The nose knows. Often, direct mail marketing campaigns utilize the sense of sight to compel the reader to action through informative writing and engaging imagery. However, in forgoing the other three senses, companies lose out on a critical way to engage with customers: scent. In fact, 72% of consumers report that interacting with a fragrance assists in their buying decision (Brandsen Agency).
American Litho understands that the sense of smell can be a powerful marketing tool. That’s why we’re leading the charge to make scented direct mail popular and effective for businesses to increase customer acquisition, drive engagement, and improve brand recognition. Keep reading to learn how American Litho can help your company tap into the power of scent to see results.
What is scent direct mail marketing?
Scent direct mail marketing seamlessly blends effective scent marketing techniques with direct mail campaigns through scented coating, scent encapsulated labels and more, to create a pleasant olfactory appeal that promotes customer engagement.Â
The sense of smell is the most potent sense tied to memory formation and is especially useful when you want to deliver brand messaging in a quick, efficient, and lasting manner. Scent direct mail marketing is effective at producing measurable and reliable outcomes in a number of ways, including:
- Ameliorated ROI within direct mail marketing campaigns
- Increased acquisition rates through improved brand identity
- Strengthen customer engagement and higher recall ability
- Promotions and savings through USPS
Engage your customer’s senses to drive ROI and increase your direct mail campaign’s success rate
According to the Journal of Marketing Science, around 75% of our daily emotions are directly affected by smell. As such, when companies leverage the power of smell to tap into the customer’s emotion to dizzying results – studies found that ads that generated an above-average emotional response enjoyed a 23% lift in sales (Nielson).
Because of the effectiveness of scent on emotions, scent direct mail marketing is an adept strategy to improve ROI while increasing response rates.
Incorporate multi-sense marketing to increase brand identity and acquisition
Scent plays an important role in how customers perceive the world and can therefore be used to enhance the experience of your brand to increase customer acquisition. Customers can find themselves drawn to your brand as a result of the scented direct mailers’ ability to:
- Create a memorable experience by tapping into customer emotions that are generated by a scent that results in customer acquisition. (For example, the smell of a new car can incite feelings of excitement that can motivate a customer to visit a car dealership.)
- Enhance customer recognition through scent association
- Remind customers of previous company interactions, thereby increasing the likelihood of the customer both associating your brand identity with scent and performing the desired action
Improve recall and capture customer attention for longer with multi-sense marketing
Scent marketing campaigns effectively capitalize on a scent’s ability to trigger memories by inducing a flow state in customers. The flow state, described as a state of existence in which a customer loses their normal sense of time and is consumed within the moment, can last up to several minutes and results in deep customer engagement while commanding attention.
Flow states further create intimate moments between customers and companies that result in a higher likelihood of the customer recalling the company or product later on, especially when the scent is reinforced through repetitive campaign use or use within a brick-and-mortar location.
Read More on the impact of Multisensory Marketing.
Increase response rates while decreasing costs with the USPS TSI Engagement Promotion
Scent direct mail marketing is not only a useful method of engaging customers to increase acquisition and response rate – it is also a highly cost-effective solution for your print marketing needs.
In 2022, the USPS introduced the TSI (Tactile, Sensory, and Interactive) Mailpiece Engagement Promotion to motivate companies to align multi-sense marketing with their direct mail campaigns. Under this promotion, eligible mailers who incorporate a multi-sensory experience in their mailpiece are able to receive a postage discount.
The United States Postal Service has extended this promotion to 2023 and have increased the possible discount to 5% in addition to accepting scent on the outside of an envelope as well as the inside.
It just makes perfect scents! Reach out to American Litho for all of your scent direct mail marketing needs.
Already smell the success of your first scent direct mail marketing campaign? Reach out to American Litho. We are leading experts in the field of direct mail printers and have the experience and knowledge needed to help you successfully implement scent into your direct mail marketing campaign. Ready to get started? Have a question? Share a few details to get in touch.
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