A few brands come to mind when it comes to exceptional packaging design. Case in point, Happy Socks employs creativity when designing its packaging by using lively patterns, typography, and graphic designs often seen in its products.
The company has diversified its packaging, and some of the packaging options are elegant and paper-made with imprints. These can properly fit a pair of socks. A big box with a transparent window is used for multiple pairs of socks.
So, what’s the impact of the best packaging designs on the customer?
First Off: Why Does Brand Identity Matter?
Some marketers neglect brand identity and don’t set a budget for it because they don’t understand its significance. Others neglect it because of a lack of metrics to track progress. They may not even have business cards to promote their brand.
A brand identity helps highlight your unique service proposition. It enables customers with the same values as your brand to connect with you and choose you over the competition. According to research, customers with an emotional connection with a brand have a 306% higher lifetime value.
Unique designs help attract customers, increase sales, and create brand loyalty.
How Consistent Branding Attracts Customers
Having a consistent look, colors, and logo helps consumers recognize you regardless of your location. They’ll know who you are on social media or at a trade show by your box design alone.
One thing that’s common among repeat and loyal customers is trust. A brand that keeps changing the messaging and what they stand for ultimately loses its consumers’ trust.
When you’re consistent and win the consumers over, long-term relationships create loyal customers. For instance, Starbucks is known to offer customized drinks, and they’re a sustainable company, which is reflected in their green logo.
Branding Sets You Apart From Competitors
While delivering high-quality products and services gives consumers a unique customer experience, structuring the brand to make it outstanding in the market provides an even better customer experience.
For instance, you can provide branded gifts for purchases that exceed a particular amount. It’s important to consider brand values when offering a unique customer experience.
Branding, primarily through attractive branded packaging, helps consumers pick your products from the crowd on supermarket shelves. So what makes your cosmetics packaging stand out from the rest?
Clever catchphrases that relate to the business can create raving fans. For example, Disneyland is synonymous with its tagline, “The Happiest Place on Earth.”
Strong Branding Makes Consumers Want In on What You’re Selling
Strong branding creates trust and perceived value in the offering. While one brand can appeal to everyday people, another brand selling the same product can appeal to a high-income group. That’s the power of solid branding that factors in design needs.
While value perception will create a desire for new consumers to buy your products, brand consistency keeps them loyal, increasing long-term sales. Customers who are happy with product quality and know that all subsequent sales will be consistently good create referrals.
Take the food packaging and brand achieved by soft drink companies, like Pepsi. Their product is viewed as superior to Coca-Cola’s, and despite having successful marketing campaigns, Coca-Cola is still the market leader. Because of Coca-Cola’s strong branding, coke consumers believe it’s the best because it’s Coca-Cola.
Why Packaging Matters
A product that arrives at the customer’s address in soggy, dented, and torn packaging immediately ruins the purchaser’s idea about the item. It makes them doubt the integrity of the product, and that’s why the primary reason for picking a good packaging is to protect the product. Yes, it can follow the design trends of the time, but it still needs to fit the base needs of protecting the item.
Consumers have no physical interaction with the brand in e-commerce, and the packaging becomes their initial point of contact, making your packaging solution most crucial.
Packaging Is Part of the Customer Experience
Provide a positive customer experience by focusing on simplicity with your packaging options. Choose unfussy graphic designs with a label design and colors that communicate your product and brand message to the target consumer.
The packaging materials must also be simple because overcomplicated product packaging can ruin the customer experience, which frustrates the customer due to the period and effort taken to open the package.
Therefore, avoid too much plastic wrapping and fiddly blister packs. Allow consumers to connect with your product with minimal effort and quickly.
When creating a positive experience for your customers, remember that first impressions are essential because they stick. First impressions form milliseconds before your mind processes things and can persist even when contradicted by facts.
Unboxing a Product Should Be an Experience
Unboxing has been a popular theme on YouTube and other social media platforms. It’s attractive to consumers as they connect with the item before purchasing it.
In fact, there are over three million unboxing results on Instagram and 90 million results on YouTube. Research states a 64-85% chance that viewers will buy a product after watching a product video.
Brands are seeing massive success when offering an exceptional unboxing experience, as shown by iPhone’s 14.8 million unboxing YouTube videos.
So, use the types of packaging that make sense for your products. Candy and other gifts keep the consumer entertained during unboxing. Use textures to appeal to their senses. Also, arrange the gift boxes contents well to show the user that your brand is thoughtful.
Fillers such as tissue paper, paper sleeves, and foam inserts add excitement to the whole experience.
High-Quality Packaging Makes Your Products More Attractive
Regardless of the product you sell, high-end packaging materials are the best. They provide even everyday items a more premium feel, making them more attractive to shoppers than a ho-hum cardboard box.
According to a survey by Ipsos, 72% of Americans state that their buying decision is affected by product packaging design. Since the product packaging is the first interaction area between a customer and your product, premium packaging will attract more shoppers and make you more sales.
High-quality packaging will also attract repeat customers to your business. About 61% of customers state their likelihood to repurchase a product if its packaging is premium. Moreover, high-quality custom packaging will ensure items are protected during transportation, reaching the end-user in the same state they left the warehouse.
Raising Awareness on Sustainability
Putting the environment top of mind will reward your business as the market has shifted to an eco-friendlier shopper. Packaging can result in waste and increase landfills; hence using eco-friendly packaging will appeal to the consumers.
Using sustainable packaging requires you to engage with customers regarding waste and the impact of eco-friendly packaging on the environment. Therefore, you could include educational content on the packaging, creating sustainability awareness.
As a result, the consumer will do more on their end to conserve the environment and will have a deeper connection with your brand that will keep them loyal for years to come.
How To Level Up Your Packaging Design
When designing a package, the first thing to do is to consider its functionality. Therefore, you need to provide details about the package usage and purpose in the design brief. Think about your favorite designs and look for design inspiration around you.
The packaging design mockup must also be visually appealing to grab your audience’s attention. So, include contrasting design elements in the packaging design to stand out from the competition. For instance, use an eye-catching font and unexpected color palette combinations.
Create a template with your basic text and colors so your team can stay on the same page, whether inside or out of the design studio.
Choose the Right Compliant Materials for Your Products
It would be a shame to have a fantastic packaging design but have a problem with product materials. When choosing the material, determine what you need the product to do, how long you want it to last, how you want the appearance to be, the performance of the item, and the costs.
Create an initial product sample as soon as you have the material specifications. Then look for warping, shrinkage, mold lines, weak tolerance, and surface imperfections.
Stay Consistent with Your Brand
Staying consistent with your brand can sound like a difficult task. But a few things can get you started. Set succinct standards and rules for your written materials and visuals. You need to nail down the brand’s tone and voice, color palette, logo, images, fonts, copy, and frequency.
Have an asset management tool for keeping your color guides, logo design, and product images in one place. This enables all team members to access and view them remotely.
Summary
Brand identity helps consumers know where to find you and your products on supermarket shelves and online. A good brand is easily recognizable and can set you apart from the competition.
Choose great color pallets, logo, tone, and voice, then use them consistently across online and offline platforms to send one message to consumers. Part of keeping a brand consistent is designing the packaging.
Good brand packaging is sustainable, offers a memorable unboxing experience, puts customer experience at the top of mind, and boosts brand loyalty.
Now it’s time to pick the right packaging for your business. Contact us, and we’ll take you through your best child-resistant packaging options.
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