5 Ways to Build Loyalty Through Brand Touchpoints

1. Retail Products

Yesterday, I was in line at McDade’s grocery in Fondren and noticed a line of sauces and dressings from Georgia Blue, a local Madison, Mississippi restaurant. (Georgia Blue isn’t a client of ours.) Seeing the sauce gave me the impression that Georgia Blue has a unique perspective on its sauces. As a diner, I look for restaurants to have a unique point of view, so seeing the sauces (whether I buy them or not) has increased the standing of the Georgia Blue brand in my eyes.

The Takeaway: Consider the opportunities out there to extend your brand into a retail product. For example, if you’re a spa, you could come out with your own label of skincare products. With white label manufacturing, it’s cheaper than you’d think.

2. Restaurant To-Go Box

Speaking of restaurants, one of the biggest branding opportunities restaurants miss is the to-go box. Consider every pair of eyes that might see your to-go box sitting in the office fridge. Those are all opportunities for new touchpoints for your brand, and communicate the brand points that: 1) you serve large portions, and 2) your food’s good enough to take home and eat for leftovers.

The Takeaway: At least stick a logo on that thing! However, consider the opportunities to really communicate unique selling points and personality to make your restaurant unforgettable.

3. Mailing Materials

Our friends and clients at Nuts.com recently asked us to redesign some of their shipping boxes.

Not only does the box have all the requisite space for the logo and shipping labels, but we worked to make each side of the box show a little bit of the brand’s trademark nutty humor. We even included a thank you message from the family’s nutty cartoon characters on the bottom. While everyone might not see it, those that do will have a delightful experience.

The Takeaway: Take routine experiences for your customers and make them delightful in a way that speaks to the soul of your brand. They’ll remember and love you for it.

4. Custom T-Shirts

Our neighbors downstairs from our office, Broad Street Bakery, have been selling clever t-shirts about bread for years. I’m sure they don’t mind customers walking around with the logo, but more importantly, phrases like “Challah Back Girl” remind you that Broad Street is your destination in Jackson for unique house-made bread, reinforcing their positive brand points.

Our friends and clients at Cups Espresso Cafe have new t-shirts designed exclusively by Cups baristas. Cups baristas tend to be talented artists outside of coffee, and their unique perspective and authenticity is a big part of the Cups experience. The t-shirts are a great avenue for Cups to share their baristas’ talent with customers.

The Takeaway: Consider what personality traits of your brand can be expressed through a t-shirt design. More than just showing off your logo, consider how to make the shirt unique, fashionable and memorable.

5. Business Blog

Business blogs serve a whole host of functions. It gives partners (like me) an outlet to write so that readers can connect with me and trust my expertise. Each post goes out into the search engine world and can be indexed and found by people who might not visit your homepage. For example, on our own blog, a review I did about collaboration software Minigroup still sends new visitors to the site each month. Our analytics show that those visitors go on to look at other pages on the site.

We like business blogs best when they communicate a personalty that complements the business’ offerings, which leads to a fuller understanding of the brand. One of our busiest offerings is writing content for clients’ business blogs, weaving in an editorial-style approach with search engine optimization to provide the most bang for the buck from the blog.

The Takeaway: Incorporate a blog into your business’ web presence, whether you do it yourself or contract writers to manage it for you. The benefits will come from returning readership, a more coherent personality for your brand, and the SEO bump.

Let us help you create new brand touchpoints for your business. The more unique experience we can create for your customers, the more your brand will become unforgettable to them. Contact us for a consultation today.