Bon's Eye Marketing

Grow Beyond

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Does Your Company Pass the Sniff Test?

Strange but true: I learned about scent, or olfactory, marketing in a local men’s restroom. The men’s room was in a legitimate dining establishment – one of the region’s oldest – and I happened to occupy this space with a man who was attending the same event I was. Naturally, we exchanged pleasantries, including our respective vocations.

When he said he worked for a company that did scent research and sales, I just had to dig for more, especially considering our present environment.

14532442_mlWhat is scent marketing? I asked, incredulously.

He explained that as more and more businesses – restaurants and hotels, for example – search for ways to connect emotionally with customers that many have found the answer right under their nose – literally. Science has proven that smell is one of the strongest human senses and is closely linked with memory.

9896726_mThink fresh cut grass. Wet paint. A campfire. An old girlfriend/boyfriend’s perfume/cologne.

Smells and scents connect us to unique life experiences. And whether we smell them at age 5 or 65, they elicit the same powerful emotions – emotions marketers hope will move us to make purchases that confirm, validate and sometimes even help us relive our most cherished experiences.

At Bon’s Eye Marketing, one of our biggest jobs is finding ways to help businesses appeal to their customers’ senses such that they engage, invest and return. Companies, and the products or services they provide, must be visually appealing, have a distinct message, and speak the ideals and language of their demographic.

And, now, according to some industry experts – and the fact that scent marketing is a $200 million a year business – marketers may well have to begin incorporating the proverbial sniff test in their client strategy.

40852965_mlBEM’s signature scent is Lemon-Rosemary. It permeates our studio office on 228 North Front Street in downtown Wilmington. It refreshes, invigorates and opens our minds to endless possibilities. We’d like to think it does the same for clients and all those who come and go here.

As for my fellow restroom-goer and scent marketing expert, I’ve never seen him again. His lesson in scent marketing has stuck, though, as now I look more and more to my nose for the things I see and want around me.

team-dave

 

   David Frederiksen, Creative Director

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Conferences are Good for You (and your Bottom Line)

Love your job but feel like you work in a silo? Feel disconnected from your industry or profession? Do stacks of outdated trade journals litter your office? Then get thee to an industry or professional development conference!  

Team BEM just returned from the Carolinas Healthcare and Public Relations Marketing Society (CHPRMS) annual conference at Asheville’s venerable Grove Park Inn. BEM staffers not only attended this unforgettable conference but also helped make it happen as the conference’s official brand and message team! We created the conference theme (Healthcare through the Looking Glass), designed the various collateral and strutted around as Wallie the walrus, the society’s official brand mascot (yah, kinda’ creepy but, hey, we’ve accepted the invitation to do it again next year.)

We had a BLAST, learned a lot and made some great connections, all of which got us thinking about the importance of these settings. Below, we offer up our Top 5 conference takeaways, including some photos. We hope they inform and amuse, while inspiring you to attend your own industry or professional development conference! 

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You can’t do business like this over the phone – There’s still no substitute for face-to-face business networking. The firm handshake, the eye contact, even the exchange of that old relic the business card. Team BEM exceeded its wildest expectations in this department. Interacting with folks in your industry and/or pitching a product/service sharpens you. It gets you back on top of your game and, most important, it gets people around you cheering.

Admiring the competition – Conference settings allow you to see the scope of your industry and those who operate in it. You get to see really cool stuff and talk to really cool people. Seeing the competition helps you appreciate where you are and where you want to be.

My pain is your pain – When people gather, they share experiences and challenges. Conferences are no different. Our team learned pretty quick that the difficulties our creative agency faces are the same faced at other creative agencies. Having someone validate your experience and, reciprocally, validating others’ experiences, empowers.

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Perspective – New environments full of like-minded folks can often give rise to new ideas or help supplement existing ones. Simply being in a spacious, beautiful and plush place – often the MO of most conferences – sometimes makes for the right conditions to connect otherwise elusive dots.

Team Bonding – Undeniably Team BEM’s biggest conference win. And probably always will be. Not that you have to take colleagues or co-workers with you (in fact, you may be sprinting to the door alone, having changed your contact info.), but I will say that hanging out with co-workers in a non-office setting allows you to experience them in a way that actually pays big dividends back at the office.

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Get Attention and MORE with a Solid Marketing Plan

I’ve built a career on getting attention. Some of my past antics make me want to bury my head. Others (still) make me gesture in triumph. For much of this behavior, there was no rhyme or reason. Instinct, maybe. Something in the blood. Most days, I got what I wanted: a name for myself.

Dave

Lucky for BEM clients, I’m using that same zest for attention to get their names known – or, more precisely, the names of their companies, products and services. This doesn’t happen on accident or purely by instinct, however. It happens because there’s a plan.

At BEM, we know strategic marketing is crucial to paving the way for long-term exposure. It’s the map that steers your brand to the appropriate target market, and as a result, moves the needle towards greater sales generation.

Without a plan, the path to success practically becomes invisible. Worse yet, your brand is without purpose. Products and services are left hobbling on their own, blindly navigating an already crowded marketplace.

Therefore, we urge you to chart a brand course before setting out on a whim. When building your marketing plan, consider these areas:

budgetBudget. Creating and sustaining any effective marketing or advertising plan takes money. There, I said it. It takes money to build and implement the parts that move your marketing campaign to get customers to engage, invest and return. That said, your plan needn’t be grandiose; it just has to be sustainable such that you achieve some degree of brand awareness and market penetration.

Mwritingtool2essage. Many businesses with great products go off the rails here. Yes, your product looks good, but what does it say? Every product or service has a deeper story. What inspired its creation? How did it come to be? What’s its purpose and how will it benefit customers? Be sure you know your marketing message and stick to it across all media platforms.

email147Delivery and Distribution. If your product or service caters to urban sophisticates who listen to public radio, then you probably have no business advertising it on a niche TV channel that airs old Westerns. Figuratively speaking, go where your customers go. Think about how they consume information, their buying habits and where best they can learn about you. Get into their heads and you’ll have no trouble getting into their wallets.

A sound marketing plan not only ensures your product or service necessary attention but also proper direction. When building your plan, think hard about who your customers are, how your product or service will enhance their lives, and where they’re most likely to welcome this information.

team-dave
 
    David Frederiksen, Creative Director

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