Is Your Packaging Helping or Hurting Your Sales?

Good Food Marketing with The Virginia Foodie

One of the things I hear a lot from small and startup businesses is that deciding on product packaging is the most exciting and awaited part of the production process and business launch. What color to use, what size of the box or jar, how many inches from the lid should the logo sit. These are the thrilling questions that get thrown in the brainstorming process for packaging.

Unsurprisingly, it can also be the most nerve-wracking, and here’s why. Packaging has the smallest physical space but needs to work the hardest. With competition getting tighter, as a brand, you only have that microsecond to convince your ideal customer to grab your product from a sea of other somewhat similar products on the shelf. The wrong color, confusing label, illegible fonts, or awkward container can throw off your customer - and there goes the sale.

Regardless of your business size or how long you’ve been in the market, if you want to succeed in retail, hiring a professional package designer is an investment that pays off over the life of your brand. It’s something you simply can’t shrug off. Nor can you try to just wing it. What you invest in your packaging can make or break your brand in the retail environment.

Virginia Foodie Essentials:

• Product packaging is one of the five places that a food brand controls its brand story.
• Packaging is your silent salesman. Your package design needs to tell your brand story when you aren't there to explain it to the shopper.
• Purchase decisions are made in microseconds at the shelf, and research shows that shoppers will change their minds at the very moment they reach to put products into their cart.
• Confusing your audience and then making it hard for them to use your product is never a good idea no matter what the cost-savings.
• The trick in packaging is to make sure that the brand essence can be translated into a small shape and still support all the technical needs of packaging for the US market.
• Your brand essence, your product positioning, your flavor profiles, the legal requirements, manufacturing processes, and the refill and replenishment costs over the life of your brand.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Packaging can make or break sales in the retail environment
• Packaging is probably the first big investment a small brand makes
• Package design is an investment and not as a sunk cost
• The big communication work your package does is set expectations
• Choosing colors is important, especially for future expansion
• Subtle shifts in design elements can convey different messages
• Package design is part of a manufacturing process
• Product packaging needs to weather the storm and extreme changes
• True craftsmanship takes time
• Good package design firms understand all the legal requirements
• Project-based fees keep clients and service providers in check

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