In this world of instant gratification and short attention spans, marketing visuals hugely impact sales. More than 72% of Americans admit that the packaging design and materials affect their purchase decisions. When these consumers are buying gifts, the packaging is an even more important factor.
That’s a lot of pressure for your company. And yet, the final decisions about which packaging designs are selected for manufacturing are often just the casual opinions of a few internal employees.
You don’t need to build out the most powerful marketing team to avoid mistakes with designing packaging, though. Here are five common problems we see in packaging designs and how you can avoid making these missteps.
5 Mistakes with Designing Packaging
In all aspects of business, it’s critical to avoid basic errors that could make your company look amateurish. Here are 5 common mistakes when looking at options for packaging.
1. Typos and Poor Visuals
Oversights on small details will damage your professional brand. Some pitfalls include centering of layouts, unbalanced white space, typos in the text on the packaging, and blurry or small fonts.
2. Excessive or Wasteful Components
The use of excessive packaging materials will be a turn-off for many customers. It may seem like a fun idea to ship in a too-big box or have a jar inside of a box inside of a bigger box. However, it’s wasteful, and consumers will wonder if the excessive packaging is what they’re really paying for.
3. Unappealing Design Work
Boring or generic-looking packaging will be skipped over by customers. Your packaging needs to be interesting and appealing to catch their attention.
4. Bad Strategy
Poor overall branding strategy is a killer. Your company name, logos, taglines, vision, and message need to be aligned. Plus, these things need to align with your audience as well. If not, your hook is lost, and sales will be slow.
5. Too Many Changes
Revising your packaging frequently can be confusing for loyal buyers. It may seem like a good idea to put your packaging on the market to see if it sells well and then change it until it gets results. This will actually result in losing customers who no longer recognize your packaging.
From the variations in different packaging colors to the size and shape of your shipping boxes, every decision matters.
The Best Way to Avoid These Mistakes
As with all major business decisions, choosing which packaging design ideas to use should include input from experts. No matter how strong your marketing department is, they will have a bias.
You’ll also need to have package testing conducted. This helps to confirm how consumers respond to different types of packaging styles.
Bringing on a testing company will eliminate the guesswork. Look for a company that can run message testing, packaging testing, affinity testing, and anything else you need. This will prevent you from having to hire additional testing services.
Level-Up Your Game
Now that you have a better understanding of the most common mistakes with designing packaging use this knowledge to get ahead of your competition. Create packages that get attention by using advice from industry experts.
For more expert advice that you can use to elevate your business, be sure to check out the rest of our blog content.
