Tips to Make Your Packaging Work After the Sale

Yo!

I’m going to be adapting some of my social content and blogs to short informational posts here. I feel like we are missing some opportunities for discussions on branding/marketing/packaging/design when we have a lot of brainpower here with experience.

We should all work to turn standard packaging into ‘enhanced packaging’, which not only attracts potential customers on the shelf, but also amplifies your marketing efforts after the point for sale. This means seeing your packaging as a form of communication with your customers, which can increase ROI, augment the user experience, or deepen the brand’s identity.

Your packaging may be your only mode of communication with a new customer. Make sure it is sending the right message.

RULE #1 KEEP YOUR CONTACT INFO PROMINENT

The number one mistake we see operators making when designing their packaging is that they don’t include their social handles or primary contact info. If you want customers to flex your product online, you need to make it frictionless for your customers to give you a shout out or reach you online. A QR code linked to your primary contact platform is ideal, and makes it easier for potential customers to follow you or research your brand on the spot.

RULE #2 INCLUDE A VARIABLE REWARD

Building a variable reward into your product is a core psychological technique used by many of the most successful tech products, but can also be leveraged in consumer products. For most ecommerce or retail brands, the economics are simple: surprising your customer with a $.50 ashtray or a $.10 sticker buys you much more than $.50 or $.10 worth of loyalty and word of mouth marketing. Jones Soda leveraged this same idea for little or no cost with ‘fortunes’ printed under each bottle cap. Check out the book ‘Hooked’ for more info on this topic.

RULE #3 BE USEFUL BEYOND THE PRODUCT

Making your product useful is easier for some industries than others, but the idea can be applied to almost any product. The result is that your brand gets more visibility and gains value to your customer. Some examples are complex, like integrating a book of rolling papers into a box for cannabis flower, but others are quite simple, like printing word searches and other games on the shipping boxes of a children’s clothing company. Even using elevated, reusable packaging like a glass jar or tin is a great way to keep your brand in the hands of your consumers long after the product has been used.

RULE #4 DRIVE REPEAT SALES

This rule probably provides the most measurable ROI, and like Rule #3, it can be implemented very simply and cheaply. The easiest way is to simply include a discount code for future purchases inside the packaging. More interesting strategies to drive repeat buys could include adding loyalty coins or scratch offs to products, or implementing a loyalty program. Another really simple way you can drive future sales is to list dates of future product drops, events, or new strain releases, either on packaging, or online. Again, you need to think about your packaging as your primary mode of communication to new customers, and you need to make sure they know about all the heat you have coming down the pipeline.

Hope this helps you guys. Put that mylar to work!!

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Nice tips, something for everyone to think about. Great job!

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Thank you!!!

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