Mrs. Boom had an interview this afternoon. She’s looking to change jobs. I took her to her interview and waited patiently for her return.

In the meantime, I ate lunch and read a magazine. You know what popped out at me from my Men’s Health magazine? No, not the scantily clad women or the brutish men — the perfume pages! You know those fragrance samples that come inside popular magazines. For years I have associated magazine reading with the light scenting of CK or the robustness of Bvlgari. After reading an article, I realized I was awash in nostalgia brought on by simply holding and smelling a magazine.

Reloading Your Blog Magazine
I have heard the arguments that we are not bloggers anymore, but web publishers. I know some blogs carry themselves as magazines rather than weblogs. One of my favorite new sites, Trend Spike, has a magazine feel to it. I wonder, can we create the same nostalgic, yet subtle presence that a perfume page brings to a magazine on a blog.

What’s that Smell?
What is a perfume page? For those who don’t know, a perfume page is a full page ad for some cologne, as was the case for my Men’s Health magazine. The page is unique because in the flap along the side they have sprayed, gelled, or otherwise deposited the scent of the fragrance. That flap can be like opening the long forgotten Tupperware dish in the far recesses of the refrigerator, the smell hits you like a ton of rotten eggs. But even if you don’t open the flap, the fragrance saturates the pages and give a light smell to your reading.

Your Blog’s Smell
I’m still waiting for the scratch and sniff webpages. Until that time, we’ll have to create our own olfactory stimulation. Our pages may not give off the scent of fresh flowers but we can harness the power of nostalgia that perfume pages create for magazines.

A fragrance sampler gives users something new with each magazine, and it’s usually pleasing.  It may peak a reader’s interest enough to seek out the fragrance in a department store. So the secondary effect of the ad was actually the aroma saturated magazine pages. The primary goals was to move product.

How can this help bloggers? We sell ourselves with each post. Our blog is our product. We move ourselves.

If we emulate the fragrance sample pages, we need a secondary nostalgic reaction for visitors to our blog.

Creating Nostalgia
We cannot supplant ourselves into the past experiences of our readers. We can however relate to them. We can connect and forge a bond that creates the subtle fragrance sample page experience. Here are a few things that will give your readers a sense of having been there before, and associate that feeling with a positive memory.

1. Use a memorable theme that compliments your niche.
   The right theme can bring back memories from a previous visit. Hopefully, they encountered fantastic content on that earlier visit and remember it. The positive memory may be enough to encourage them to subscribe to your RSS feed.
2. Create a Persona
   A persona, like Regis, Oprah, Dominick Dunne. You get the idea. These TV figures have distinctions about them that keep people watching. While their schtick might not be your fancy, a quality persona can endear readers to your blog.
3. Use Memorable Graphics
   Our graphics become our face on the Internet. If we use cheesy, overused images, then that’s the image we’re portraying -literally. Use quality, memorable graphics and readers will remember them just as they remember a certain smell. With the right picture, it will detail what type of content exists on the site.

Conclusion
The moment wasn’t long. The smell from that magazine wafted up from the pages, triggering memories. This was marketing, I thought. An institutionalized marketing ploy. It’s been around forever. Why not use it on our blogs? Can you think of ways blogs have used perfume pages throughout the years?