What Is Sensory Marketing, and How Can a Small Brand Use It?
6 min read
Written by Yuxuan Du, Intern
Sensory marketing means reaching customers through sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. According to Aradhna Krishna, a marketing professor at the University of Michigan, it can change how people perceive a product and what they decide to buy.
Many people may think that sensory marketing is something only big brands can pull off. But it doesn’t have to be expensive. It can also be used by small businesses and incorporated into everyday marketing. It’s just about finding something to fit the product.
Think of a coffee shop: people can often smell the coffee before they even walk in. Or picture someone opening a nicely designed package. There’s a good chance they’ll remember that brand the next time they shop. These are both forms of sensory marketing.
Why Does It Work?
Sometimes we don’t even realize how much our senses can influence our purchase decisions.
In 1997, researchers ran an experiment at a supermarket in the UK. Researchers played French music on some days and German music on other days in the wine aisle of the store.
When French music was playing, more customers purchased French wine. When the German music was playing, more customers bought German wine. However, when researchers asked customers why they chose their wine, only one of the 44 people who answered mentioned the music.
Most customers would have assumed they were making the decision themselves and weren’t affected by the music.
Our smell can also influence what we remember. In another study, researchers gave people some pencils. Some were scented, and others were not. Two weeks later, 73% of what people remembered about the unscented pencils was forgotten. For the scented ones, it was only 8%.
Touch works the same way. In a study by Joann Peck and Suzanne Shu, researchers discovered that by touching something, a person is more likely to feel like they already have that product. Because of this, they may be inclined to pay more for it.
It works the other way too: if the product feels bad or uncomfortable, people may want it less.
All of this shapes what people remember and what they end up buying.
Using the Five Senses
No brand needs all five senses. It depends on what’s being sold.
Sight
For sight, the easiest place to start (and the cheapest) is keeping the design consistent across platforms.
In practice, that means a small business using the same colors and fonts on its Instagram posts, its website, and its packaging.
See the same shade of pink often enough, and it starts to mean that brand. When the design changes every other week, that link never gets a chance to form.
Sound
Sound is something that brands can use in videos.
A brand that posts a lot on TikTok or Instagram can reuse one short sound across its videos. (Netflix’s two-note “ta-dum” is the famous example.)
Nobody needs a full jingle. A few seconds of music, or even a simple sound effect, can be enough.
Hear it a few times, and people start linking it to the brand without trying.
Smell
Smell is the obvious one for brands selling candles, skincare, or anything else with a scent.
A candle brand, for instance, could tuck a scented card into each package, so the smell reaches customers the moment the box opens.
Research by Krishna found that customers remembered the scented products more when the smell was on the product rather than just in the room.
It doesn’t take much. One small card in the box can do the job.
Touch
Touch matters because, most of the time, a customer wants to know how a product feels before buying it.
Is the fabric soft? Does the cream feel smooth or sticky? Those are the questions shoppers have.
Packaging counts too, since a box that feels good in the hand makes whatever is inside seem better.
Pop-up events are the easy win here: let people pick things up and try them.
For an online store, this is not possible, but close-up videos of the products can be shown so a customer has a better idea of how the product feels.
Taste
Taste is pretty straightforward. It works best for food and drinks.
A bakery can give customers a small piece of cake to try. A coffee shop can offer a sample of a new drink.
If customers like the taste, they may be inclined to make a purchasing decision.
But a clothing or skincare brand probably wouldn’t need to think about taste.
Sometimes, brands can use two senses together.
Dunkin’ Donuts did something like this in South Korea. When a Dunkin’ radio ad played on buses in Seoul, a coffee scent was released at the same time.
After the campaign, the number of visits to nearby stores went up by 16%, and sales by 29%.
Dunkin’ didn’t simply tell people to purchase its coffee. It used something that people can hear and smell to make them think of coffee.
How to Start Without Spending Too Much
For small brands, the smart move is to start with something simple rather than overhaul everything at once.
Figure out where customers usually find the brand. Is it Instagram? TikTok? The website, or a physical store?
Then picture what they see, hear, or feel when they use the product.
A candle brand probably wants people to remember the scent. A skincare brand might want to focus on how the product feels. A coffee shop has the smell and taste part of the business already.
After deciding on one or two senses, the brand can decide what it wants to use.
Maybe it wants to have the same colors on each package. Maybe it wants to use a short sound for its videos. Or maybe it wants to include a scented card in each order.
Test it on a small scale.
For example, a brand could send out some packages with a scented card and others without one. Then, it could ask customers about their impression.
For social media, it could post two similar videos with and without a special sound and see how people react.
Small businesses do not have to spend a lot of money before knowing whether something will work.
What Should Brands Avoid?
One of the problems is using something that does not fit the product.
There is an example in the Harvard Business Review about a heating pad. When researchers added a cinnamon smell, people felt that the heating pad worked better because cinnamon is commonly associated with warmth.
That makes sense. But what if a product has a smell that does not have anything to do with it? Customers may not understand why the brand is using the smell.
Another problem is doing too much.
If a store has the music playing really loud, customers may not be in the mood to stay. The same can happen with a really strong smell. Some people are also sensitive to perfume.
Brands should also not change too often.
If the design changes every time customers visit a brand’s Instagram page, they won’t remember it.
After making a change, marketers should check whether anyone noticed.
Reviews and social media comments are a good place to look. So are unboxing videos and repeat orders.
Asking customers what they remember about the brand works too.
If people start mentioning the packaging, the scent, or the feel of the products, the brand’s sensory marketing is working.
Final Thoughts
Sensory marketing can be very powerful for small businesses because brands don’t need to spend a lot of money to put a sensory strategy in place.
When it comes to sensory marketing for small brands, it doesn’t have to mean expensive campaigns to trigger all the senses. Simple colors, scents, or sounds on packaging and social media can make a real difference.
It has to match the product and be memorable.
Brands can start with one small change, see how customers react, and add more only if it works.
Sources
Krishna, Journal of Consumer Psychology (2012): An integrative review of sensory marketing
The Decision Lab: How in-store music increased French wine sales by 330%
ScienceDaily: Krishna, Lwin and Morrin on product scent and memory (2009)
ScienceDaily: Peck and Shu on touch and perceived ownership (2009)
Harvard Business Review: The Science of Sensory Marketing (March 2015)
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