Are your product labels living up to their potential? Up to 85% of purchase decisions are based simply on a shopper judging your proverbial book by its cover, so a high-quality, well-designed label can help your products pop in the highly competitive consumer packaged goods space.
We’ve created labels for hundreds of retail clients who sell directly to consumers. No two are alike, but all high-performing labels do three crucial things:
- Earn customer trust. Surely, you’ve seen those web pages that are devoted to sneaky advertising where the product doesn’t look a thing like what’s on the packaging? Don’t be that marketer. Beautiful, full-color photography that accurately depicts your product is a must. Hiring an experienced photographer can help you earn your customers’ trust and save you time and money in three ways:
- A professional will know how to shoot your product, so you won’t have to rely on tricky styling or post-production Photoshop.
- Having accurate products images can help prevent unnecessary returns. About 22% of product returns result from the consumer feeling like the item looked different in person.
- You’ll also have quality images that you can use throughout your marketing, ensuring consistency.
Be advised, however: Just because you pay a photographer to take pictures doesn’t mean that you can use those pictures anywhere you want. You’ll need to negotiate licensing or usage.
- Stand out on a crowded shelf. When shoppers browse a shelf, you have less than five seconds to grab their attention. In those fleeting seconds, you will ideally appeal to both their logic and their emotions.
You can satisfy the essential need for information by making your labels easy to read. Labels shouldn’t be so big that they cover your product entirely but big enough to accommodate all necessary pictures, graphics, information, barcodes, and anything else that may be required on your label. All type should be legible, with a minimum number of fonts used. White space is your friend: It will help your graphics pop and your type stand out.
When we say “white space,” we don’t actually mean the label itself should be white. Color is one of your best tools for evoking emotion—not only in your packaging but throughout your marketing materials.
- They also ‘fit in.’ Creativity is important, but your label still needs to establish credibility and conform (to some degree) to what consumers expect in a product category. Remember that five-second rule: If consumers have to spend too long trying to decode or understand your label, they’ll just give up.
Additionally, each of your products should look related, like they’re part of a family. Your products should also have a similar look and feel to the marketing materials you’re creating to promote them. This is where a strong brand comes in. Even if your products are not all positioned together, a passing shopper should look at them and recognize them as being “of a kind” and draw an association between the products and previous marketing messages they may have seen.
We can help you maximize this influential investment
There’s a lot that goes into a great label—and we haven’t even talked about printing. We can help you bring all these elements together and maintain your brand consistency between colors and printed substrates. We have the capacity to print almost any label, whether you’re looking for small batches or large orders. We can also assist with all your other printing and signage needs. Contact us to see how we can help.
