Product packaging is one of the critical marketing steps. With its help, buyers identify a brand and a specific product. Sales depend on how convenient, practical, unique, attractive, and memorable the container you place your product will be. This article will show you how to make a packaging design to draw attention to your product and increase sales.
List the properties of the product
Packaging design work is impossible until you decide what limitations the product imposes. List the product's properties: consistency, quantity in one package, the need for specific storage and transport temperature, other critical physical characteristics of the product, such as the use of child-protection packaging, for example, in the cannabis industry. Once you list the properties of a product, you will immediately be presented with a list of packaging restrictions. Based on this information, you will be able to compile a list of tasks that the packaging must solve in any case: to maintain the shape of the product or to ensure its protection. This problem is best addressed by partnering with a company like RXDco to design this packaging for you.
Identify your buyers
Use market research to paint a portrait of your target audience. Who are those people, where, when, and how they usually buy your product, how much are they willing to pay for it? What they expect from it, and how they dispose of the packaging after use. The packaging should attract the attention of the buyers, inform them about the product, create a sense of reliability and the right choice, and be ergonomic. For instance, nowadays, you can also find in the market a lot of free nicotine brands that have a decent way of packaging.
Decide on distribution channels
Make a list of all the distribution channels you use: individual outlets, supermarket shelves, online stores, or a delivery storefront on your website. It would help if you decided how to stand out from the competition in the supermarket or differentiate it from your other products, store the product, and how easy it will be to get it to the customer. At the same time, you should think about packaging if you have both online and offline sales channels because you will have to adapt it to different conditions. In the store, the buyer can pick up the product and examine it from all sides. While online shopping, the buyers will not have such an opportunity. This means that you need to make a package that will look good in the photo.
Select the type of packaging
The outer packaging is what the customer sees first. For example, a delivery box containing an item or a gift bag. The inner packaging preserves the properties of the product: the book can be wrapped in foil, loose elements can be poured around the mug, the gift set of cosmetics can be put in wrapping paper. The main thing is when you have decided on the type of packaging and the type of container. It would be best if you thought about how it will look in the end. If you are designing packaging for a product in a brand line, then, of course, you have a brand book. Make sure that the designer has information on the corporate identity: logo, colors, fonts. If you are developing a new brand, then think about how it will look before giving the technical task to the designer. You are required to provide complete information about how you want to see the package.
Calculate your budget
Are you going to do the packaging yourself, or will you outsource it? If independently, then from what materials? Do you have the necessary equipment? If not, how much will it cost to acquire it? If you plan to order products from third-party contractors, will your designer be able to prepare files of the required format? Check with your partners which file extension they accept and add it to the plan.
When designing packaging, you need to think about how much it will cost to produce. These costs are divided into two types:
1. One-time costs. The cost per unit of goods, in our case, the work of a designer. This is payment for the development of a layout, a printing plate, and everything included in the packaging development.
2. Unit price. The amount you spend on packaging each item. This is the cost of the materials from which you make the packaging and the wages of the packers.
We hope that we told you quite informatively about commercial packaging design and what business tasks it solves and shared life hacks for creating a "selling" design.