3 Ways to Use Scent Marketing for a Better Client Experience in Your Fitness Center or Spa

Aug 22, 2018 | Fitness Centers & Mind-Body Studios, Spas, Steam Rooms & Saunas

Have you ever gone into a retail store just because of the lovely, enticing smell wafting out of it? Have you ever lingered in a shop that smells great and just felt happy to be in there? Retailers are catching on to what spa owners and operators have known for a long time: scents can enhance the guest experience, create a bond with a brand, persuade people to linger longer, and even positively influence buying behavior.

Perhaps as spa owner/operator, you’re not employing scents consciously, but your facilities smell great anyway. What do you think the results would be if there was mindful intention behind what scents and fragrances your guests are experiencing while at your spa?

Fitness center operators may want to consider thinking about how their facilities smell — do you think your clients have a positive connotation when it comes to the smell of your equipment, mats and locker rooms? Think about it: you can be the gym or hot yoga studio that actually smells great and has little to no ick factor!

Clearly, Katy’s been to some great spas that have put the power of Eucalyptus oil to work!

What is Scent Marketing?

Scent marketing, scent branding, and aroma marketing all refer to the sensory marketing that targets the consumer’s sense of smell in order to improve the customer experience, increase sales, develop brand awareness, and nurture brand loyalty and connection.

Research has shown that scent has the ability to evoke an emotional response and is closely linked with memory, more than any of the other senses. Scientists have found that odors that trigger strong, emotional memories more so than visual stimuli. The perfume industry is built around this knowledge, and perfumers have been developing scents for decades to convey and evoke a wide range of emotions. And as many of us know from personal experience, the scent of a perfume or a cologne can bring us right back to a moment in time, whether positive or negative. Smell is a powerful thing.

Aromatherapy is the natural version of perfuming and has become popular both on the home front and in commercial use. Aromatherapy is the practice of using natural oils extracted from flowers, bark, stems, leaves, roots, or other parts of a plant to enhance psychological and physical well-being as a form of alternative medicine. The inhaled aroma from these essential oils stimulates brain function, as science has shown. Aromatherapy also involves essential oils being absorbed through the skin, where they travel through the bloodstream to promote whole-body healing. As an alternative medicine, aromatherapy is used for a variety of uses including pain relief, mood enhancement, and increased cognitive function.

Why should you use Scent Marketing in your spa or fitness center?

Savvy spas use aromatherapy as a foundation for their experience and build on it for scent marketing. Our customers use our eucalyptus oil ShowerMist in their steam rooms for a number of benefits, but usually, the main reason is simply to make the steam room smell amazing. Having an amazing-smelling steam room keeps guests lingering for maximum relaxation, and creates fond memories of your facilities.

Practitioners are also starting to use ambient scenting and aromatherapy during treatments both as therapy and alternative medicine but this may not necessarily be scent marketing, just good practice: guests are gently eased further into relaxation with calming scents such as lavender.

Retailers who use ambient scenting, or diffusing a pleasant aroma in a space, do so in order to influence customer behavior — their intention is to create a pleasant atmosphere with a scent that eventually nudges customers towards a purchase. Data has shown that people stay as much as 44% longer in businesses that smell good.

Astute fitness center operators use aromatherapeutic scent marketing to differentiate themselves in the highly-saturated marketplace: they’re the ones whose facilities and equipment smell clean, fresh and energizing, uplifting the moods of their clientele when they work out. How many gyms can say with confidence that they actually smell clean and nice?

In terms of product, research indicates that scent affects the moods of shoppers and a good product with a poor fragrance strategy isn’t likely to go over well with consumers. In today’s crowded marketplace, fragrance changes the game and gives products a distinct edge among others for selection on the store shelves. Fragrance is often a deciding factor, and it is a matter of survival of the nicest smelling when two similar products are offered at similar prices. What would you rather have on your retail shelves: a product that naturally smells fabulous with scents that people love and recognize or one that smells like a perfumy chemical scent not found in nature? Apparently, well-received ambient scents can positively influence purchase behavior if the scent seems to match the products in the store.

A scent’s main role is to make the customer feel comfortable, happy and put them at ease so they will spend more time in the store, spend more money and ultimately make them more likely to return. For spas and fitness centers, this means repeat visits, customer loyalty, and higher spends in the retail areas.

3 Ways to Use Scent Marketing for a better guest experience

1) Spas and fitness centers should always use eucalyptus oil in the steam room.

Beyond just making it smell fantastic, eucalyptus has proven health benefits in wet and humid areas: steam-borne eucalyptus oil wipes out bacteria and microbes before they can get a foothold in a steam room. Mold and mildew become a non-existent worry with a steady diffusion of eucalyptus oil.

For aromatherapy, using eucalyptus in the steam room is great as a powerful antidote against mental fatigue, general sluggishness, and bad moods. For an even better guest experience, try one of our ShowerMist infusions to deliver a different aromatherapeutic benefit:

• Lavender-Infused ShowerMist ($33.95 retail for 8oz) is calming and helps relieve stress.
• Tea Tree-Infused ShowerMist ($35 retail for 8oz) is great in the wintertime to alleviate coughs and colds.
• Citrus-Infused ShowerMist ($33.95 retail for 8oz) is energizing and reduces anxiety.
• Menthol-Infused ShowerMist ($31.95 retail for 8oz) is uplifting and a great energy-booster.
• Mint-Infused ShowerMist ($10.15 retail for 2oz) is refreshing and mentally-stimulating.

(All of our ShowerMist products are available in commercial sizes and wholesale prices. If you don’t have a wholesale account with us yet, call us to get set up, or register online.)

Make commercial diffusing easy in your steam rooms using our Mystifier Automatic Injection System — no more need for hand-spraying or clumsy bowls that need constant refilling.

2)  For the mind-body areas, clean your equipment and facilities using cleansers with natural germ-fighters and aromatherapeutic benefits.

This 2-for-1 deal is good for mind, body and planet — everyone wins. While there are plenty of natural cleaners on the market, very few have been designed with spas and fitness centers in mind.

Our Lavender-Infused Yoga Mat Cleaner ($12 retail for 16oz) was created with yoga mats in mind, but we quickly realized that it actually performs exceptionally well all over any mind-body and fitness areas. Our Yoga Mat Cleaner uses plant-based oils and enzymatic action to effectively remove makeup, perspiration, body oils and dirt without degrading surfaces.

Our Yoga Mat Cleaner infused with pure lavender oil does double-duty in mind-body studios. First, it effectively cleans mats and props naturally, without any danger of degrading surfaces or changing the color of those surfaces. Next, because it’s infused with Lavender oil, it acts as a tonic for the nerves and anxiety issues. Lavender’s refreshing aroma removes nervous exhaustion and restlessness while also increasing mental activity, so students are calmed as soon as they hit the mat or the Reformer, making for a deeper practice or workout from the start.

Fitness Centers can change the perception of gyms and help their clients love the smell of their facilities. Studio owners know and love our Yoga Mat Cleaner for its ability to freshen up yoga mats. Pilates instructors discovered it was also fantastic on apparatus and equipment like the Reformer and the Wunda Chair. Gyms and Fitness Centers also found that the Lavender-Eucalyptus combo is a powerful antidote to stinky, sweat-covered machines and balance balls. Our Yoga Mat Cleaner can be used anywhere in a fitness facility to get a good anti-microbial, anti-bacterial clean at a very economical and competitive cost.

3) Diffuse in your retail areas to create a better atmosphere that’s conducive to lingering, shopping and pure enjoyment.

While you can use any essential oils to diffuse in a retail space, the aromatherapeutic benefits and effects should be carefully considered before you start pumping out scents. After all, you don’t want to turn people off with scents that aren’t generally appealing or too overpowering.

Our ShowerMists can be added to any water diffusers for a steady stream of eucalyptus-based goodness. You can also melt Menthol Crystals ($13.50 retail for 2oz) in a wax/crystal warmer ($20) for a constant cool, refreshing, minty aroma. But be warned — our Menthol Crystals are pretty potent and the vapors can get strong after a while. So if you use them in a retail space, it’s best to experiment with the amount of time you diffuse to keep things pleasant.

If you want a scent that expresses the personality of your brand, consider creating a eucalyptus-based signature scent with us!  Whether herbaceous, floral, woodsy or earthy, there’s an essential oil in each group that combines well with eucalyptus. Some trending combinations we’re seeing these days are:

• Eucalyptus + Lemon: bright and invigorating
• Eucalyptus + Lemon, Peppermint, Rosemary: revitalizing and calming
• Eucalyptus + Laurel Leaf, Peppermint, Tea Tree, Lemon, Ravensara, Cardamom: minty and refreshing
• Eucalyptus + Sweet Orange, Cinnamon Bark, Cinnamon Leaf, Gurjun Balsam, Camphor: calming and blissful
• Eucalyptus + Peppermint, Lavender, Pine: increases energy, positivity and mental clarity

Think about how you’d like your customers to feel about your brand and being in your space, then choose an essential oil or oil blend to help achieve that: would you like them to feel relaxed in your space? Then lavender, chamomile, bergamot, peppermint, and of course eucalyptus would be good oils to start with. Do your customers seem to always come in wound up, stressed out and irritable? Then try blends with Clary Sage, Vetiver, Ylang Ylang and Citrus to help uplift, ground and soothe.  Would you like to promote a little bliss and positivity in your customers? In addition to a chill and happy music playlist, you could try putting vanilla, a citrus blend and mint into your diffuser to promote positive energy in your space.

Have you tried scent marketing in your facilities? We’d love to hear about it! Comment below or connect with us on Facebook or Instagram. If you’d like to work with us on private label, custom signature scents or scent marketing using the finest eucalyptus oil on the market, then please get in touch with us to get started!