What does it take to sell perfume? Why do people buy it?

Can you sell as much perfume as she did?

    A gift? Recommendation? Like the way it smelled on a friend? How often do you go out and sample fragrances you've never heard of and then buy one -- for $45 or more -- even when you know nothing about it, nothing about the company that made it, the company that markets it (they are probably not the same companies) and other people who are buying and wearing it?

    Given the cost of a nice perfume, unless you have a deep interest in scents themselves, you (1) probably buy perfume only rarely, and (2) probably buy only perfumes known to have some credentials. Now think about that from the point of view of someone who wants to sell their own perfume.

    If you are the seller of a perfume, say one that you have made yourself or is being made for you, the big question is, "How do I give my fragrance credentials to make it sell?"

    Some try to do it with the packaging. Packaging companies encouraged the belief that great packaging is a must if you want to make sales. But unless the packaging is so grand that the package itself becomes a collectible work of art, packaging at best can only sway the buyer between competing brands.

    Some try to make sales by making a great scent. For the most part this is even more futile than trying to make sales with great packaging. Certainly it is important that the prospective customer finds the scent pleasing. But many scents can be pleasing. Few people will buy a perfume simply because they like the scent (although few perfume buyers would admit this.)

    The fact is we are surrounded by beautiful scents but very few buyers have noses discriminating enough to pick the real gems by scent alone.

    The truth is perfume is sold, for the most part, through its credentials.

    Ask yourself why Chanel's No.5 is still a top seller, 100 years after its prototype was released? The answer is simple. It is famous. Even the most ignorant are aware of it. Buying No.5 is like buying your big office computer from IBM. The saying goes "Nobody ever for fired for buying IBM." Likewise no gift giver -- husband, lover, family member, or friend -- ever went wrong by giving No.5.

    But the whole world isn't No.5. There are hundreds of other fragrances on the market. So ask yourself, which ones SELL? Look behind the sales of any perfume that is being sold profitably and you'll find that it has a high credibility factor with the purchaser.

    So if you want to sell your own perfume you MUST do something to give it that credibility factor. In short, you must have a marketing strategy that goes beyond "good glass, good juice."

    In case you aren't aware of this, the vast majority of money spent on perfume goes into designer fragrances, celebrity fragrances and cosmetic company fragrances. (Almost all of the top selling fragrances in all of these groups are manufactured by no more than half a dozen companies.)

    The "credibility" comes from the fame of the designer, the cosmetics company, or the celebrity. These are the "you can't go wrong" choices for buyers.

    But for all the focus on these groups and their perfumes, a considerable amount of profitable sales are made outside this circuit -- by people who have managed to establish credibility for their fragrances in innovative ways.

    One possibility is to hook your fragrance onto the fame of a celebrity who can't say no. Charlotte Corday (photo above) never endorsed a line of perfumes but her name was used anyway. Corday's fame came from stabbing Marat in the bathtub and losing her head on the guillotine. In France in the 1920's this was considered very chic.

    I've been working to build credibility for a fragrance I created. While I could market it in my own name on my own website, I felt that it could do better in the hands of people who had more of a following than I do. So I've turned the marketing over to The Big Takeover, a reggae band, and they are offering it under the name, "Children of the Rhythm," which is also the name of their latest CD.

    Besides working on my own fragrances and dreaming up ways to sell them, I write a monthly newsletter for the Perfume Makers & Marketers Club directed largely to marketing strategies that can be adopted to selling perfume. Making a great perfume is wonderful. But if you can make one -- and sell it -- that is truly grand!

    By the way, you can get a 3-month Club Membership for just $21.95. If you're trying to market a fragrance of your own, you'd be wise to give us a try.