Did you know that you can use the five human senses in your business? Read on to learn about sensory system marketing and the examples of how you can leverage it to grow your business.
Marketing strategies have no limit!
If we look closer at the most basic human needs, psychology, and interactions, there are many ways we can tap to market our business. For example, we can utilize the five love languages for marketing, which we have covered in this article.
Following the spirit, let’s talk about sensory system marketing.
Yes, we can use our basic human senses to market our business.
Although, some of you might wonder, “I’m running a digital business, how is it possible to do sensory marketing?”
Worry not, most of our clients are also digital companies and we’re going to give examples of digital sensory system marketing for your perusal.
What is digital sensory system marketing?
Most of us are blessed with five senses that help us go about our days and enjoy life to the fullest. We have:
- 👀 Sight
- 👅 Taste
- 👐 Touch
- 👂 Hearing
- 👃 Smell
Let’s see how you can utilize each sense to amplify your marketing strategy.
1. Sight 👀
Humans are visual creatures. Research even reveals that the majority of us (65% of humans!) are visual learners. This means that for most people, our sight is the primary sense when it comes to getting to know and understand something — including brands and marketing.
You can help your audience recognize your brand when they see something even remotely close to it through your choice of:
- Colors
- Graphics
- Images
- Font types
- Videos
- Layouts
…And basically anything that the eyes can see!
2. Taste 👅
If your business belongs to the food and beverage industry, the sense of taste is a piece of cake — quite literally.
You can give out free samples in the supermarket or at a pop-up bazaar, hold a giveaway on your social media, send an extra freebie for every purchase, or display mouth-watering product pictures on your digital and non-digital marketing assets.
Other industries, however, require more creative approaches. If we’re thinking out loud, here are a few things you can do to nudge the taste bud when marketing your digital products or services:
- Display fruit images 🍎🥝🍓 to convey fresh feelings, or nature images 🌲⛰️🍂 to be perceived as calm and serene
- Choose brand or product colors that are associated with food such as matcha, pomegranate, or chocolate 🍫
- When you send your customers’ orders, give out edible freebies — like candies or marshmallows — to create a sweet perception.
3. Touch 👐
The sense of touch can be easily implemented in brick-and-mortar stores, where people can literally touch and even try your products. Yet, it might be a bit tough if your business mostly runs on digital.
Worry not, though. Here are a couple of tricks from us:
Create a seamless UI
While your customers are not able to interact directly with your products or services, their interactions with your website, mobile app, and social media accounts play a very important role in the overall user journey.
And you can make every click, touch, and swipe a part of a great overall experience for your users. Optimize the flow map of your website and app, test every button and link to make sure they function properly, and pay attention to how you narrate your message on your social media.
Exciting post-online interactions
Even if you market your brand on digital platforms, you can still kindle the sense of touch through the physical packages you send to your customers.
Whether you sell products like clothing or gadgets, or you provide services and you want to send out a thank-you hamper — invest some time and budget to create thoughtful packaging that provides a delightful unboxing experience.
4. Hearing 👂
Some sounds just stick to certain brands, don’t they? To name a few:
- Apple’s keyboard clicking sound
- Windows’ starting up sound
- Netflix’s intro sound
That being said, you may want to set aside some budget to hire a freelance sound maker or producer to establish your brand’s particular tune, be it a full-blown jingle, a musicalized tagline, or a catchy tone to pronounce your brand name.
5. Smell 👃
The sense of smell can also be challenging for digital sensory system marketing. But, similar to taste, you can play around with images or music to incorporate the desired smell into your branding and marketing strategy.
For example, you can display images of flowers like lavender or rose 🌹 on your website. Or you may also want to add the sound of waves 🌊 to your videos for people to recall the salty air of the ocean.
Meanwhile, perfumes and room fragrances are your best friends when it comes to building the sense of smell in offline services and stores.
Do you need to use all 5 senses of marketing?
To tell the truth, one sense alone can enhance the others. For example, seeing a picture of orange makes you feel fresh and healthy, and it makes you smell citrus at the same time. You can also play around with 2-3 senses at a time.
Avoid using all five senses altogether, though. That would make your digital sensory system marketing too overdone and overwhelming.
Like this article?
Get resources like this emailed to you! Sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter below. You’ll be the first to get notified of new articles that can help you learn more about digital marketing, branding, web design, and web support.
Or book a free intro call to discuss how to use sensory system marketing on your website project with us! We are a woman owned agency in Chicago with over twenty years of combined experience.
