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Bringing in More Customers through Scent Marketing

Dec 11, 2014

You tend to hear a lot about how color is used in marketing in order to evoke certain emotions in the consumer. Greens are thought to represent health and freshness, while reds are commonly believed to conjure emotions of excitement and immediacy. However, in restaurant marketing strategy, using the sense of smell opens up huge opportunities.

 

You know that warm fuzzy feeling you feel when you smell freshly baked chocolate chips cookies? Does it remind you of home? Studies have shown that smells can induce mood changes and strong emotions and associations. Why not incorporate this into your restaurant and elevate the customer experience?

 

Actually, many restaurants already do this and recently Starbucks unveiled its mega roastery in Seattle. The Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room mega-store is a 15,000 square foot super store where patrons can take in the coffee culture via all their five senses, especially through smell where the aroma of the roasting coffee saturates the air. This Business Insider article notes how Panera Bread experimented with aroma by changing baking hours to take advantage of the scent of their baked goods.

 

The bottom line is that scent marketing can help you bring in foot traffic and enhance the guest experience, with the potential of boosting sales.

Coffee at Pronto photo credit: Ruth Hartnup License CC by 2.0