7 ways to incorporate packaging in your marketing
Product packaging has come a long way. Its cause was to guard merchandise in the past, now it is a crucial component of a brand’s advertising strategy. Packaging is one of marketing’s ‘Eight Ps’, alongside product, place, price, promotion, people, physical environment, and process.
Strategically designed packaging creates numerous factors of cost for brand owners. Great packaging differentiates a product from its competitors, provides the consumer experience, gives a medium for communication, and conveys a product’s value. When carried out well, retail packaging can increase not only brand reputation and recall but consumer conversion as well.
Product packaging is an important part of the advertising mix. To completely leverage packaging’s brand advertising potential, here are 7 ways to incorporate the packaging into your marketing plans.
1. CREATE CUSTOM PACKAGING WITH YOUR BRANDING
Packaging must complement and strengthen your brand identity and vice versa. Coherent branding and packaging cue customers on what to anticipate from your product. To maintain a target market’s attention, messaging synergy is essential.
For example, consider a luxurious cologne with a TV advert presenting actors in evening wear and luxury cars. This message is preferably packaged in a manner that conveys affluence. The product package may want to include a glass bottle in a sturdy and dark-colored inflexible folding carton with imagery that represents status, style, and success. Even without searching the product’s price, a purchaser could already infer how much it typically costs.
2. GO FOR AN OUT-OF-THE-BOX IDEA
You might also additionally want to get innovative to seize your consumers’ interest. Going past the standard format, structure, and layout expectation can set your brand apart and drive improved sales.
Think of soaps in non-rectangular boxes, unique textures, and tactile embellishments, or barcodes and graphic images that integrate with a consumer’s mobile phone via augmented reality. Take suggestions from products that grabbed your attention in the past. Come up with something unique, engaging, and exciting.
3. MAKE YOUR PACKAGING REUSABLE (CONVERTIBLE INTO SOMETHING THAT CAN BE USED FOR LATER)
Customers’ priorities have shifted in current years. They still want products that appeal to them on an emotional degree or a design that speaks to part of their personal identity. However, many customers also are searching for sustainable brands that align with causes such as the fight against pollution, waste, and climate change.
Sustainability may be synonymous with reusability. For example, consider products offered in mason jars, wherein the jar can be reused in the kitchen or as a mug. The secret is giving customers the choice to reduce waste. If reusable packaging is out of the question, consider choosing biodegradable packaging materials. This may also earn your brand credit in the minds of environmentally-aware consumers.
4. ADD PROMOTIONAL ELEMENTS
Consider retail packaging as promotional real estate. While shielding the product, the package surface additionally gives a blank canvas for messages that need to be communicated. There are many methods to incorporate promotional elements into product packaging: Coupon codes, hidden URLs or QR codes that lead to giveaways, discounts, or special offers.
Taking this opportunity to the following level, keep in mind making packaging interactive with games that build engagement and enhance the brand experience. Engaged purchasers are more likely to share their positive reviews with others
5. COME UP WITH THEMED PACKAGING
Be prepared to test subtle changes to your brand packaging from time to time. Consider design modifications for seasons, events, holidays, local/regional promotions, and cooperative partnerships with complementary products. For example, is your brand reaching a milestone? For brands celebrating 25 years in business, why not include silver gildings in the packaging? It could be a silver stamp that doubles as a discount coupon.
Themed or versioned packaging frequently calls for small portions and shorter print runs. This approach additionally requires short-term forecasting, tighter inventory controls, and decreased lead times. These elements all link to the capabilities afforded by digital printing technologies.
6. INCORPORATE SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE
Social media advertising and marketing is available to any brand. Boost your Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter following through prominently including hyperlinks to those sites on your product packaging. Come up with a compelling call-to-action to encourage customers to hit follow. Your packaging need to be informative without being cluttered by needless text. Keep it visual as much as possible.
7. Match your packaging to your advertising campaigns
The word “synergy” gets thrown around plenty in the business world, however it’s a terrific one. It means when two or more matters come together to create something that’s greater than the ones on their own. You’ll note when a business creates an advertising or marketing campaign, they make sure numerous elements all match up.
Their commercials, billboards, radio advertisements and web advertisements all have the identical appearance and feel. If you’re developing a marketing campaign like this, don’t overlook to bring your packaging into the mix.
It’s probably as simple as including a headline, a graphic, or maybe just a color on your packaging design. When the entirety is “one”—when all of it fits and appears like a part of a whole—it will become memorable, effortlessly recognizable, and makes you appearance plenty smarter than your competition.
BOOST MARKETING WITH PACKAGING
No matter how strategic your brand’s advertising and marketing is, if your packaging falls short, fewer customers will be enticed to place your product in their physical or virtual carts. Packaging should stand out at a glance, while additionally meeting the legal, regulatory, and cultural requirements of your market.Your brand strategy should work to persuade your target customer’s behavior with on-point packaging marketing.
If you’d like to see more on packaging design, or look at some upcoming design trends, see my other blog posts …“EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PACKAGING DESIGN” & “10 PACKAGING DESIGN TRENDS FOR 2022”
