How to Drive Online Engagement with Sensory Marketing

Close your eyes and picture a Big Mac burger. As you picture the burger, do you notice that it almost feels as if you can smell the juicy beef and fresh lettuce wafting up your nose? Can you taste the salty fries and acidic ketchup that go with it?

If we’ve got you wanting to race out to the nearest McDonald’s, there’s a good reason. These memories are an example of how sensory marketing affects us. When brands use sensory marketing, they instill sensory cues in us to remind us of their products.

Do you want to use these sensory appeals to reach your own market? Let’s take a look at how sensory advertising can affect your customers and entice them to make a purchase!

Touch

One type of sensory marketing is touch. Touch can be difficult to pull off, especially if you’re marketing products online.

The easiest way to appeal to your customers’ sense of touch is to help them use their imaginations. Here are a few ways that you can do so.

Incorporate Visuals

Our sense of sight affects all of our other senses, including our sense of touch. That’s why using visuals is a great way to help customers get an idea of what your product feels like.

You could showcase close-up photos or videos of your product that give you an idea of what it would feel like to touch your products. And, you could pair that with words and slogans that describe the feel of the product.

The sense of sight affects the other senses, so with visuals of the product, consumers can imagine and picture what your product feels like.

Using Descriptive Words

Words are important in helping customers get an idea of what your product feels like. That’s because they trigger the imagination to let us know what it would be like to touch a product.

Pick words that describe the feel of your product and incorporate them into your advertisements. This can help your customers get an idea of what your product feels like.

Make an Impression

When it comes to first impressions, it’s important that you give your customers a sense of what your product feels like. However, that can be tough to do, especially if you’re doing so virtually.

The easiest way to accomplish this mission is to describe the high-quality materials you use in the product. Or, you can describe the packaging of the product.

Sight

Sight is the main sense that companies target, regardless of what type of product or service you smell. Since humans are visual creatures, this type of marketing is an easy way to connect with customers and entice them to purchase from your brand.

There are tons of different ways that you can use sensory marketing to target customers’ sense of sight. Let’s check out a couple of key strategies for doing so.

Website Design

Your website is usually one of the first points of contact that customers have with your business. When your website is visually pleasing, customers are more likely to stick around and make a purchase from your brand.

In fact, 66% of customers want to look at a visually appealing website. And, those customers are more likely to make a purchase if your website is sleek and has a clean design.

94% of first impressions about your eCommerce brand are related to your site’s web design.

Therefore, make your eCommerce website as visually pleasing as possible. In fact, 66% of people prefer to look at a beautifully designed website if given 15 minutes to consume content.

High-Quality Images

While it’s true that smartphones take great photos, it’s not true that those photos are acceptable for marketing purposes. The quality of your images is one key way of connecting with your products, which means that you should have the best quality images possible.

Make sure to have clear photos that customers can zoom in on. These photos should show off your products in an appealing light and make them enticing to customers.

The better quality your images are, the more likely clients are to click on your products and check them out. That’s why having outstanding quality is critical in sensory marketing.

Videos

Another important aspect of visual marketing is to use marketing videos. Marketing videos are fantastic ways to capture and keep your customers’ attention because they use your sense of sight and sound.

Videos can illustrate your products and your company in action and make it easier for clients to understand their benefits. Plus, if you partner with an influencer, you can add a personal touch to your marketing videos.

Influencer videos provide companies with bonus benefits because they add a personal touch to your marketing. That’s one reason why customers respond so well to this type of sensory marketing.

Sound

When we hear different sounds, we begin to associate them with certain memories or objects. To help your customers remember your brand, you want to create a unique sound for your brand.

With sensory branding surrounding sound, you want to make sure that you create a sound that’s unique and pleasant. It can be easy to cross the line of creating a catchy jingle with creating one that’s annoying and repetitive.

A few ways that you can use sounds in your customers’ buying experience includes:

• Creating a jingle for your brand
• Including a sound when customers add an item to their cart
• Add a sound when customers complete a purchase
• Including music in social media posts

These sounds help reassure customers that they’ve taken an action and that they’re on their way to receiving your product.

Example

One example of using sound in sensory marketing can be seen in MasterCard. MasterCard uses sonic branding, playing sounds after they complete an action using their MasterCard.

Another example of sound in sensory marketing can be seen in Apple Pay. When you successfully complete an Apple Pay purchase, you hear a familiar ring.

The result is that when you hear those same sounds, you remember the brand you’re using. And, you know that your purchase or transaction was successfully completed.

Smell

When it comes to smell, you need to keep in mind that consumers can’t tell what your product smells like without getting up close and personal with your products. And, whether you sell B2B or B2C services, that makes using smell in sensory marketing tricky.

While you might think that it’s impossible to use sensory marketing that caters to smell for advertisements, you’ll need to think again. With some good copywriting skills, you can easily target customers’ sense of smell to advertise your wares.

To help customers use their imaginations about what your product smells like, you’ll want to use content marketing techniques that implement flattering and descriptive words. These should describe the way your product smells so that customers can picture it.

Example

Let’s say that you run a perfume company. You could describe your latest perfume as having the essence of roses with a hint of baby’s breath. This helps customers imagine what your product smells like without physically having it on hand.

Another way that the perfume brand could use smell in sensory marketing is to include scratch-and-smell samples in magazines or mailers. That gives customers a chance to engage with the smell of the brand.

Taste

Another sensory marketing tactic that businesses can use on their customers is taste. Just like how customers aren’t able to smell your products in an advertisement, they can’t taste them either. That means you’ll have to help prod their imaginations to get them to experience the taste.

An easy way to do this is to use descriptive words. Go in-depth when you talk about the tastes and flavors of your products, and mention the wide range of ingredients that you use in your goods.

Example

Say you’re wanting to use sensory appeals for a corn chip brand. You could talk about how the crunchy and crisp truffles are perfect for dipping and how they pair well with spicy salsa or sweet guacamole.

Just that short description already has brought tons of different flavors to mind. The tasty combinations described in that quick paragraph can make it easy for customers to imagine the flavor of your products and make a purchase.

Launch a Successful Sensory Marketing Campaign Today

Now that you’ve seen how sensory marketing can impact the five senses and increase customers’ purchases, it’s time to implement these tactics in your own business. Doing so is a great way to encourage buyers to make a purchase.

If you’re ready to boost your profits with successful sensory marketing tactics, we can help. Get in touch with us today to learn how our business can transform yours through sensory marketing!