A “touchpoint” is dorky marketer-speak for any customer's chance to engage with your company. If your customer is interacting with your brand—be it website, widget, or written word...how do you want them to feel about it? How do you convey the value you know you provide, each time a prospect sees your company? 

Each touchpoint for your business is an opportunity to connect and to convey something meaningful to both customers and prospective customers. It's your chance to make a cunning first impression and also a cohesively consistent fiftieth impression. These moments add up, building or breaking customer trust and loyalty.

Want some insight into how we do touchpoints at Unbound? Follow along for our playbook.

Touchpoints Across Every Phase of The Customer Journey

Like meeting someone meaningful in life, the journey a customer takes with your brand isn’t a straight line; it’s a sequence of moments that build upon the previous one. When we assess the customer journey from initial brand awareness to enthusiastic brand loyalist, it's easy to identify three key phases.

1. Awareness

The first phase is all about attracting your prospect. Think of it like locking eyes over the course of a thirty second exchange. Here, your touchpoints are effective double-takes to hook your target. This includes ads, social media posts, and blog articles (like this one). These are your first chances for potential customers to “meet” your brand. This first impression must be memorable, authentic, and clear about what value you provide.

Our strategy in the awareness phase is to lead with compelling visuals, showcasing some of our favorite collaborations with our partners. The tone we use to speak about our work is neutral and informative. Typically, we articulate why we devised the solution we are sharing. We consider this commentary to be valuable to industry peers and intrigued business owners who understand the need for marketing and branding in their business. The latter want to know they are partnering with a competent collective of thinkers and makers who understand that every aspect of their brand needs to communicate value.

2. Consideration

Once a customer is aware you are out there doing what you do best, the next phase is to turn their curiosity into consideration. This is where touchpoints like reviews, case studies, and testimonials can serve useful. At this phase, customers are comparing your business to competing businesses, and they need reasons to choose you. Creating high-quality, informative content like detailed service descriptions, case studies, or educational articles can make all the difference in your success.

Our strategy for the consideration phase is where our website goes to work for us twenty-four-seven. From our Get Started page, we articulate and expound on our intake process, Compass. Once prospects express interest in this critical milestone; a low cost investment that ensures a mutually beneficial business transaction for each of us, we know they are going to convert nine times out of ten.

3. Conversion

The moment of purchase, or closing the sale, is perhaps the most critical touchpoint. Every element of your checkout experience, from the user experience of your site or app, to offers, and clear calls to action, influence this decision. A smooth, enjoyable experience here can reinforce a customer’s decision and increase their confidence in your brand.

Our strategy for closing is quite nuanced. Our average time to close a partnership is 90-120 days. There's no one-size-fits-all pricing solution in boutique marketing and branding services, but we have devised some invaluable processes that help to streamline the process, while ensuring prospects are a good fit to work with. All of our proposals and contracts are built in the same visual style as our website, ads, and marketing funnels.

The Power of Personalization and Relevance

Generic interactions can feel hollow, but when you tailor touchpoints based on individual preferences and past interactions, they gain relevance. It’s the difference between receiving a generic “Thanks for your order!” email and one that acknowledges what you purchased, suggests products based on your interests, and feels like a genuine interaction with someone on the other side of the transaction. Data-driven personalization not only increases engagement but also creates a sense of connection, making customers feel seen and valued.

At Unbound, our services are allocated into pre-written modules that fit into our RFP's, our customized project proposals, and our in-depth demos. The branding and automation we have built into these processes allow us to quickly assemble a professional presentation, adding valuable time to research and personalize our appeal. We also use a vintage Keuffel & Esser Co. Leroy Lettering Set to address Consideration Phase prospects with luxury-printed sales sleeves (including a handwritten note to accompany our printed investment in further dialogue).

Consistency Across Channels: Reinforcing Your Brand Identity

Visual cohesion is one of the differences between fandom or fraud, and it certainly justifies our careers here at Unbound. Your job in business is to sell yourself or product, and looking your best has some psychological impacts on your audience. Inconsistent messaging or visuals can create confusion and dilute your brand identity. I like to note that consistency isn’t just about repetition; but rather reinforcing trust. Brands that create seamless transitions between online and offline interactions—like a recognizable store experience that mirrors the colors, fonts, and aesthetic of their website, offer a more professional and expensive service.

It's easy to generate a pictogram live-traced "logo" that was developed by Artificial Intelligence, or someone artificial, pretending to be intelligent. Sure, you can slap that on a t-shirt and call it a day; but, those that have made it past just a few sunsets take the time to meticulously consider every detail in their brand experience. My point being, the strength in your recognition as a brand comes at the arduous expense of determining exactly what your brand identity is from the start, then reinforcing your brand's identity and message in every manner possible. Chris actually wrote an entire journal entry on this theme: The Role of Brand Strategy in Business Growth. The meticulously scrutinized visual decisions we make with our brand at Unbound all adhere to a plan we laid out and agreed to following our internal Compass session. Unbound can be defined by colors, materials, type families, textures, scents, and a commitment to producing ideas we are proud to share a hand in.

Data-Driven Optimization Ensures Touchpoints are Effective

Not every touchpoint will work perfectly from the start, and that’s where data analytics come in. By tracking engagement rates, conversion metrics, customer feedback, and more, you can understand how customers are responding to each interaction you release for review. This data-driven approach allows for continuous improvement, ensuring that your touchpoints remain fresh, relevant, and engaging. It’s a process that requires constant tweaking and testing, but the return on that labor is a customer experience that only gets better with time and continued refinement.

We use UTM parameters to track everything we release in print. Furthermore, we audit the keywords of our competitors and look for opportunities and strategies to exploit in our sitemapping, journaling, and PPC efforts. We can track metrics behind email conversions, as well as website navigation and engagement. When we A/B test our landing pages we gain valuable insights into what language resonates with our prospective partners, allowing us to rapidly optimize and re-publish for better return on ad spend. If your growth partner can't give you nuanced data behind the segments of audience interacting with your brand, you need to reconsider how you are allocating the stretch on your dollar.

Get Started With Unbound

Creating impactful touchpoints isn’t just a business development box to tick, and it's certainly not something that happens over night. Building and refining your brand touchpoints is an ongoing investment in your brand’s identity. If you do not want to handle that alone, we're here to assist. At Unbound we blend budget, creativity, and expertise to craft interactions that resonate with you and your audience. By learning about your goals, your vision, and what has landed you here on our website, we ensure every touchpoint we design isn’t just consistent and engaging, but also a true reflection of your brand’s personality. In return, we get to celebrate your victories, as your enterprise levels up its looks, and collects more loot.

What's to lose?