use to assess your products or services? Examples include your website, customer reviews or in-store visits.
Purchase: Where do customers make the purchase? Examples include an e-commerce platform or a physical store.
Post-purchase: What happens after the sale? Examples include follow-up emails, loyalty programmes or support requests.
2. Collect feedback
Ask your customers how they found you and why they chose your business. Use tools like surveys, online forms or even informal chats. Feedback provides valuable insights into the touchpoints that matter most.
3. Analyse the data
If you have a website, use tools like Google Analytics to see how customers interact with it. Check your social media insights to understand what's driving engagement. These data points can help you identify where your efforts are most effective.
VIDEO: Finding your target audience and customer touchpoints
Marketing expert Victoria Prince demonstrates how to get clearer on your target audience and lays out an easy plan that takes cold customers to hot leads:
Multiple touchpoints marketing: How to do it
Once you've identified your customer touchpoints, it's time to craft a strategy that gives them the strongest possible impact. Here are some simple steps to take:
1. Build a cohesive brand experience
Consistency is key when dealing with multiple touchpoints. Your branding, messaging and tone should remain uniform across all platforms. For instance:
use the same logo and colour scheme on your website, social media and emails
make sure your messaging reflects your brand's values and voice
align your online and offline presence so customers recognise your business regardless of the platform
2. Diversify your marketing channels
Don't rely on a single channel to reach customers. Instead, engage them where they're most active.
Social media: Platforms like Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn allow you to connect with different audiences. Post engaging content, respond to comments and use paid ads to expand your reach.
Email marketing: Send personalised emails to nurture leads, announce new products or offer discounts.
Content marketing: Share valuable blog posts, videos or infographics to attract and educate potential customers.
In-store interactions: If you have a physical presence, make sure your staff are trained to provide excellent customer service.
3. Make use of technology
Technology makes managing multiple touchpoints so much simpler. Consider these tools:
CRM systems: Tools like HubSpot or Zoho help you manage customer interactions and track their journey.
Marketing automation: Platforms like Mailchimp or ActiveCampaign automate email campaigns, saving time and ensuring consistency.
Chatbots: Use chatbots on your website or social media to provide instant responses to customer queries.
4. Personalise the customer experience
Customers appreciate businesses that understand their needs. Use the data you collect to create personalised experiences. For example, you could:
send targeted emails based on a customer's previous purchases
offer product recommendations tailored to their preferences
use location-based marketing to promote events or offers in their area
5. Focus on retention as much as acquisition
While reaching new customers is important, retaining existing ones is equally valuable. Post-purchase touchpoints – such as thank-you emails, loyalty programmes or exclusive offers – can turn one-time buyers into loyal customers.
6. Test and optimise
Marketing across multiple touchpoints is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Regularly test different strategies and optimise them based on the results. For instance:
experiment with different types of social media content to see what drives engagement
A/B test your email subject lines to determine which gets higher open rates
monitor website analytics to identify pages where visitors drop off
Examples of successful multiple touchpoints marketing
Example 1: A local coffee shop in Leeds
Awareness: The shop runs Facebook and Instagram ads targeting nearby residents.
Consideration: They offer a free eBook on brewing techniques, which users can download by signing up for their email list.
Purchase: Customers can order drinks through the website for pick-up.
Post-purchase: An email thanks them for their order and offers a 10% discount on their next visit.
Example 2: An online clothes boutique
Awareness: The boutique collaborates with influencers to showcase its products on social media.
Consideration: Customers explore reviews and photos from real buyers on the website.
Purchase: They offer a seamless checkout experience with a number of payment options.
Post-purchase: Follow-up emails suggest complementary items and ask for feedback.
Common challenges with touchpoints marketing (and how to overcome them)
Limited resources: Small businesses often have small budgets and not much manpower. If this applies to you, focus on a few high-impact touchpoints first, then expand as resources allow.
Lack of expertise: If you're new to marketing, start with free resources like online tutorials or consider hiring freelancers for specific tasks like creating social media ads.
Maintaining consistency: Use tools like style guides and templates to ensure consistent branding across all platforms.
What is the zero moment of truth (ZMOT)?
Google created the ZMOT acronym to describe the point before 'buyers' and 'seeders' know about your brand or product. This is the point they're seeking a solution.
This could happen in a shop at the counter with a QR code. It could be a review shared online about a product or on a social network. It could be a point in a YouTube explainer video, or even the advert between, or the retargeting campaign of a brand about a sister product.
Your customers are online and fluent in digital, even though they don't know it, or rather think about it like that. They jump between apps and devices each with a personal focus in mind.
Your job is to get in front and sell your products and services to these people even when they aren't naturally looking for your solution.
What makes ZMOT different to simple marketing is once they become a customer, buy and use your product, they feed back into this point, aiding other customers.
So how do you do this and manage the many arms? Here are some tips.
How to plan your ZMOT
Use a pen and paper or whatever means you prefer that won't slow your thinking down.
1. Make a note of all the places your customers, potential customers and seeders (people who share your content) see, hear and read about your business and brand
These are your touchpoints with your customers. Ask yourself the following:
Do they explain the basics of your business? For example, you're a baker and are noted for your rainbow bagels. This is your underlying brand message. This needs to be across all touchpoints. Is it clear?
Do they link to your other touchpoints (where relevant)? And are they easy to navigate? For example, you could link your Google Business Profile to a great review on Trustpilot. Connect it up and make it easy for viewers to follow the simple links.
Can you track the usage/data? If so, sign up to get this weekly or monthly. This will help you steer your strategy later on.
2. Make a list of where you would like your business to be
Scale by importance – this will help you prioritise later. Note when you'd like these places to start, and whether you can implement yourself or will need to outsource. Have a budget in mind. You will need to pay for costs on top of outsourcing.
Once you know where you want to be, it's time to design your customer route or sales funnel.
3. When designing your customer route or sales funnel, work backwards
Start with what you want to convert – sales, views, increase in community members. Where will they come in to – a landing page? Social commerce (Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook shop)?
You then have multiple strands pointing into the conversion point. Pick from there and prioritise.
4. Get your social media tracking, analytics and attribution in order
Check your data points weekly or monthly. You may find that one channel or medium has higher engagement but brings less traffic to your site or sales landing page.
Use all the data to plot the path between platforms and your site to see, if it isn't contributing to sales traffic, if it's contributing to another platform that is answering common blocks to sales. Both have value. This is an important distinction and is unique to everyone.
5. Repurpose your content during or after you've created it
You can repeat, reuse, edit, transcribe, adapt. It's your copyrighted material, which is invaluable in itself.
6. Add contingency time to your planning and execution
Everything always takes longer than expected. Although digital marketing can be quick to execute, it takes time to build a groundswell. This is not the same for digital advertising, but if you don't take your time designing, it can be a black hole for budget.
7. Remember: You don't have to be on every channel
Just a handful. Create a routine you can maintain, even if you outsource it. Be clear on how you will communicate with them.
Don't get hung up on tone of voice or look/design – this will slow your down and it will evolve as you grow and listen to your customers. Just make sure the message is on brand, the CTA is there and it's bringing in positive traffic.
Summary
Understanding and optimising your customer touchpoints is crucial if you're looking to reach more buyers. By engaging people across multiple touchpoints, you create a richer, more cohesive experience that builds trust and loyalty.
Start by identifying your current touchpoints, diversify your marketing efforts and use technology to streamline the whole process.
With a thoughtful approach to how to reach your customers, you'll not only attract more customers but also keep them coming back for more.
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