Black Friday, which will take place on November 24, 2023, traditionally marks the start of the Christmas shopping season, when consumers flock to stores to purchase gifts for their loved ones. This tradition began in the United States, where retail stores marked the start of the season by offering discounts to attract customers and make large sales.
Scent marketing can be used to great effect during this period, not only enhancing the experience for customers but also enticing them to come back for more. It is an excellent opportunity to embed your brand into their hearts and minds using the powerful effects of olfactory branding.
Let’s take a look at some Black Friday scent marketing strategies that your retail store might use to make the most of the opportunity and create a memorable and immersive shopping experience for customers.
Choose Your Fragrance Carefully
One of the most important things to plan is the scent you will use to align with the brand and products you sell. There are endless varieties of different aromas for you to choose from, with an infinite number of ways to blend them to create something distinct yet memorable.
Many brands choose to develop signature scents that customers can associate with the store. The scent should be designed to evoke pleasant and positive memories and emotions so that, over time, your customers will associate that aroma with your brand and the experience they had purchasing and using your products.
Choosing the right aroma requires a lot of planning and forethought. There are many different ways to go about this, but it will always require some degree of testing through trial and error to find the perfect fragrance.
If you plan on using scent marketing as part of your Black Friday marketing strategy, you should start planning for it now by experimenting with different fragrances to find one that works best for your brand.
Consider Using Seasonal Scents
One of the most powerful scent marketing strategies is to employ seasonal scents to evoke a sense of nostalgia among your customers. Seasonal scents associated with the holiday season can help foster a festive atmosphere and encourage shoppers to get into the holiday spirit. This can encourage purchasing behaviour and lead customers to develop positive memories and associations linked to your brand.
For the Christmas season, you could go with traditional Christmas scents such as cinnamon or pine. In some South African stores, where Christmas falls in the summer, they might choose to go with aromas like coconut or jasmine, among others.
Whatever the case, if you choose to go with a seasonal scent, you should ensure that it is linked with other sensory elements to create a cohesive atmosphere of festivity and good cheer. This might involve music and visual elements that tie in with the seasonal themes.
Creating a more cohesive sensory experience can leave a lasting impression on customers, resulting in a better overall outcome for your scent marketing strategy.
Be Consistent And Subtle
One of the most important factors in ensuring that your scent marketing strategy is effective is to ensure that the aroma is consistent and not overwhelming. Scents that draw too much attention to themselves can be distracting and even off-putting to certain customers.
Therefore, the scent should ideally be detectable but should remain somewhat in the customer’s subconscious. Additionally, the scent should be consistent in terms of both fragrance and diffusion. To achieve the best effect, it should not be obvious to the customer where the scent is coming from. It should simply fill the space evenly, with no area being necessarily stronger-smelling than any other.
If you are looking for scent marketing products and services, ranging from fragrances to diffusion devices, contact us at Scent.ology today. We can help you leverage a Black Friday scent marketing strategy!
