Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Pricing Strategy (38-slide PowerPoint presentation). Pricing Strategy is a core pillar of Marketing and Product Strategy. It is 1 of the 4 Ps of Marketing (also known as the Marketing Mix - Product, Price, Placement, and Promotion). As such, knowing how to properly price your product is extremely important to the commercial success and viability of [read more]
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One great marketing tool that you can use to market your goods is product packaging. The way you package your products can help you get more customers or drive your existing customers away. That’s why most companies use elegant packaging boxes to attract their customers. A unique, memorable, and attractive packaging can enhance your sales in fantastic ways. In this article, you’ll learn how to develop a product packaging design that sells.
1. Know Your Product’s Features
It may be impossible to develop stellar packaging if you don’t know your product’s features. To develop a good packaging design, you need to list your product’s characteristics, storage temperature, number of items, shipping conditions, weight, and other vital information.
You can use a reference point for designing your packaging and use the information to craft the problems that your packaging should solve. For example, if you have products that are vulnerable to high temperatures, your packaging should be resistant to temperature changes.
2. Know What Your Customers Like
You should take time to study and find out who your target audience is to create a customer persona. Some things you should consider when coming up with such a persona includes your average consumers’ age, the amount of money they’re willing to pay for your products, their places of work, where they buy your products, and their manner of disposing of the packaging.
This information will help you design packaging that’s attention-grabbing, informative, eco-friendly, and ergonomic. It’ll also help you to craft the appropriate message to convince your customer that they’ve made the right decision to purchase your product.
3. Understand Your Sales Channels
Knowing what your sales channels are can help you to create excellent packaging. You can know these channels by listing your sales points like online stores, street kiosks, and supermarkets. The way your products are stored in these shops and how accessible they’re to your customers can give you a blueprint on what to consider when developing your packaging.
Furthermore, you should also visualize how your product’s packaging will appear if placed next to a competitor’s product. It could be that it’s too big to fit the eye-level store’s shelf. Such weak spots can help you to enhance the packaging before you spend more money.
If you intend to sell your products offline and online, it’s advisable to adjust your packaging to accommodate both environments. Customers who purchase your products from a brick-and-mortar store may want to scrutinize all its sides, while online shoppers may not have this privilege. So, to convince your online audience, you may have to design a beautiful and stylish package that will give a great impression on photos. That way, prospects will find it difficult to resist your goods.
4. Choose the Right Packaging
The packaging you select should be determined by the product you’re producing, how you intend to sell it, and your target audience. It may be a cardboard box, bottle, tissue bag, or something else. No matter what it is, it should be cheaper than the product.
You can list many options and compare them before selecting the right one. That may be quite challenging because packaging choice may be expensive to make or fragile to ship. Working with packaging design services can help you select the best material and strategy to implement.
5. Choose The Appropriate Wrapping
There are three main wrapping types, namely inner wrapping, outer wrapping, and packaging. Inner wrapping and outer wrapping are used to give the goods extra protection. The outer wrapping is what your customer sees, and it may be a paper bag or cardboard box that encloses the product.
On the other hand, inner wrapping is used to preserve the product’s features. For instance, you can cover a porcelain cup with sawdust, wrap books with films, or use colorful paper to enclose makeup sets.
Your sales channels will determine the wrapping you require. Some channels may need you to use all wrappings, while others may only need one. As you use wrappings, you need to be careful not to overlap their functions.
6. Refer To Your Brand Book
After getting a suitable wrapping and packaging, you need to pay attention to its design. If you’ve created products before and intend to sell other products of the same brand, you must have a brand book with your company’s colors, images, fonts, and patterns. Give this vital information to the designer who’s creating your packaging.
On the other hand, if you’re creating a new brand, you should think about your product’s appearance before hiring a designer. Some online sites can allow you to download a sample brand book that you can use to develop your brand’s colors and other design components.
7. Add Essential Information
The information you should show on the packaging should include its log, slogan, product’s name, and product’s image. Some countries may also require you to add other information such as expiry date, quality certifications, and bar code to your packaging. If you run out of space to place other information, you can use special stickers, though you need to be careful not to cover other vital information.
8. Avoid Confusing Your Customers
Packaging aims to enable customers to have a picture of what’s in the package. If you’re selling fruit juice for kids, its bottle shouldn’t resemble that of an energy drink because it may fail to capture the parent’s attention. You also need to be careful about the pictures you use on the packaging. They should be high-quality images that explain the products within the package. 3D images may gain more attraction than 2D images.
9. Understand Your Packaging Source
If you intend to develop the packaging on your own, you need to think about the materials to use and other equipment. If you don’t have these tools, it may be great to outsource this work to a professional contractor. However, you should instruct them on the types of materials you’d like to be used on the package and the appropriate mockups. That way, you’ll prevent yourself from encountering nasty surprises.
Summing Up
Beautiful packaging can go a long way in attracting customers. However, You should ensure that it’s in line with the product’s characteristics, addresses customer expectations, tells the consumers what’s inside, fits the sales channels, matches your handbook, and has a superior appearance to your competitors.
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