In our last blog, we began to pour over good packaging for great products. We offered up some tips to pick the perfect packaging style and material to market your product, including picking the right customized product label, standing out from the crowd, and creating a recognizable brand. Well, we’re picking up where we left off, with a few more tips to make your packaging pop. Let’s dive in.
Simple Sells
These days, people are bombarded with information. We pass 30 billboards on the way to work. We get push notifications from Candy Crush on our phones. The consumer world is a bit of an ugly sweater at the moment – it’s smattered with so many colors, bright lights, and tinsel, it’s enough to make one nauseous. Packaging is no exception. Next time you’re at the store, take a fresh look at the products around you. You’ll find that product after product is plagued with “over-design.” It’s a confetti of random fonts, pictures, graphics, claims, accolades, and warranties.
So simple stands out.
Be Practical
Good packaging is practical, as well as attractive. When you grab a box of Cheerios, it’s easy to pick up and pour. Even that odd, thin, rectangularly prismatic box of Cheerios is actually somewhat ergonomically designed to help consumers to pour Cheerios by the mound.
Now let’s revisit that wine bottle you’re designing. While you want a stout, sturdy chunk of glass that embodies the boldness of the grape it holds, it should still fit the human hand, as well as a cork. Those are your practical constraints.
Be practical with your product design, and don’t forget that packaging is utilitarian to a degree.
Be Honest
It’s a bit sad that this point must be made, but it is necessary: Don’t falsely advertise your product with your packaging. While you may be tempted to oversell the value of your product with your packaging, be cautious. If you overstep your bounds, you could disappoint your customers when they tear through the wrappings on your product.
It has happened to us all. I remember opening a set of earphones that were less expensive than the other earphones on the wall, yet they promised to perform just as well. Well, I opened those earphones to find that the left speaker didn’t work and the right wasn’t much better. Now, this may have been a fluke – one in a million earphones might be broken. However, the impact was irreversible; I’ll never trust that brand again.
In short, your packaging should accurately portray your product. Think about that box of Cheerios again. The box shows an image of the Cheerios, and it’s (relatively) accurate (although cereal makers often enlarge the image “to show texture,” and there’s usually milk splashing out of the bowl on the box). Consumers are happy to open box after box of Cheerios knowing that they will get the product they are promised on the package. Don’t make false claims, and don’t overrepresent your product; you could lose clients, and those clients won’t return.
Seek Value
While wrapping your products in gold leaf may make it fly off the shelves like hotcakes, you may be spending more money on your packaging than it is worth. Remember that while your packaging is important – very important as we’ve mentioned throughout this article – your product is ultimately what your customers are buying. Seek out a packaging solution that is worth its value. If your packaging leads to more profits, even in light of the cost of the packaging itself, then you’re on the right track. When it comes to your bottom line, it may be worth it to invest in more expensive packaging – or it may not. If you have the funds and time to experiment, you can try different forms of packaging, and you can determine the true value of your packaging options with A/B testing… Keep the product the same, try a series of wrappings for your product, and see which style of packaging earns more returns.
Go Green
Going green isn’t just ethical. It sells. Today, everybody is making an effort to reduce their impact and give back to the environment. It’s a positive step for people and product producers. Show that your company cares by selecting environmentally friendly packaging materials, and print your product labels on environmentally friendly paper (we can help you out here at Leapin’ Lizard Labels). Don’t be afraid to boast about your greenliness. You’ll attract customers who care about our planet just as much as you do!
Get Printin’
By now, we hope you’ve got a few packaging ideas in mind. Hit the drawing board, make a few mockups, and count on us for a product label to match that shiny, new package design (that is, if it is shiny). Learn more about our custom label printing services, and get started with a free quote!
