Using scent in marketing is big business, spanning all sorts of different industries. It can be hugely effective, but its full potential can only be properly realised if it is executed properly.
It is extremely important to ask the right questions when choosing a marketing provider to ensure that you make the most of every benefit on offer.
What service can you provide?
It is a fact that inferior contacts, poor-quality parts and inconsistent service maintenance can severely diminish the effectiveness of this sort of marketing effort. That is why it is important to consider the quality of the service on offer before deciding on your provider.
What is your understanding of the consumer experience?
Your scent marketing should attract different types of consumers, those who want to spend time learning about your brand. You want your provider to understand this and know how scent can be used to create a really immersive brand experience and begin the development of long-standing brand loyalty.
What is your understanding of scent and modern consumers?
Your provider should know that consumers in the modern world want meaningful brand connections. These should offer everything from sustainability and social awareness to authenticity. The brand message must align with their ideals in order for these connections to be valid.
How much do you understand about using scent in marketing?
As described at http://www.fifthsense.org.uk/psychology-and-smell/, smell is an extremely powerful and important sense, and effective scent marketing relies on a knowledge of the advances in the field of cognitive science. Keep in mind that adults are able to distinguish a massive 10,000 different and diverse smells.
It is also important to note that aromas travel initially to the brain’s limbic system, the area that controls emotions and feelings. This is what sets smell apart from the four other human senses.
Do you have an understanding of scent statistics and appeal?
Scents can greatly influence buying patterns while increasing sales and profits and promoting a feeling of familiarity. Successful store scents have been shown to increase purchasing intent by as much as 80 per cent. One piece of research even found that a chain of convenience stores could boost sales by 300 per cent simply by introducing a fresh coffee aroma in the vicinity of the vehicle fuel pumps where people were filling up.