In this market, advertising, as well as position, have become paramount. In some ways, what you sell is not as important as how you sell it, which is why we’re here with some small business packaging ideas.
This is the purpose of branding is to create that necessary distinction between you and the person working for that same industry dominance. The brand isn’t what you sell or what service you’re offering. Branding is how you sell it. The nature behind that comes to embody the idea of the company itself.
For a small business however intent on saving money and time, using creativity within the packaging itself is a surefire way to distinguish your identity. There are five ideas a small business can use in its packaging that can give them the edge.
Branded Box
Technically a branded box can be as simple as a logo, stamped on its side. Simple but necessary. This is “the box.” It is the first physical interaction your customer will have with your brand. It captures and notes the pedigree and offers waves in the total product experience.
While the customer orders the product and has some general idea of what to expect the customer rarely has a clue about what to expect with the packaging. By getting this right, the brand itself is taking one last chance to affect the customer’s expectations before the final point of product acquisition. This is very powerful stuff.
Thank You Note / Custom Internal Packaging
While the box’s outside offers a formal introduction to the brand and product, the inside is the point and purpose of the purchase. By branding the internal packaging/tissue, you are offered an opportunity to once again separate your brand.
A thank you note sent with a product offers grounds for a more intimate experience personal to your brand. By presenting what is there as higher, greater, and better. You can often have your product deemed as such. This assists with your product’s merit. When your product is as much your brand as anything else it’s key to keep in mind: packing peanuts are dead.
How the Box is Packed
This offers an entirely different dimension the brand interaction. This is experiential and very low cost. While it may not equate under the “one-size-fits-all” mentality, it offers an edge to the meticulous side of the growing small business.
Just based on how a box is organized, can create an opportunity for an experience for the buyer. It’s the “a-ha moment.” The big reveal. It’s Hitchcock’s bomb under the table. In essence, it’s the first impression after a long point of anticipation. All that build-up hinging on a split-second reveal. The highest and most critical single point in deciding a customer’s feelings on your brand.
This is clear from all the numerous “unboxing videos” brimming across YouTube. Turn the mandatory waiting period from shipping into a weapon at your disposal. Play off of your buyer’s anticipation and excitement and you have an opportunity to turn an impressionable moment into a lifetime of support.
Freebies
A little extra. The transaction is in essence the mobility of value from one entity to another. This is an opportunity to give them that little extra value prematurely. It shows good faith, and if it’s branded properly can serve as a self-contained advertisement put straight into the hands of someone who enjoys your brand. Here are some common freebie ideas:
- Stickers
- Magnets
- Shirts
- Tote Bag
They all come on their own scale and level, obviously tied to their own cost and presumed benefits. Regardless this offers a guaranteed through line for whatever is decided to be put in that box. The closer it is tied to your brand the more clever, and often more well-received it is.
Fully Custom Packaging
This is it. The full amalgamation of everything. Besides the layout of how the box is organized, this is the only other way to truly craft an experience for your customer. Especially when considering that this is an opportunity that can raise brand standing. Essentially, this is the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. By means of what the box has printed, the materials it is made out of, how it’s laid out for the merchandise to be removed, and so on. Here are several examples a company can play out in fully custom packaging.
- Brand Colors
- Packaging Material
- Packaging Shape
- Product Layout (which will be removed first)
- Notes/Freebies/Asides
- How the Box Opens
And the list goes on for small business packaging ideas. Just as each website has a generally similar design, but remains completely unique in its forte and experience, so is your brand’s packaging. It is an opportunity to play with brand expectations and product and use the presentation to become more in the eyes of your customer than they were expecting possible. All with the built anticipation and elements of subversion and surprise.