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Do you remember Takeshi’s castle and the historic skipping stones?
You jump on the right stones, and there you go, easy to reach the next level of the game. But what if you landed on the wrong stone? Everyone laughed! But that will not happen when you lose your prospect.
Your prospect is that smiling champ getting ready to play the skipping stones of landing on the right marketing touchpoints to reach the happy destination of having a product that solves their problem.
Fret not about the wrong stones, because in this post, we’ll help you pick the perfect 15 marketing touchpoints to help you guide your prospect to book a demo.
Marketing touchpoints or digital touchpoints are any form of customer interaction or point of contact that a potential customer has with your brand or company. Every time a potential customer engages with your brand, they're experiencing a marketing touchpoint. Marketing touchpoints can occur through various channels, such as advertising, social media post, email campaigns, events, customer loyalty programs, customer service, or even in-store experiences.
When it comes to marketing touchpoints, it's important for marketing teams to understand that they go beyond just providing information. Each touchpoint should evoke a certain emotion in the customer, whether it's excitement, trust, or happiness. These emotions can influence how the person feels about your brand or product, ultimately leading them towards making a purchase decision. The key here is to have a strong understanding of your customer preferences.
The buyer's journey goes through three important stages: awareness, consideration, and decision.
This is the first stage of the buyer journey.
Here, the buyer is aware of a pain point that they have. Let's say your potential customer is browsing their LinkedIn feed and comes across an ad for a software company specializing in project management tools. They are already struggling with project management or thinking of switching to automation from manual management.
The ad features an attention-grabbing headline and a compelling image and mentions a free trial offer. That's it! Your LinkedIn ad serves as a marketing touchpoint for the awareness stage, as you've captured their interest in your company and products.
Now that the buyer has identified a pain point and is sure of it, they will start to evaluate various solutions to their problem. Let’s say that the potential customer has clicked your LinkedIn ad.
They now get directed to your company's website, where they see an interactive product demo, one of the customer experience touchpoints embedded on your website that showcases your product in action and helps the buyer make an informed decision.
This makes a stronger case for the potential buyer to consider your product, as the product demos allow the buyer to see the features and benefits of your product and how it can solve their pain points. When they see your product in action and are convinced you might be a good fit, they shortlist you into their consideration set and move to the next stage.
You can also use other product-focused touchpoints during the consideration stage, such as product tours, product-focused blog posts that show your product in action, and product webinars. These touchpoints provide valuable insights into your product and help the buyer determine if it fits their needs well.
Level three is the most important stage, where the buyer decides which product or service to purchase.
They want to see proof that it's worked for other businesses. At this stage, the buyer goes to your company's website, wanting to find a case study about a similar business that successfully implemented the tool and saw positive results. But guess what? Since they already saw your product in action via product demos and product tours, they are already almost convinced about the purchase.
But marketing touchpoints such as the case study gives that little nudge to build trust and reassure the business owner, ultimately leading them towards making a purchase.
We’ll share 15 rewarding marketing touchpoints, real-time customer touchpoint examples from top brands, and how you can use them in different stages of the buyer’s journey.
First in line - You can run social media ads targeting potential customers to create awareness about your product or service. For example, check out Hubspot’s ads on its social media channels targeting business owners to discover how their CRM platform transforms prospecting, connecting, reporting, and collaboration like never before. With bold graphics and clear visuals, their LinkedIn ad is designed for easy absorption while browsing.
Good old long form of content creates wonders. Nothing compensates for creating informative content that addresses the pain points of your target audience and provides solutions.
For example, check out this Moosend’s blog post - What Is Email Marketing? A Beginner’s Guide For 2023. It has everything one needs to know to streamline a successful email marketing process, from definition to benefits and practices. Ultimately, they cleverly made the reader understand how Moosend can help them with everything mentioned in the blog.
💡 Pro tip: In your product-based blog posts, embed product demos as GIFs to show your product in action
Hosting webinars can be an effective marketing touchpoint as it provides valuable insights and demonstrate your expertise to potential clients.
Check out how ActiveCampaign developed a series of webinars dedicated to announcing its product updates as part of its customer touchpoint strategies. ActiveCampaign used these webinars to promote the company and communicate easily with its customers.
A very happy marketing touchpoint and no one can deny it. Share the success stories of your loyal customers to showcase the effectiveness and value of your product or service. Check out Notion’s testimonial that made social media cool again. It had the perfect balance of hook, story arc, visuals, takeaway, and music that led everyone to explore Notion’s features.
Offer product demos to potential customers, with no strings attached. Allowing them to experience your product or service firsthand can be a good marketing touchpoint. Topylyne’s product tour is an excellent example. The very first pop-up explains what Topylyne does and how users can benefit from it.
You can learn more about creating a product demo that converts here
💡 Pro tip: Interactive demos can provide a hands-on experience of your product or service, which has better engagement than a static product demo
A crucial touchpoint that provides real-time support to potential customers through chatbots or live chat on the website.
Check out Hubspot’s live chat and how they use it creatively. Live chat gives these communities an opportunity to have real-time discussions and help Hubspot’s potential customers.
It’s no secret that potential customers tend to trust recommendations from their peers more than any form of communication. In fact, a whopping 83% of customers consider friends and family as their most reliable sources of referrals. Check out Dropbox's referral program, which operates on a one-sided reward system. When you refer someone to Dropbox, you’ll both get extra storage.
Promotional emails are different from other email campaigns and newsletters. They are sent for one particular purpose and that is to convert more potential customers. One such email is the cart abandonment email that provides an opportunity to remind potential buyers about their interest in a product and include personalized incentives, such as a free demo or consultation, and encourage them to complete the purchase. Check out Away’s cart abandonment email that motivates the recipient to complete a purchase using short, sweet, and no-distraction content.
Use email campaigns to send personalized messages and offers to potential customers. Check out this e-mail from Dropbox that strikes a professional and courteous tone while also providing clear instructions and links to template libraries. The call-to-action is prominently displayed, making it impossible to miss.
💡 Pro tip: Embed a personalized product demo video in your email campaign, inviting the recipient to explore your product more.
Newsletters are a great marketing touchpoint as they provide an ongoing way to stay in touch with customers, offer valuable content, and can be targeted to specific customer groups, all while being cost-effective. Check out Invsion’s weekly newsletter which includes a roundup of their best blog content, favorite design links from the week, and a new opportunity to win a free t-shirt!
Podcasts can be a highly engaging and informative way to showcase a product and its features. For example, The Customer Engagement Lab is a unique business-comedy video podcast that explores creative sales and marketing campaigns for customer attraction. With in-person interviews, round table discussions, and TikTok reaction customer segments, it offers a one-of-a-kind B2B experience.
Offline conferences or Summits could be another one where companies can showcase their product, and everyone attendee can get a glimpse of the product. For example, Marketo's "Marketing Nation" community provides resources, events, and networking opportunities for marketers. By building a community around its product, Marketo effectively markets itself as a comprehensive and supportive solution for marketers.
Online reviews and ratings on trusted platforms are a customer experience touchpoint that motivates your prospective customers to book your demo, acting as a marketing touchpoint. Check out this positive review of Storylane, an interactive demo platform that increases trust in that brand.
💡 Pro tip: Drive user engagement and increase research time by embedding interactive videos on review platforms like TrustRadius and G2. Compared to video demos, interactive demos have 3 times more engagement and lead to an average research time of 40 minutes, while the average web user spends only 45-54 seconds on a website.
E-books are a good marketing touchpoint as they provide value-added content that can help attract and engage potential customers. For example, The Social Media Trends Report by HubSpot shares insights from industry insiders and helps social media marketers how to adapt marketing strategies to take advantage of the ever-changing social media landscape.
Whitepapers are a good marketing touchpoint as they establish thought leadership, provide valuable insights, and help generate leads. Check out Google’s Cloud Security and Compliance White paper. This explains the efficiency of Google Cloud products and services in keeping the data of any workspace safe and secure.
Tracking successful marketing touchpoints is very important and is possible. But it isn’t always easy, as,
Understanding the customer's entire journey, business outcomes, and business goals is very important in deciding which marketing touchpoint can be effective for you. By understanding the buyer's journey, finding your customer journey map, and aligning the effective touchpoints accordingly, you can create a seamless experience for your customers. Diversify the touchpoints and experiment with new ones to stay ahead of the competition. Focus on providing value and building trust with customers and successfully use these touchpoints to increase the number of product demos booked and achieve their marketing goals!
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