Despite Covid-19, ScentAir executives kept investing — adding to the employee base and developing new product lines — to be well-positioned for the post-pandemic era.
ScentAir, a scent-marketing company, was shielded from some of the economic slowdown because it largely operates on a subscription model with monthly service charges, CEO Brian Edwards said. It serves a wide range of clients, including those in hospitality, real estate, health care and retail, among others. The idea is to create a better sensory experience for customers, leading them to linger longer and potentially spend more.
It's a type of marketing of which many are still not aware, he said.
"I think our business is one of the best-kept secrets in corporate America," said Edwards, who moved into the top role about a year ago.
The company has added about 100 employees in the last couple of years in the United States and abroad, Edwards said. He estimated about 35% of ScentAir's business is outside of the U.S. Roughly 180 of its more than 500 total employees are based in Charlotte, where the company moved its headquarters close to two decades ago.
ScentAir invests heavily in its direct sales force, or its "feet on the street," Edwards said. It needs those employees to drive growth. The company has also put resources into a new e-commerce platform, despite the challenge to sell scent over the internet.
Another key part of ScentAir's strategy is its more than 70 global distributors. The company operates in 119 countries and wants to expand in new geographies.
"Many times, we'll use those distributor relationships as a starting point to enter into a market, and we've been successful in certain markets of having those distributors join our company as part of the ScentAir team and then that becomes our direct operation in those areas," Edwards said.
ScentAir maintains a compound annual growth rate of more than 20% and hopes to reach a higher rate for the next couple of years as the population emerges from the pandemic, Edwards said. Its consumer customers, though still a small part of the business, have become one of its fastest-growing sectors since entering the space a few years ago. ScentAir has more than 100,000 consumer customers and over 50,000 commercial clients, he said.
In late 2020, ScentAir launched an indoor air-quality product line in response to customer requests. Those products have grown from ionization-based systems to a comprehensive product line including filtration. Edwards said the company quickly learned the relationships between indoor air quality and scenting. It is preparing to launch a second product line with an unnamed partner in the next three months.
He said ScentAir is in the early stages of evaluating other types of sensory marketing, such as digital signage.
"We have a long way to go before we get a dominant market share, and so I don't want to dilute the focus of our company so much that we become jack of all trades, masters of none," Edwards said. "We can be a highly successful, growth-oriented company just by holding onto who we have."
Moving ahead, ScentAir plans to add another 150 employees through 2025, a roughly even split between domestic and international. About half of those domestic hires will be in Charlotte, where it wants to add customer, administrative and production support if possible, Edwards said.
