Five Senses. Five ways to sell.
Walk into a Nordstroms, Bloomingdales or any large department store. First floor beauty products everywhere. Stroll through, a brand ambassador intercepts you, gives you a sample of a fragrance. Open it up and your sense of smell drives you to purchase. What happened? Simple. An emotional connection has taken over your brain and led to a sale.
Creating emotional connections with customers powerfully influences purchase. This is the advantage that the physical store has over online. Stores connect with in-store experiences that use sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. As a brand, you want to enter the minds and hearts of your customers and prospects through all their five senses.
Marketers know that we learn at a very early age to recognize all of our senses and employ them continuously as we move through life. Effective marketers understand the connection between the senses, emotion, and consumerism and that often, consumers make buying decisions based on strong emotions triggered by any one of the five senses, consciously and often unconsciously. Example: ‘New Car Smell”. An artificial fragrance designed to entice new car buyers created exclusively by the auto industry.
Disney themes park is another good example. Their use of the Smellitzer, a patented scent generator, creates scents around the park. This gives visitors a richer experience when shopping or waiting in an endless line for an attraction.
Taste is a little more difficult. You can’t taste a product on TV screen. But maybe you can. Food photography to the rescue. With special lighting, sprays to make the food glisten and people enjoying that juicy burger, creates hunger and a trip to McDonalds.
Touch has a fascinating recent history. Steve Jobs was the master of the sense of touch. Come into his Apple store. You can feel the products. Designed to look good in your hand. Sleek and shining, you want to pay extra because your senses have sold you out again.
Today the pervasive trend in marketing is to employ experiential techniques to draw and captivate consumers. The how we shop is as important as the why. Engage in all five senses and you will sell lots of products.