Homesickness (n.): “the state of longing for home and family while absent from them.” — Merriam Webster
We’ve all experienced the unfortunate symptoms of this common “illness”: melancholia, loneliness, and unshakable nostalgia. The only tried-and-true cure seems to be a visit to the place we long for, but that’s not always possible due to time constraints, cost, or sheer distance.
Homesick Candles presents a new remedy for the affliction: familiar smells you know and love in candle form. The company has created candles meant to smell like each state, plus some that smell of larger cities like New York and Philly. There are also candles designed to elicit memories that come from more intangible experiences. (For example, “Book Club” and “Snow Day.”) There’s even an option to design your own candle if you’d like to experience the smell of a specific place or memory not yet featured in their collection.
While each unique candle smell may be worth a thousand words, Homesick Candles’ emotional copy and product descriptions certainly do some heavy lifting. Here’s how the company uses words to capture the feelings of home.
Words are feelings
Good copy plays into emotion. It doesn’t just tell potential customers about a given product, it helps them understand how they’ll feel once they own it.
Homesick Candles’ website and product descriptions feature emotional copy crafted to elicit a response. The website introduces the holiday candle collection with the simple phrase: “Melt into holiday memories.” Clever, punny, and to the point: when you’re lighting the candles, you’re transporting yourself back to holiday seasons past and reliving the emotions you felt back then.
The product description for a Book Club-themed candle reads: “Curl up with the perfect rainy day read. Notes of warm nutmeg, amber, and sandalwood fill the room as you turn each page.”
Here the emotional becomes literal. Rather than explaining the features of the candle, the product description tells the potential customer how they’ll feel once they own the candle: cozy, safe from the storm, enveloped in aromatic bliss with a gripping read. It’s just two sentences of copy, but it evokes strong emotions.
Put a name to the emotion
Homesick Candles’ primary audience is hinted at in its name: those who might be feeling a little homesick for a specific person, place, or memory. These are sentimental homemakers who enjoy the small luxury of a well-made candle but are searching for something emotionally deeper than just a nice scent. The flip side of this audience is gift-givers looking to spark fun memories and provide their faraway loved ones with familiar comfort.
“Enjoy treasured memories in any room, in any home.” For Homesick Candles’ audience, it’s not just about the aromatherapy of lighting a candle, it’s about the memories the scents elicit. Furthermore, it’s about allowing the customer to recall and experience specific feelings at any time, in any place. Scents aren’t the only things that allow for that. Words do too.
Throughout Homesick Candles’ site, the reader is transported from place to place, experiencing emotional copy that describes highlights of each location-themed candle, but always makes sure the reader sees them through the eyes of the person searching for that feeling of home.
A snippet of website copy refers to the city-specific candles as “A celebration of hometown pride.” I couldn’t resist reading the product description for my city of residence, New York. “The distinctive scents of spring days in Central Park, fine department stores, and concrete capture the energy of the greatest city on earth.”
I had to chuckle. Every New Yorker (and wannabe-New Yorker) will insist that their city is the greatest city on earth. This copy knows its audience.
A copper manufacturer got sparkling product descriptions
A Minneapolis-based manufacturer of high-end copper products, World Coppersmith was constantly expanding its offerings, from bathtubs to tabletops to cookware. But all these products needed pithy, engaging product descriptions, especially to differentiate World Coppersmith from more established competitors. MarketSmiths soon jumped in to help, learning about each product and discussing performance features with World Coppersmith experts. From there, we got down to writing the descriptions in sparkling language, polishing the client’s brand statement, and supplying answers to a strong set of FAQs. Once we were done, World Coppersmith was ready to parade its products to a new audience—and boost its brand in a crowded market.
Emotional copy serves a purpose
Almost all companies now have goals and mission statements that articulate their unique positioning within their industry and to keep them on track to provide the best possible service to their customers. As companies develop these goals and mission statements, they should consider how each piece of individual copy can play into overarching goals.
Homesick Candles boasts “one simple goal: to bring joy to your home by helping you feel closer to the people, places, and moments that matter most.” And their product descriptions are full of compelling emotional copy that aligns with that goal. Each snippet of copy tells the story of a treasured memory.
This is how they describe the Pumpkin Picking candle: “Vibrant leaves, welcoming hayrides, and the search for the perfect pumpkin. A cool fall day with hot apple cider and pumpkin spice.” We’re not talking about a simple pumpkin-scented candle. We’re talking about the larger experience of picking a pumpkin. It invites the reader to reflect on treasured memories of beautiful fall days.
This emotional copy allows the reader to experience a full range of feelings as they recall the beauty of vibrant leaves, the excitement of a hayride, and the delicious taste of hot apple cider. And as the reader recalls these feelings, they’ll likely begin to think about the people they shared cider with, the specific local pumpkin patch they used to frequent, and the memories they created on that day. And voila, Homesick Candles fulfills its goal before anyone’s even lit a match.
Ready to make the emotional literal? Contact the MarketSmiths team today.
