Besides protecting the products within, your packaging design plays a vital role in selling your products. You can agree that your target customers interact with the packaging first before they come into contact with the product. At the very least, you want it to grab your customers’ attention and create a good impression to influence a buying decision. You also want your packaging to send the right brand message and help you stand out in the market.
However, getting everything right with your packaging design isn’t always possible. If your packaging is not bringing in the desired results, it is time to look at what you are missing. The following are some of the things you may do wrong in the design.
Overlooking differentiation
Your brand is unique, and so should your packaging design represent that. If you fail to differentiate your products from competing brands, you are hurting your sales. Using a generic design only makes it easy for customers to choose your competition. Also, it implies a lack of originality and effort, something that can easily create a first bad impression on your target customers.
Keep in mind that differentiation is very important if you are to stand out from competition. Avoid using generic designs and go for custom designs that set you apart. But, creating a unique design isn’t quite easy. You might want to use the help of professional packaging companies to create a unique design that pulls customers to your products. Their expertise and experience can help you create custom printed packaging, cosmetic packaging, food packaging and more depending on your industry.
Misleading customers
Is your packaging design creating the right impression of what is inside? There are packaging designs that create an impression of more while it is only a small quantity held inside. If you are doing this deliberately to trick customers to buy, it can cost you greatly. Your customers might fall into the trap and make the initial sale. But, never come back after realizing that they were misled.
You need to keep in mind that customers are very keen on getting value for their money. Two, broken trust can be hard to rebuild. Always make sure that you are honest with your packaging design. Don’t use a design that makes what’s inside appear more or larger. Also, make sure that it promises only what it can deliver.
Using excessive packaging
You are creating a bad unboxing experience if your customers have to get through layers of packaging to get to the product. Unfortunately, such bad experiences can influence your customers to switch to competition. In addition, excessive packaging is a waste of resources. It also doesn’t portray you as an eco-friendly business as it creates unnecessary waste. And, this isn’t likely to resonate well with the growing volume of environmentally-conscious consumers.
Avoid using excessive packaging that doesn’t add any aesthetic or functional value to the product. Going for custom packaging design can help you solve this mistake. You might also want to choose eco-friendly packaging materials while at it.
Failing to proofread
If you don’t proofread your packaging design, you are likely to end up with grammatical errors such as misspellings. While you might think that your customers might understand, it creates an impression of ignorance or unprofessionalism. In addition, failing to proofread can sabotage the accuracy of the information provided on the label. For instance, an ingredient or instruction could be missing or misprinted. Unfortunately, this can lead to fatal consequences especially in the food or pharmaceutical industries.
Getting the typography correct and giving accurate information is key to building customer trust. It is important to pay attention to every detail on the packaging before your products hit the shelves.
Using too-busy designs
You could be thinking that using too much contrasting color is vibrant and appealing to the eye. However, while not every product should have a minimalist packaging design, creating too much confusion can be putting off for customers. Focus on leaving enough white space that is symmetrically and evenly distributed on the design. Don’t use too many fonts and colors as they can be distracting. At the end of the day, you want to achieve a design that doesn’t come across as overbearing.
Conclusion
Your packaging design can make or break a sale. It also plays a vital role in creating a good unboxing experience and fostering customer trust. Getting it right goes a long way in portraying your professionalism and thoughtfulness, while setting you apart from the rest. Make sure that your packaging design isn’t misleading, distracting, excessive or full of errors.