I have previously briefly mentioned touchpoint cultures, and this tweet by James Bell make some interesting points.

Different platforms reach different audiences.

Know your customers and where they are. Also, know your content and where it’s most likely to work.

Not every touchpoint is for every brand.

Just because Facebook/Instagram/Pinterest etc is the hottest thing in town doesn’t mean it’s automatically right for you. Get to know the touchpoint before using it (this is why marketers need to be out there and use all these tools).

Think about different personas when using the Brand Touchpoint Matrix.

Preferably, create different maps for each of them. The important thing to be aware of is how different touchpoints reach different audiences, and how this can affect your content and communication strategy.

As we see it, WoM is not a touchpoint per se – rather something that can be communicated through a multitude of touchpoints. You often get recommendations by friends and peers either in real life or in social channels like Facebook or Twitter, but you can also find recommendations on blogs, get them via email etc.

So, how can your organization plan for WoM?

Well, positive WoM is an effect of exceptionally well executed touchpoints. If you create great experiences, people will talk about it. You can also support this by making it easy to spread the love in every touchpoint – does your store have free Wi-Fi so customers can communicate? Does your website encourage sharing? Do you create content that will spark interest and live on many different platforms (videos, infographics, presentations etc)? What about your giveaways at exhibitions? The packaging of your product? Payment options for your service?

To summarize:
1. Give your customers something worth talking about (product, service, content, delivery etc).
2. Make sure all relevant touchpoints enables your customers to spread the love.

It’s that easy ;-)

“Where traditional companies push out messages and products, these companies pull customers in. Instead of treating customers as passive targets, they treat them as active participants. Like the sun in a solar system, they create a gravitational field that pulls customers into their orbit.”

This is a great analogy, and also something applicable to the Brand Touchpoint Matrix. We can actually position the sun in the upper right corner, because all touchpoints placed there are what Mark call “Customer Gravity Generators”: customer-initiated touchpoints between transactions, and the creation of value beyond just product.

Also, the longer away from the sun you travel, the more you have to shine (read create great marketing) to be able to attract new people that want to take a closer look. There’s lots of stars out there competing in the night sky.

“The technical challenge of modern marketing is that explosion of smaller touchpoints […] The marketing team is tasked with understanding all of these touchpoints, but each individual touch point is too small to care about.”

(From Insights from the explosion of marketing touchpoints)

“Commerce is becoming less about channels and more about touch points. Marketing is moving beyond multichannel to become ‘multipoint,’ and coping with this shift is a serious challenge for businesses of all kinds.”

“The relationship between businesses and customers should be thought of across touchpoints rather than channels”

(From What is Agile Commerce? The Future, That’s What)

An example: Company A and Company B have similar product offers and similar functional customer service. A pretty normal scenario in any market. The difference is that Company A have actively built an online community of customers that can talk, help each other with small problems, give hints and so on. Tied to this is a digital service that gives you statistics to help use the product in a better way.

This gives Company A two big advantages:

• an invisible customer lock-in: the more you are tied to a platform/community, the harder it is to switch to another platform since you’ve probably invested lots of time, added lots of data, and made new contacts or even friends that you don’t want to lose.
• they have created an army of brand advocates: people that easily will recommend their product to other people. And they work for free with the most effective marketing tactic out there – Word of Mouth.

Having the platform ready also makes every marketing effort more effective. Promotional activities often take you one or two steps towards the upper right corner of the Brand Touchpoint Matrix, but sooner or later you hit a brickwall instead of finding the next rabbit hole. If you always have a plan to create more brand advocates, every marketing dollar will give better return.

Creating platforms takes time and requires a whole different approach than working with regular (campaign) marketing. It involves a cross section of the company and requires other skillsets, but once you’re there it will be hard to turn back. Just like your customers.

I’m fascinated by the mix of brand strategy and behavioral science, because they create so many great possibilities when put together. For example, behavioral economist Dan Ariely has shown that an experience is greatly dependent of what happens before the actual experience takes place – if a person thinks he’s eating expensive food, the experience will be better.

What’s more staggering, blind tests have shown that this placebo effect even works on highly physical experiences like brain surgery! Tests have shown that people who thought they had brain surgery showed the same amount of recovery as the ones that actually had the surgery. So, expectations and beliefs are very powerful.

What does this mean for the Brand Touchpoint Matrix? Well, consider a very common scenario: an agency create a funny, creative ad campaign. People like it and decide to step up to another touchpoint. Here, at the store, the salesman looks tired and bored and the potential customer gets a bad experience of the company. And – here’s the main thing – it actually got worse because of the successful campaign. One touchpoint set an expectation that the other could not match.

How do you deal with touchpoint expectations? Well, first of all you have to have a clear view of your whole touchpoint map. Let an experience design agency analyze where you raise expectations and where you fail. If you do this well, you can not only remove the obstacles, but also start creating new positive customer experiences. Maybe you should even consider lowering expectations of one touchpoint to enhance another?

“Taking the time and effort to look at your touchpoints not just as isolated mini-experiences, but as a collective whole, will help you shape them for a better customer experience, and perhaps even point to opportunities to invent new types of touchpoints”

Article by Adam Richardson from FrogDesign: Touchpoints Bring the Customer Experience to Life

The Brand Touchpoint Matrix tell us a lot about the basic properties of a touchpoint: is it suitable for persuation or value creation? Delivering a promise or living up to it? Give the customer a quick fix or an immersive experience? But there’s much more to think about – here’s three basic areas we consider important:

1. Touchpoint culture

Every touchpoint has a certain culture – using the same content everywhere is not a good idea. Learning how different touchpoints work is key. Consider: should things be funny, academic, easy to read? What kind of language are people normally using here? What kind of media should we use?

2. Touchpoint design

How do you build the interaction based on the unique properties of this touchpoint? Is graphic design important? Usability?

3. Touchpoint goals

What is the main goals of every touchpoint? Create value? Awareness? Curiosity? Where do we want people to go next? Based on these goals, it’s easy to start finding your KPI:s.