Follow Your Nose: Strategies for Selling with Scent

Selling with Scent

Selling with scent is nothing new but few actually know about it or are implementing it. Your sense of smell is very closely linked with your memories. You only have to smell something familiar from your childhood for instance to be instantly transported back in time.

It is therefore no coincidence that aroma marketing can be very successful in persuading customers to buy. Just a whiff of the smell of freshly baked bread, or perhaps some coffee brewing, is all that is needed to instantly send some powerful messages to our brain.

If you are looking for an effective sales strategy, it may pay to follow your nose and consider the idea of selling with scent.

Marketers are waking up to the power of scent marketing

In a sort of wake up and smell the coffee moment, it seems that marketers are becoming increasingly aware of how powerful a selling tool scent really is.

Our emotions are closely linked with our senses and a pleasant or familiar aroma can quickly evoke some powerful memories or simply put you in a positive mood. This is good news for the store owner.

The way we are wired means that smells are likely to trigger an emotive response within us, more quickly and powerfully than a visual or auditory cue can manage. This is apparently due to the fact that smell is our only sense that has a direct connection to your brain’s limbic system; the area where our emotions and memories are stored.

Influencing customer behavior

The science behind how scent marketing works is fascinating. It is not hard to see why this form of marketing is growing at such a rapid rate when you understand that ambient scent is considered to have a strong influence on our purchasing decisions.

According to a study carried out by the Global Journal of Commerce and Management in 2013, ambient scent was shown to have the strongest impact of all of the senses, when it comes to influencing and enhancing consumer’s emotional response. This in turn increased their purchasing intentions.

Smell can become a brand

Most of us can instantly recognize a global brand logo like the golden arches of a certain burger chain or the large tick of a sportswear company, so it is interesting to consider the prospect that some companies are now attempting to “own” a specific aroma that customers will attribute to their brand.

You can only imagine how persuasive and powerful a unique scent could become if it became directly attributed to a specific brand. No one will be able to “own” the smell of freshly brewed coffee or home-baked bread of course, yet a unique fragrance that is used throughout every store could soon become as recognizable as a visual logo.

Hotels, banks, even major auto manufacturers are all working at establishing a signature scent that they believe will help to reinforce their brand identity with customers.

Smell association

It is understood that a big part of our emotional response to a certain smell is heavily influenced by association. This can mean that different people will likely have diverse reactions and perceptions of the same smell.

This has always been the challenge for perfume manufacturers. One person may be instantly drawn to a certain brand and start an allegiance to that brand that can last a lifetime, whereas someone else may find that same scent too overpowering for their liking.

Think about a beloved grandma. If you smell her perfume somewhere, you instantly recall an image of her in your mind. Maybe it’s the smell of a certain item of cooking, that reminds you of someone or somewhere in particular. This familiarity invokes emotional responses and highlights the power of smell association. It also confirms the idea that with certain scents you need to strike a balance so as to create as universal an appeal as possible.

What scent marketing can do for you

There are some persuasive arguments attached to the idea of scent marketing and along with potentially increasing your sales revenue, it has the capacity to enhance customer perception of your brand.

Another excellent point to consider about scent marketing is that if you get it right, there is a fair chance that you will be able to encourage repeat purchasing tendencies and enhance brand loyalty.

When you consider that a wide range of well-established brands are currently using or experimenting with scent marketing, you can take the hint as to the perceived power of getting customers to follow their nose.

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