Reading Time: 4 Minutes
Let’s imagine you’re tasked with increasing sales of a packaged good. To do so, you could launch a digital marketing campaign to increase brand awareness, develop relationships with new retailers to secure more shelf space at stores, or offer a discount to attract the attention of new buyers.
However, one often overlooked factor that could help you drive sales is effective packaging.
Product packaging isn’t just the protective shell that keeps your product safe. (Though it needs to do that exceptionally well, too.) Packaging can also act as a silent salesperson — helping your product stand out on store shelves packed with competing products. When leveraged effectively, packaging can:
Communicate to buyers why they should choose your product
Deliver an exceptional customer experience
Build trust and loyalty
Use Packaging to Communicate Your Brand’s “Why”
It’s hard to stand out on store shelves today. Hundreds of brands compete for the same customers’ attention, and those customers are often busy and overwhelmed by choices. Fortunately, your packaging can act as a messenger for your product, quickly capturing attention and communicating why customers should choose your product over competing ones (also known as your value proposition).
The first way to use packaging as a messenger is through color, typography, and imagery choices. When you make these design choices thoughtfully, you create packaging that not only catches your busy customer’s eye but also shapes their first impression of your product. In fact, these first impressions can impact whether a customer picks up or interacts with your product at all.
For example, bright, colorful whiskey labels can signal a disruptive brand, as it breaks away from dark, rich, and masculine label trends. Likewise, minimalist design choices for granola bar packaging suggests simplicity with few ingredients. Both design choices can help products stand out and attract customers.
Both of these distillery labels feature reverse print, but evoke different feelings through their use of color and imagery.
Product packaging also gives your brand the physical space to communicate your value proposition with words. Since you are working with limited space, it’s critical to keep messaging simple and focused on the unique selling points that attract customers to your brand. Visual treatments, like dual finish, which combines matte and gloss finishes, can also help attract your customer’s eye to the words that matter the most on a package.
Finally, packaging features can reinforce a brand’s value proposition. For example, if you offer a premium product, you may want to consider different label finishings, like embossment, foiling, tactile varnish, or specialty laminates, to elevate your product to a higher quality, premium status. If sustainability is core to your offering, wrapping your product in eco-friendly packaging is critical. Is freshness what customers rely on you for? Consider packaging that has windows that display the product and peelable and resealable packaging, like Sealutions™. And if convenience is part of your promise to customers, your packaging should include things that make your customers’ lives easier, like smaller grab-and-go pouches or resealable zippers.Create Memorable Experiences to Bring Customers Back
Well-designed packaging can also impact your customers’ experience, influencing whether they’ll become repeat customers or just one-time purchasers.
To illustrate how much of an impact packaging can have on our experience, let’s consider a product that many of us have purchased at some point: shredded cheese. Have you ever opened a bag of shredded cheese that doesn’t tear cleanly? The experience, while perhaps a minor inconvenience, can be frustrating and negatively impact your perception of the brand. The next time you’re at the store, you may decide to purchase a different cheese brand. And when that bag tears seamlessly, you make a mental note to repurchase it the next time you’re at the store.
The difference between these two brands is likely that one decided to invest in higher-quality packaging that functions better and offers a superior experience, while the other prioritized cost-effectiveness. While either decision is valid, your packaging decisions must align with your product’s value proposition (e.g., low cost or premium quality) so you deliver the experience your customers expect. After all, research from Qualtrics has found that 65% of consumers have switched brand loyalties because the customer experience didn’t match what the brand promised.
Beyond the ease of opening, packaging can also affect the quality of the product, including how fresh it is upon opening and re-opening. For example, you may have noticed that lettuce brands now offer packages with resealable features to keep their products fresh longer. If lettuce wilts a day after you open it because the packaging doesn’t seal properly, customers are less likely to repurchase it. Reliable packaging that maintains product quality can encourage customers to purchase from you again.
Different industries have different customer expectations. Understanding what customers expect from you means staying up to date on packaging trends in your industry. We recommend subscribing to publications in your industry and paying attention to your competitors. Even walking down store aisles can reveal emerging trends and inspire new ideas, so you can continue to meet and exceed your customers’ expectations.
Packaging as a Driver For Trust and Loyalty
Packaging can play a key role in communicating what your brand is doing to build customer trust and loyalty. For example, you can demonstrate your commitment to transparency, your customers, and the world by using packaging space to display what eco-friendly materials you use, which certifications you’ve earned, and to list ingredients in a clear, easy-to-understand way.
This protein-packed pancake mix, Flourish, uses a QR code to provide health-minded customers with recipes and cooking tips.
You can also use your packaging to share your brand’s story and mission, which can help deepen the customer connection even more. The impact of this is significant — with recent research showing that 82% of shoppers want to purchase from brands that align with their values.
Some brands are even building loyalty by inviting their customers to participate in interactive experiences by scanning QR codes or NFC tags. For example, a quick scan of a QR code or NFC tag could bring your customer to a short video that shares the beautiful farm where your product is produced— reinforcing your company’s values of quality, sustainability, and transparency. Interactive opportunities like these also provide you with useful customer data that you can use to refine your marketing strategies and continue to build long-term loyalty.
Finally, the consistency of your packaging from item to item or even between different products can make or break the trust and loyalty from not only your customers but also the retailers who stock your products.
A Packaging Partner That Helps You Deliver An Impact, Every Time
When you rely on your packaging for something as important to your business as driving sales, working with a packaging partner you can also rely on is critical. At Belmark, we operate with a unique blend of speed, quality, innovation, and exceptional customer service to help our customers put their best packaging forward on store shelves.
Effective packaging can convince your customers that yours is the product they want, deliver an exceptional customer experience, and build trust and loyalty in your brand. Belmark can help you do all this through our pressure sensitive labels, flexible packaging, and folding cartons, whether you’re an emerging brand or operating at full production.
Contact us today to learn how Belmark can help you create packaging that doubles as a high-performing salesperson.
