Emotional connection to something is translated by the senses. With marketing one of the goals for many companies is to create and deepen the emotional connection clients and prospects develop with a product, company or service. This is what creates unshakable loyalty, unsolicited referrals, and viral word or mouth.

For most humans these connections involve how they see, hear, smell, taste and touch the experience they participate in. There is an Emily Dickinson poem that starts – “the ear can break a human heart more quickly than a spear.” While I doubt your company aims to break too many hearts, the message is clear. Our impression and emotional connection with people and things is formed by our senses.

Are there sights, sounds, smells and tastes that immediately take you to another place and time, somewhere deep in your memory. Just smelling hyacinths each spring brings back fond memories of my mother working in the garden.

What sensory elements have you built into the overall experience of your brand? To some degree, how far you carry this is dictated by your business, but every business sends brand messages through the colors they choose, style they choose, even the fonts they choose to use in the most basic marketing materials. Yes, your website design can say we’re fun, we’re serious, we’re trustworthy. Look at my friends the Sloan Brothers site at StartUpNation, that design says fun and approachable to me.

Your office can say a lot. What does it look like, feel like, smell like? Does your store play music associated with your brand, does your dental office bake cookies, do you send flowers to reward referrals. Go beyond the obvious and look for ways to associate your brand with positive sensory elements that can become a unique signature for your business.

Tell me how your firm or firms you do business with use this strategy.