Senior Living Scent Marketing: How Scent Shapes Tours, Impressions, and Resident Experience

Families looking at senior care options can get a feel for the facility by taking a tour. From the entrance to the hallways to the cafeteria, a guided tour lets them take it all in. Rather than a single “first impression,” it’s more like a series of impressions that create an overall perception.

Entrances and Lobbies Set the Tone

Each family’s journey begins at the entrance. That means your lobby will set the tone for their entire visit. Is it ready?

To answer that question, it helps to consider how families are feeling as they walk in:

• They’re nervous
• They’re uncertain
• Some may be skeptical
• Others may be hopeful
• Some are all of the above

Deploying a light, inviting fragrance is ideal in this situation. A scent known to soothe stress and ease tension, such as lavender, would be a good choice.

Hallways and Common Areas Reveal Everyday Life

As families move beyond the lobby, they encounter their first taste of day-to-day living for residents. They begin to envision what life for their loved one might look like in this setting.

Their senses are on high alert. What they see and smell in hallways, elevators, and common areas tells them a lot about the facility and how it’s run.

They might catch a whiff of not-so-pleasant smells from resident rooms or restrooms, and that’s understandable. Deploying a consistent, subtle aroma can provide balance by smoothing out any rough edges.

Dining, Activities, and Shared Spaces Create Competing Aromas

Families appreciate seeing and smelling a well-run cafe—they want their loved one to eat healthily and heartily. They also love seeing residents participating in activities and experiencing that “sense of community” promised in the brochure in action.

But any area with food smells can be tricky to manage. Something that smelled great for breakfast might not smell so great by lunch, and that odor may linger longer than you’d like. And your Activity Room full of 10 seniors will inevitably carry the mix of aromas each brings with them.

At different times, in different spaces, your building will carry all sorts of smells. As the manager or director, it’s important to acknowledge those realities while also providing a consistent, professionally presented tour. Scent marketing can help you strike that balance.

Discover Why Your Business Smells Different at Different Times of Day.

Odor control comes before olfactory branding; it’s an important part of a holistic scent marketing strategy. That’s because there’s an important difference between masking odors and eliminating them.

When something stinks, resist the urge to cover it up with scent. Instead, find where it’s coming from and root it out at the source. Here are the usual suspects for lingering odor:

• Bathrooms
• Trash rooms
• Pet waste
• Moisture in excess
• Floor drains
• Garages
• Dirty coffee filters
• Laundry rooms

The scent of urine and feces WILL happen. It’s reality, and there’s no hiding from that in an elderly care setting. Effective odor control is based on acknowledging malodors and neutralizing them at their source.

Scent marketing is the second punch in that 1-2 combo. It builds on the good work done by odor control and uses that fresh foundation to enhance the environment through fragrance. It’s a long-term solution to creating a balanced scentscape.

One of the keys to scent marketing is subtlety. Add too much fragrance, and it could be counterproductive.

Learn more about the role subtlety plays in Subtle Scent Marketing: Best Business Fragrances Shouldn’t Feel Overpowering.

As you consider scent intensity, remember the goal: to supplement your already-comfortable setting with a scent that feels pleasant and inviting AND stays true to your brand.

There are two schools of thought here. One is to create a signature scent that is specific to your brand. Brands like Nike and Abercrombie & Fitch have had great success with this. The other is to choose from a library of ready-made scents.

Both methods are strong options for companies that invest in scent-marketing services. Unsure which way to go? Scan the Aire-Master scent list for ideas.

This is the right time for a reminder: everyone experiences fragrance a little differently.

What smells pleasant to one person might be off-putting to another. Health, memories, and intensity have a big influence, as does personal preference. (Coffee is a great example: some love the smell, and some can’t stand it!)

Age is a factor. Consider these stats from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, which illustrate how variable the sense can be.

• 1 person in 8 has some smell loss
• 1 person in 30 has very little or no sense of smell
• 1 person in 15 smells phantom odors

Older people are more likely to experience loss of smell, and the percentage goes up with age:

• 40–49: 4% of people have smell loss
• 50–59: 11%
• 60–69: 13%
• 70–79: 25%
• 80 and up: 39%

This suggests the scent MAY need to be stronger to be effective. But that’s only part of the story. The residents may be older, but staff, visitors, and family may skew younger. And your scent marketing efforts should be directed at the entire audience.

Balance and subtlety are your guiding lights here. Need help with the nuances? This might be a good time to bring in a professional scent marketing partner.

Explore the idea of “nose blindness” in the blog Nose Blindness at Work: Why You Stop Smelling Your Business.

As you consider scent marketing and research possible partners, think about these questions:

1. Does your potential scent partner have experience with your type of business?
2. Do they support a 1-2 punch featuring odor control and scent marketing?
3. Do they understand that your facility is a community full of people who deserve care and respect?
4. Do they comprehend the nuances of airflow in different rooms/spaces?
5. Do they feature a customizable program specifically for your business?
6. Do they offer equipment and supplies?
7. Do they provide maintenance services so you can focus on other duties?

The scent marketing pros at Aire-Master can answer “yes” to all these questions. They’ve been helping customers of all kinds with scent solutions since 1958. And they’re ready to help you with:

• Equipment installation
• Fragrance replenishment
• Maintenance schedule

Browse our full scope of services here.