Deciding When to Utilize Promotional Packaging
Developing a stellar product is one of the most basic keys to success for a consumer goods business. An equally important aspect involves how you choose to package your product. A consistent and well-crafted graphic design strategy will ensure that your product generates instant appeal, and convinces consumers to trust your brand.
Settling on a tried and true graphic design aesthetic is an important step in building long-term stability and customer loyalty. Yet sometimes you need to revitalize your product lines by strategically employing promotional packaging. This article takes a look at four compelling reasons to use promotional packaging for one or more of your products.
Promotional Packaging Differentiates Your Product
No matter how well your product beats the competition when it comes to its actual use, that's no guarantee that consumers will even pick it up. In an increasingly crowded marketplace, even great products sometimes get lost in all of the visual noise. This can be true even for products that have succeeded at gaining a reasonable amount of market penetration.
Running a promotion — one that you promote by rolling out a new packaging design — is a great way to increase visibility. Promotional packaging can literally make your product stand out from the rest of the shelf. Just don't make the mistake of abandoning your core logos and color schemes. Going too far with a packaging overhaul can make it hard for customers to recognize your brand.
Promotional Packaging Helps You Cross-Sell Products
Chances are your company doesn't just sell one single product. On the contrary, you likely offer an array of different — yet related — products. But customers who have come to rely on one of those products may not realize that you also offer another product they need. They may also have already established loyalty towards the related products offered by a competitor of yours.
Promotional packing is one of the most effective ways to increase a consumer's awareness of your other products. Bundled promotions — which contain multiple items at a discounted price — prove particularly valuable in this regard. So do promotional packages that include a free gift, often a trial-size sampler of a related product.
Promotional Packaging Incentivizes Your Products
While customer loyalty certainly remains a strong force in product sales, many consumers have shown an increasing tendency to "shop around" for the best deal. In other words, such consumers don't hesitate to switch from brand to brand depending on which one offers the best deal. This tendency can make it hard for companies to ensure consistent product sales.
Promotional packaging offers an effective way to incentivize consumers to continue choosing your product instead of the competition. A variety of different promotional tactics — from sweepstakes, to bundled products, to free gifts — work toward this end. The goal is to make the customer feel like they are getting more for their money with your product.
Promotional Packaging Lets You Experiment with New Ideas
Even the best products don't remain completely static as time goes on. Instead, manufacturers play around by changing certain variables, tweaking their products in order to keep up to date with the times. Unfortunately, companies don't always have an easy way to test out such variations in the real world, meaning they can't accurately predict how well new products will be received.
Promotional packaging provides an excellent testing ground for new ideas, whether you are tweaking a new product, or attempting to introduce an entirely new one. The sales data you get during the promotion will provide valuable when determining whether to implement changes on a more permanent basis.
Promotional packaging can be used to achieve a lot of different goals for a company. To learn more about what promotional marketing strategies will yield the best results for you, contact the industry leaders at Media Hounds.