Music Can Bring Your Clients Home and Encourage Loyalty
No matter what you’re selling, the right music can turn browsers into buyers by increasing comfort and well-being in your facility.
Music has a direct connection to positive emotions in the brain. If you are looking for ways to improve your sales, putting together customised in store music solutions to lift the spirits of shoppers can turn an ordinary product into a form of self care. Playing the right music in your facility can encourage customers to linger.
Music for Shops
Your target demographic needs to be considered. If you want to sell to teens, playing classical music won’t work. If you want to sell to baby boomers and are promoting handmade items, you can tap into their inner rebel by playing the dance music of their youth.
When putting together a music for retail stores playlist, make sure that you are also targeting your product line. If you’re selling shiny, fragile things, soothing classical piano may boost relaxation, encourage browsing and increase sales. For those selling handmade crafts, particularly items that obviously have been crafted using old world tools, you may want to broadcast bluegrass or string-band in-store music.
If your business is part of a chain, do consider using a shared music brand as other franchisees. You have the chance to tap into brand loyalty while celebrating the unique customer care and service available at your customer habitat. If you own a store in a coffee franchise, shared aroma and a shared background music program will help all guests feel home as soon as they walk in.
Music for Hotels
Hotels provide travelers with a place to temporarily call home. The lobby space of a hotel needs to create a sense of welcome for all comers. Thus, background music suppliers may want to focus on music that:
- features simple melodies
- has no lyrics
- doesn’t feature solo instrumental sounds
When you visit a hotel, you need to turn over your ID and your credit card. This information is inherently risky, especially as many hotels reserve money on your card but you can’t finalise the bill until you check out. The lobby of a hotel and the music playing inside needs to be reserved and help guests feel secure.
It’s also important to note that most hotel lobbies are quite brightly lit. Tired travelers may find that this is a jolt, especially if they’re fighting jet lag and need to wind down to sleep. Highly energetic music may not be welcome.
Music for Retailers
As previously noted, your clientele and product line will have an impact on the best music to share in your store. If you need to combine broadcasts of retail messages and music over the same system, you may want to sync your retail music system to time in store messaging with no breaks between the tunes you’re broadcasting.
This is particularly critical if your retail store music system is playing songs with popularly known lyrics. Many shoppers don’t realise that background music systems are triggering a memory until a broadcast breaks the string of lyrics. Even if you don’t know that the text of a song is playing in your head, getting your lyrics interrupted is jarring and may lead to irritation. Irritated people don’t browse, don’t linger, won’t check the discount rack, and may not be happy about coming back.
Restaurant Music
The music you play for your restaurant patrons can do a great deal to set the right ambiance. Of course, if you’re selling burgers, fries and milkshakes, your clients may not appreciate classical harp. It is important to avoid adding any music to your restaurant ambiance that will increase “white noise” or make it harder to have a conversation.
If you want folks to linger and enjoy their meal, to start off with an appetizer and finish up with a dessert, you want to make it possible to have a conversation. Avoiding excess volume and using music that doesn’t include sung lyrics is probably the best choice. Songs with lyrics generally only last 3-4 minutes. If a song winds down, it may encourage an end to the evening.
Music for Showrooms
Showrooms are a place of great imagination. While you may sell some products right from the showroom, this is a spot for your customers engage and to envision your products in their space. In this instance, music with lyrics may be ideal. Recognisable lyrics about the power of home can be a great choice if you’re working to sell appliances or furniture. Where possible, let these clients be a free spirit uninterrupted as the lyrics help them build a scenario of their own.
Music that is endlessly uplifting can be helpful in a showroom setting. Such music will likely include:
- key changes
- a large range of volume changes (perceived)
- a lush range of orchestral sounds
It’s important to carefully consider how much percussion you will be exposing your clients to. A lush orchestral swell can be invigorating, but a strong beat may encourage movement. You don’t want clients to feel rushed in your showroom space.
Music and the Nervous System
Music impacts our brains at an extremely elemental level. We’ve been listening since before we were born; newborns recognise the voices of those around them, often immediately. As sounds impact our emotions with no real connection to the logical why, music follows the same path. Our reactions to music are often not logical, nor do we often try to break down why we react the way that we do.
The music that you play in your restaurant can help your guests lose time and linger. The music that you play in your retail establishment can encourage shoppers into rebellion; you may want them to defy their budget and bust out a bit! Your hotel lobby music can be used to help guests relax, avoid agitation, and reduce the need to rush during check-in.
