Using Sensory Marketing for Real Estate

July 17th, 2015 | by: SM SOLD | Posted in : Marketing, Services

Many marketers today are thinking in five dimensions and applying sensory marketing to their brand. Sensory marketing is marketing that appeals to consumer’s sense of taste, touch, smell, sight and sound. The idea stems from the concept of embodied cognition, which states that a person’s thoughts are heavily influenced by the outside environment and their body, rather than the brain. Many businesses have been adopting sensory marketing to forge an emotional connection with their customers. Because of this, companies have been able to get consumers to step outside the boundaries of their rationality and make emotional purchases.

Sensory marketing can also do wonders for real estate. Appealing to a buyer’s emotions effectively can be the push you need to get them to make an offer. One of the best venues to engage their senses is in an open house. However, sensory tactics can also be cleverly used online as well. Here are some great ways to engage customers using sensory marketing.

Sight

Sight is one of the most important senses and the easiest and most often engaged for marketers. It’s very important to take step to ensure your real estate brand is as visually consistent and appealing as possible. Curb appeal is the name of the game when it comes to open house and staging shots. You can improve your curb appeal by painting, landscaping, or de-cluttering the front of your home. Some extra touches such as lights and flowers will do wonders as well. Sight extends to your property or agent website as well. You want to make sure you have a website that is appealing, easy to navigate, and informative. SM Sold can help make your websites look great with our completely custom solutions.

Smell

The odor of a home is particularly important when it comes to open house. Out of all the senses, smell has the strongest link to memory so it’s imperative that you nail down your home’s odor to make an impression. First, make sure your home is free of any foul odors such as smoke, pet urine, and faulty drains. These odors will quickly turn off open-house visitors and potential buyers. After you’ve eliminated any foul odors, it’s time to use smell to your advantage. It’s common open- house advice to bake a batch of cookies in the oven. This really works wonders as it gives off a cozy and homely feeling that will appeal to visitors. The right scent depends on the type of property you are trying to sell. A seaside scent will appeal best to those interested in a coastal property. Lemon scent works best for upbeat downtown condos. A wilderness cabin home may go well with a rustic pine scent. Try to find the best smell to fit your property.

Taste

Visitors biting into a delicious cookie will also remember its taste and associate it with the home. It doesn’t always have to be cookies though! Get creative with your snacks and offer unique foods that they can associate with the property. More upscale homes should be accompanied with fancier refreshments. Give them a taste to remember!

Sound

Just like smell, sound and music can be used to elicit emotion from prospective buyers. Choosing the right music to fit your brand works great in real estate as well. Choosing a specific theme for a property and setting music to it will definitely affect a viewer’s experience. Consider playing some music for an open house. A downtown property can have upbeat music playing, while a quiet suburban home can settle for piano or jazz music.

Touch

The skin is the largest sensory organ on the body and it’s important to make visitors feel right at an open house. This means de-cluttering, depersonalizing and cleaning the house so that they can sit down and feel right at home. You want your home to be free of dust and move-in ready. Hopefully after the open house, visitors will remember the feeling of being in the property and give you a call for an offer!