The value of marketing touchpoints

I see your business everywhere.

I see your name everywhere.

I see your brand again and again.

Marketing touchpoints, when produced well, create a feeling of brand ubiquity among consumers. When people feel like they see you and your brand with frequency, it creates positive associations.

Coca-Cola, thanks to its massive marketing budgets, appears everywhere, on stadium signage during televised games, in magazines, online on websites and social media platforms, television commercials and more. The reason why Coca-Cola does this is to continually remind consumers of the brand, of the products and of the refreshing qualities of the products.

It does take money, creativity and deep resources to accomplish what the Coca-Cola corporation does, but it is effective. Marketing professionals can scale their approaches with smaller businesses and model after the big, really good ones.

What can we smaller business marketers learn from this behemoth of a company and their brilliant marketing schemes?

There are a few important takeaways.

1. Touchpoints matter tremendously in marketing. Small business owners should consider how they might create a multi-touch approach for any message, product or service.

2. Consumers are reading, listening and watching brands so touchpoints do reach them where they are.

3. Consumers make strong efforts at due diligence, what people often refer to as "research" are rewarded when they encounter your brand, your name, your services again and again. If they encounter your competitor, you always lose out.

4. Even small touches have value. Simple, good, content shared on social media, ads placed in local publications, local stories well-told by local journalists have very high value for your business.

5. Touchpoints are easy to create, but they do take time and thought to get them into correct position.

Often clients will say things to me like "my best customer is high-net-worth, they won't just search online for the service I provide, they will get a referral."

This might be true.

But the high-net-worth prospective customer will get the referral and then go online and discover what is publicly available about you and your business. If they can't find you on search-optimized professional directories, in advertising, on social media they will unconsciously turn toward your competitor. Losing business is just that simple.

There is no magic bullet in communications and marketing. This is true now more than ever. People no longer simply follow up on verbal referrals without considering the entire presence, or lack thereof, of any business. As small business marketeers the burden is on us to create as many high quality touchpoints as possible to reach prospective and current stakeholders.

When we are successful we know it because our phones ring, we earn new business, we sell more product, we receive glowing online reviews and the prospective customer pipeline is full and more importantly, full of potential revenue and engagement.

My advice to small business marketers is don't leave business wide open for your competitor to earn. When you show up, when you touch your customers with high quality content and messaging and invitations to do business you will win even more business.

Test this approach and see what blend of touchpoints works best for your enterprise. It is different for each business and you should define yours now to be even more successful.

• Rebecca Hoffman is the founder and principal of Good Egg Concepts, a strategic communication and brand marketing consulting practice serving clients around Chicagoland and nationally.