The Verbesserung der Kundenbindung durch Duft is one of the most powerful in creating a customer experience. A pleasant scent can trigger memories that connect to the limbic center of the brain, encouraging a customer to buy more and build an emotional connection with your brand. The right scent is also a great way to differentiate your business from competitors, making you stand out in a crowd of retail stores and restaurants that all share the same ambiance.

Scent Marketing as a Differentiation Strategy

For example, New York’s Plaza Hotel greets guests with their signature gardenia-based scent that follows visitors throughout their stay. This creates a lasting memory of the hotel, making them more likely to revisit in the future. In addition, many brands use scent to distinguish themselves by linking their unique scents with positive experiences. Singapore Airlines infuses their recognizable, floral and citrus scent into the hot towels they offer passengers pre-flight, allowing customers to associate the airline’s brand with a calming, relaxing trip. Similarly, some NIKE flagship stores experiment with thematic scenting to draw in customers from specific areas of their store, like using the scent of freshly cut grass in their golf sections or the aroma of basketball rubber in areas where that product is featured.

For perfume brands, introducing a scent to customers is the start of a relationship that goes far beyond the initial allure of a particular fragrance. By intertwining a scent with an experience, like the memory of a vacation, or by offering deluxe sample sizes for customers to take home, companies like Jo Malone London can encourage customers to revisit their fragrance and build a lifelong bond with the brand.