How many customer touchpoints does it take for customers to know, like, and trust you enough to do business with you?

Have you heard this story about Red Bull? When it was first introduced to consumers in London, England, it faced stiff competition from well-entrenched soft drink and soda brands. Rather than compete head-on, the company went rouge with a brilliant campaign.

Over the span of several months, employees strategically filled trash bins beyond capacity with empty Red Bull cans in and around places their target audience would see them—nightclubs, college parties, cafés, and the like. It succeeded in creating an illusion of popularity, and it didn’t take long before, as one writer put it, “Red Bull was seen as the energy drink of choice, which made it the energy drink of choice as consumers began to purchase it based on its ‘popularity.’”

So what does this all have to do with determining the perfect number of customer touchpoints? The answer lies, in part, in understanding the frequency illusion.

Customer touchpoints and the frequency factor

The frequency illusion occurs when you encounter something new and then seemingly begin to experience it again and again. Perhaps the most familiar example is buying a new car and subsequently repeatedly seeing that same car on roads and in parking lots. But it’s not because there was a sudden surge in sales—it’s because what at first wasn’t within your scope of attention is now front and center.

That’s exactly why Red Bull’s empty can campaign was so successful. The lesson to be learned is that exposure matters, though you don’t necessarily have to place your branded items in garbage cans to get it. When it comes to customer touchpoints, exposure isn’t just a matter of how often your customers encounter your brand. It’s also about the frequencies you choose—that is, the number and type of channels through which your audience hears from and sees you.

Luke Acree, president of ReminderMedia, calls this double meaning of frequency and its relationship to marketing the “frequency factor.”

“Frequency is both a matter of how often and with what channels you use to connect with your sphere.” ~ Luke Acree, President, ReminderMedia

The frequency factor reveals why asking what the perfect number of customer touchpoints is doesn’t go far enough. The more productive question is, When planning my customer touchpoints, how often and through how many channels should I reach out?

The 200+ customer touchpoint plan

The true answer to this question is always “more.” If you have 50 touchpoints, you ought to have 51. If you use three channels, you need to use four. Luke’s brother, Stephen Acree of Acree Brothers Realty in Lynchburg, Virginia, connects with the people in his database more than 200 times a year using a multitude of channels, including social media, direct mail, face-to-face interaction, email, and text and video messaging. And his results have been outstanding.

What’s especially impressive about Stephen’s business, other than the sheer rate at which it’s grown, is that at least 50% of his deals have come from repeat and referral business. For five years, he’s been in partnership with Luke, following his advice and testing every product and service ReminderMedia offers before their release to ensure that they actually work to grow a real estate company.

Together, they’ve developed a comprehensive annual customer touchpoint plan that allows Stephen to effortlessly employ a variety of channels to send high-quality, valuable content that his audience enjoys and that routinely keeps him and his team in front of clients and prospects.

You can download a free copy of Stephen’s customer touchpoint plan here. In it, you’ll find a complete breakdown of his 12-month schedule, showing you exactly what he has done and continues to do for his client outreach. You’ll also get links to the products that have worked best for him.

We promote Stephen’s system because we know it works, but you don’t need to follow it to a T—you can adapt it as needed or even develop your own system instead. Either way, as long as you continue to do the demanding work of running a business and devote the necessary time needed to commit to consistently reaching out, there’s little reason why your business shouldn’t grow with equally impressive results.

However, there is an important caveat . . . when it comes to touchpoints, value and quality matter.

Why Stephen’s touchpoint system works

Some business owners, and you may be one of them, may think that 200 customer touchpoints sounds excessive. And, if each of those touchpoints was nothing more than another promotional email, you’d have a point. After all, if you knew someone who, every time you met, only talked about themselves, you’d start to avoid them. Similarly, when all your touchpoints are about your business, your recipients will learn to delete, throw out, or otherwise ignore them.

Stephen’s customer touchpoint plan works because rather than endlessly promoting Just Listed and Just Sold properties, he consistently offers his sphere genuine value. Delivered on a routine schedule, our personally branded products offer his clients and prospects content that educates, entertains, and endears him to his audience.

• Educational content empowers your audience by providing valuable insights into topics relevant to your industry and their needs. This type of content positions you as an authority, builds trust, and strengthens your brand.
• Entertaining content is exactly what it sounds like—fun. To appeal to the greatest number of people in your sphere, strive to offer content that connects with a wide variety of interests. Popular topics typically include family, travel, gardening, food, pets, health, and home decor.
• Endearing content encourages your prospects and clients to admire and like you. Don’t be shy about publicizing your work as a volunteer or your efforts to support a charity. Consumers prefer companies that align with their own values, and being a business with a purpose beyond making a profit will encourage favorable impressions.

Beyond using what ReminderMedia offers to stay connected with his sphere, Stephen also makes sure he gets some face-to-face time with his clients and their friends.

When you download his plan, you’ll see that he hosts four client events a year, one for each quarter. He’s thrown over-the-top holidays parties and hosted happy hours, pie giveaways, and food trucks in the park, among other events. He’s also invited clients to become involved in his team’s annual food drive to support the local Agape Center in Lynchburg. And he ensures that each member of his sphere receives a quarterly phone call.

What to send to your customers

The most successful way to scale your business is to have the majority of deals come from repeat and referred customers. Without them, you’ll always be chasing the next lead, never quite sure where your next opportunity will come from. That approach to lead generation deprives you of the freedom and power that owning a lucrative business promises—the freedom to make choices about how you want to live and the power to spend your time as you want.

So the question isn’t about whether you should be sending something to your clients but about what you should send. While Stephen’s touchpoint system is comprehensive and incredibly easy to implement and manage (everything is automated), it may be too much to adopt all at once. Many of our clients start with our personally branded magazines. Once they experience success with them, they add other elements to their marketing mix, such as our done-for-you postcard campaigns or our five-tools-in-one Digital Marketing Platform, complete with a genuine set-it-and-forget-it social media automation product.

Become a ReminderMedia magazine client and get a full month of the Digital Platform absolutely FREE. Click to learn more.

The final word

If one or two ads were enough to get consumers to buy a product or service, all our marketing budgets would be much smaller. But aside from the evidence derived from theories of human psychology and behavior, real world experience tells us that the more frequently we’re in front of consumers, the more business we’ll generate.

So as it turns out, the perfect amount of touchpoints isn’t a number; rather, it’s a formula that combines the greatest number of high-value customer touchpoints your resources will support with the use of as many different communication channels as possible. In the end, more of both is better. (That said, if you’ve gotten this far and still crave a precise number, then we recommend you reach out no less than 26 times a year, preferably once every two weeks. Anything less, and you run the risk of being forgotten.)

Download Stephen’s plan, and see what a regular schedule of customer touchpoints will do for your business. Whether you use our products or other tools or means, the important thing is that you find ways to routinely and frequently offer real value to your customers and that you do it using more than one communication channel. This type of consistent contact will help to ensure that your brand is the one that comes to mind when repeat business and referrals are in play.