Fragrance Companies’ Tips for New Home Care Products

Home is where the heart is and when it comes to creating a new home care product, experienced fragrance companies will tell you that your fragrance must capture your consumers’ hearts before it can become a welcome addition to their home.

The choice to bring a fragrance into one’s home is highly personal, so it is critical that you connect with your consumer on the deepest level. Knowing your consumer and putting their needs and desires first is the key to any successful home fragrance design.

But how do you really get to know your consumer?

Trends

A comprehensive examination of market trends helps steer fragrance direction. Whether your goal is to keep up with the trends, bring new life to old trends or predict what the next big trend will be, it is important to understand the fundamental principles of the trend phenomena.

Trends both inside and outside of the industry will give you invaluable insight on consumer tastes, desires, values and buying habits.

Within the industry, they observe what other marketers are doing and how they are reaching their consumers. Additionally, they tap into numerous consumer reports, which track consumer spending, perfumery preferences and new product launches around the world.

You can also find inspiration outside the industry. The interior design, fashion and food industries can offer a bird’s eye view into the lifestyle trends of your consumer. Even the auto industry is quite beneficial in getting a pulse on what colors consumers find most appealing – in the home care industry, color choice is pivotal.

Trend Experts

Seasoned fragrance companies also provide critical insights into the hearts of your consumers through their own extensive research methods including consumer interviews and product testing, olfactive mapping and emotive profiles.

Ultimately, the right fragrance company can be an invaluable partner in identifying and analyzing market and lifestyle trends. The information gleaned from this research will give you the perspective you need to connect with the hearts and minds of your consumers and hone in on the driving force(s) behind their spending choices.

Driving Forces

There are several aspects which influence and drive consumer spending in the home care market. Fragrance companies recommend you consider the following in developing your products:

• What is your consumer’s motivation for buying home care products?
• What mood(s) do they wish to create in their home?
• What memories do they hope to evoke, create and/or recreate?

Motivation: The Why of the Buy

Do your consumers buy home care products primarily for themselves or as gifts? Do they utilize these products for aesthetic, therapeutic and/or practical purposes? Do they prefer candles, room sprays, wax melts, etc. or does their preference depend on where and why they are using the product(s)?

Understanding the needs of your consumers and identifying the “why” of the buy is essential for product success.

Mood: Setting the Stage

Whether they are used for aesthetic or practical purposes, home care products add depth and character to one’s emotional and physical environment. They not only accessorize one’s surroundings, but their fragrance creates a mood, enhances ambiance, sets the stage and ultimately defines a space.

Know what emotional climate your consumer wants to create:

• Calming (lavender, sage, bamboo, vanilla)
• Invigorating (orange, lemon, grapefruit, mint)
• Romantic (chocolate, jasmine, amber, patchouli)

You may also wish to focus on what room the consumer feels your fragrance would be most at “home”:

• Bedroom (light florals)
• Kitchen (green, herbaceous)
• Bathroom (fresh, ozonic)

Memory: Forever in Season

Consumers’ emotive response to a particular fragrance can be linked to the memory/memories it triggers and their home is oftentimes the sacred space which houses them. Fragranced home care products become sensory imprints of these memories. Within the home care market, the fragrance-memory relationship is commonly associated with a particular season, holiday or celebration.

For example, spring is about rebirth and joy and is best communicated through light, floral notes. In the summer months, consumers may switch to citrus fruits, like grapefruit, and add light floral tones for a bright atmosphere.

Conversely, fall is more about deep, rich colors and is best mirrored in saturated and seductive fragrances. Winter is the perfect time for sweet and spicy scents, as well as holiday aromas, bringing cinnamon and frangipani types into the home. Heavy floral scents can also keep a room warm and cozy.

Therefore, fragrance companies advise you to savor the season and take your cue from the calendar. This allows you to develop a year-round market and forever be “in season.”

Home Sweet Home

Consumer connection is the foundation of any successful home fragrance business. Speak to your consumer’s heart, honor their memories and know and respect their intelligence by producing quality, high performance products- this will open the door to a world of opportunity.