When marketers design a marketing campaign, a factor often considered is how this campaign will interact with the customer’s senses. You hear and see a T.V. ad, you see and smell a cologne strip in a magazine, you taste, smell, and see a food sample at Costco, and you can use all the senses at a product booth in the mall. It seems like the more of these senses you touch in your campaign, the better the chances you have at developing a customer… but times are changing.

I would like to think that people still go after the grocery store food samples(I do at least), but people are now fast forwarding through T.V. ads, reading magazines and newspapers on their iPad or Kindle, and shopping on Amazon instead of the local mall. Companies now have to ask themselves how they can continue to interact with a consumer’s senses across these new platforms. To avoid a class room lecture and hurting your eyes from reading, I am going to quickly throw out just a few examples.

Taste: Leveraging targeted emailing and social media to provide coupons for a restaurant. It’s obvious, but you’d be surprised how restaurant owners react when you show them how this works. Give the customer a free appetizer every now and then with a foursquare “check-in”, and pretty soon you’ll both be on a first name basis.

Sight: Showing customers your place of business. I heard from a friend that Google street view is now beginning to allow internet users to go inside actual retail stores. Engage your customer; show them your product, and where you offer it.

There are a few more senses (touch, smell, hearing) and even more ways to reach them. Find creative, results-driven ways to engage these senses. If you can do this without adding clutter to the consumer’s everyday life, you may have found a winning strategy.