If your customers can’t sniff your store out, you’re missing the full brand potential. Scent marketing doesn’t mean your product has to smell like daisies, but adding a smell to your brand can bring in customers, build loyalty and drive in business.
The nose can detect and smell more than one trillion scents. Each one has the potential to evoke memories, change moods or inspire spending.
Real estate agents have been using this trick for years. Making a home more inviting when visitors breath in the smell of freshly baked cookies or the relaxing scent of lavender flowers strategically placed in the foyer.
Scent marketing was first adopted by casinos in the early 1990s. Some studies say it increases spending by 45 percent
Keep reading to learn how scent marketing can bring your business to the next level no matter what products or services you’re offering.
Scent Marketing for Your Brand
People will linger longer in a store or business that smells good. Certain scents can even improve their mood. That means that if you find the right smell, you increase client interaction time and drive sales.
Compliment Your Brand
You don’t want visitors to be overwhelmed with a perfume smell that doesn’t have any consistency with your brand.
A bakery will sell more bread with the mouth-watering aroma of baked goods than a strong flower scent.
You need one that matches the atmosphere and compliments your product.
For instance, you can transport customers to a tropical paradise by introducing the sweet fragrance of coconut and mango.
Help clients relax with gentle whiffs of lavender. Have them drooling for a slice of apple pie with gentle cinnamon aromas reaching their noses and sparking their Pavlovian senses.
Unique Personality for Your Brand
You don’t want to replicate another signature smell and remind them of another brand or competitor. It’s great to have a nostalgic response, but don’t send your clients across the mall for a Cinnabon when you want them shopping for meditation videos.
Don’t be afraid to add your own personality to the scent you’re marketing. Do some research on what works best together. If you’re mixing two or more aromas, have your friends, employees, and family help you decide.
Finding expert advice by someone with scent marketing or holistic aromatherapy may be to your benefit.
Fresh Clothesline, Jasmine, and Amber Musk
These smells can relax visitors and give an extra allure of cleanliness. They can calm emotions and keep a freshness to your space.
Vanilla and Lavender
The aroma of a vanilla bean has been proven to help reduce depression and invoke relaxation and feelings of joy. Many wedding planners or brides choose vanilla candles or diffusers of vanilla at their reception to help create a joyful and relaxing atmosphere.
If you want to add some flair to your brand scent, vanilla can be included in gingerbread or peppermint latte aromas.
Lavender is a scent many hospitals use in waiting rooms to calm patients and families as they wait.
Citrus, Rosemary, Mint Leaf, and Eucalyptus
These scents can energize the mind and stimulate mental alertness while calming anxiety.
Make it more tropical and increase the awakening of your customer’s senses by adding a hint of coconut to your citrus blend. Combine a few until you find the mixture you like most.
Pine Forest and Nature
Pine has many benefits, including reducing stress and depression and clearing the mind (not to mention the sinuses).
Malls use it to help create a holiday atmosphere while shoppers are trying to find the perfect gift. Getting in the Christmas spirit helps them stay longer, spend more and complain less.
Apples and Cinnamon
The scent of apples may reduce migraines according to one study published in Headache Quarterly. It can reduce appetite, balance one’s mood, and promote relaxation.
The aroma of cinnamon can boost your brain power, and stimulate your memory and cognitive attention. This is a great option if you’re giving a sales pitch or proposal to provide services. You don’t want a fragrance that’s going to lull listeners to sleep.
Lemon Grass
This scent can help clients feel calm yet mentally uplifted.
It’s a good choice for outdoor festivals, markets, and shows as it keeps insects away and adds to the already earthy smells of the great outdoors.
Cloves
Clove helps promote digestive health and can even relieve hiccups, indigestion, and motion sickness. Also, it stimulates your body’s metabolism while relaxing your nerves from stress.
The aroma of cloves is often mixed with hints of apples, cinnamon, and other woodsy smells at Christmas time.
Don’t Assault Their Noses
It’s important to make sure any scent marketing is subtle and not overpowering. Use only a few sprays or drops in a diffuser near the center of your space and perhaps in closet, drawers, and sparingly on fabrics.
Be sensitive to those that have perfume and scent allergies by posting signs. Keep the fragrance mildly present without committing assault on your visitors’ noses and senses.
You don’t want fake smelling sprays that only last a few minutes or linger in an overwhelming haze of perfume.
Essential oil concentrates can be an excellent way to fuse scent marketing into your space without it being obvious.
Ensure you follow guidelines for essential oils. Avoid direct contact with your skin as it may cause allergic reactions and other side effects.
The Smell of Success
Scent marketing can truly be the smell of your success. Combining the right fragrances with your other marketing strategies can take your business to new heights and let you reach clients in a completely different way.
If you want to sniff out the perfect aroma for your brand, check out our products or contact us today!
Derek McDoogle
My boss told me that he would like to increase the floor sales and he is asking us for suggestions. I like how you mentioned that finding the right scent, you can increase client interaction time and drive sales. I will definitely tell my boss about this trick to make customers buy more stuff.
Sandra Ledbetter
Will the shop be open Wed Jan 8th. 4 of us would like to make a candle or scent spray at 11:30am. The reason I ask is the comment “closed Wed choose another day” . Not sure if this just applies to NY’ s day or every Wednesday.
m3amy
Yes we are open Wednesday the 8th!