It is hard to overstate the importance of having the right packaging for your product. In today’s world, the role of custom packaging goes well beyond making sure your product gets from your warehouse to the stores in one piece. It also draws attention to your product and entices shoppers to buy some of it. Whether you are talking about coffee packaging bags, pet food packaging for cats, or custom candy bags, your packaging may make the difference between what is sold and what stays on the shelf. Here are some ideas to make your product packaging appeal to customers.
- Shoot for a look that says the packaging is homemade. Consumers like packaging design that gives the product a homemade or feel. If you are working on a design for coffee packaging bags, you can make the bags look like they are burlap bags or are in plain, brown, paper bags. This can give your coffee product a look that is authentic and is friendly for the environment.
- Make your packaging environmentally friendly. Many consumers are looking for products that they like but are also good for the environment. The new thing, for many, is, buying products made from sustainable materials. These generally include paper that is either recyclable or fair-trade or both. This is one more reason to create coffee packaging for coffee products that are also good for the environment and are appropriate for products that are also fair-trade and organic. There are a number of different materials such as hemp paper, mulberry paper, and wild grass paper.
- Think outside of the box, literally. There are ways to change the shape of your product packaging and make your products sell better that way. Campbell’s soup has a line of soups that do not come in cans, as it expected for soups. They come in pouches that look different among rows and rows of canned soups. Experts say that the shape of a product can have a big impact on how people view its value. By putting your products in a new or unusual shape you achieve two goals. You make your products stand out from the competition and you add value with the new and improved shape.
- Create packaging that makes it easier to use your product. If you are designing coffee packaging bags, for instance, you can create bags that can be used as coffee filters. For soups, you could create packaging that can be folded into a bowl. You can even turn a one-time purchase into a subscription. When people buy coffee that has been put in your coffee packaging design, you can allow them to refill the bag up to a certain number of times for a lower price than the first bag. This turns people who may have just bought one bag of coffee into repeat customers.
- Tell the story of your business with your packaging. There are a lot of businesses that use their packaging to tell a story, share ideas, or just have interesting trivia. You can actually tell a story on your labels and you can use different shapes and materials to tell that story a different way. Snapple puts actual trivia on their bottles. Spindrift cans show off how simple the product is; all these beverages are made from is real juice and carbonated water.
- Make sure your packaging works with the rest of your marketing plan. All of your materials need to work together. That means the messaging needs to be the same and the color scheme needs to not clash. If you are selling different flavors, you may use different colors for each. That is fine but all of these colors need to work with the color scheme you used on your logo and website. Any part of your materials or packaging that does not work with the rest of your plan works against it.
Creative packaging can do a lot to help you sell more product. The right coffee packaging bags can make your coffee stand out from the other coffee bags, tell the story of your business, and grow awareness of your brand. All of these will help your bottom line.
