When it’s time for your company to roll out seasonal promotions, don’t forget to include product packaging in your planning. It’s critical to develop campaigns that showcase your brand’s identity, and one great way to do that is through memorable, high-quality packaging.
The variety of challenges to getting it right can feel daunting. You want it to be cost-effective while also reflecting core brand elements and incorporating unique, attention-grabbing designs. You may also be facing tight timelines while juggling stakeholder collaboration and vendor relationships (not to mention the pressure of driving sales and customer loyalty). It may seem a bit much to ask of something as mundane as a shipping box. Still, plenty of research has shown it can be an effective way of extending your branding all the way through to the customer receiving a delivery. Custom box printing solutions can do all of that, including delivering an exceptional unboxing experience to delight customers.
The takeaway here seems simple: Put in the time and effort well ahead of known seasonal spikes in demand to create custom-printed boxes that take your seasonal promotions to the next level. Brown & Pratt is here to help! In this post, we’ll cover a variety of factors to keep in mind so you can leverage unique packaging that stands out and make the most of seasonal promotions..
Why Seasonal Promotions Matter
If your business is subject to seasonality effects, you’re probably aware of it, (perhaps painfully so). You know you have to identify and measure seasonal variations within your market in order to plan for the future. This planning is what prepares you for temporary increases or decreases in labor requirements and inventory as demand for your product(s) fluctuates at certain times. The classic example, of course, is the holiday season for retailers when everyone is buying gifts for family and friends. Depending on its product line, a company might also face seasonal fluctuations based on whether it’s summer or winter.
What many businesses miss out on, however, is the competitive advantage in seasonal promotions to be gained by focusing on the branding power of top-quality, custom-printed packaging materials. When done right, seasonally relevant packaging materials can capture consumer interest and create urgency. Limited-time offerings or themes can also often translate into higher sales and stronger brand loyalty.
Seasonal Relevance
Make no mistake, a thorough understanding of your seasonal context and aligning your campaigns with timely themes is crucial for impactful seasonal marketing, and this extends all the way through the packaging used to ship products to customers. Creative content strategies, compelling visuals, and user-centric approaches can all help enhance engagement and drive sales during peak seasons.
Color and Imagery: When you incorporate seasonal color palettes and motifs, it makes products feel timelier and more relevant to customers. Obvious choices here could be the bright reds around Christmas, eye-catching oranges around Halloween, fall foliage colors throughout autumn, pastels typical around Easter, verdant greens and sky blues during summer, and so on.
Cultural and Regional Nuances: Don’t miss out on opportunities to tailor designs to specific celebrations or events in key markets. Think about how big Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) is in different areas, but especially in Louisiana.
The idea here is that each time you make packaging seasonally relevant, you are also refreshing your brand’s image and keeping it top-of-mind for your customers. When customers associate your brand with the good feelings of a particular holiday, season, or significant cultural or regional event, they’re more likely to remember as well as recommend your products.
Brand Consistency
If there’s one thing you must always keep in mind about your company’s branding it’s this: consistency. Think about brands like Apple, Starbucks, and Coca-Cola. They are all known for getting consistency right. Why is consistency so important? The most obvious reason is for brand recognition. Your brand won’t be as recognized as you want it to be if it’s constantly changing and not presented consistently across the board. In the beginning, your brand is a stranger to most people, but as they make repeated purchases they move into being acquainted with your brand. If you are very consistent with your branding, though, you can reach the “holy grail” of branding, which is moving that relationship with the customer from stranger to acquaintance to a trusted friendship.
Key approaches here include balancing festivity with brand identity. The festivity is the seasonal twist you’re putting on the branding, but there still needs to be those key brand elements that are consistent, such as your company logo. During the holiday season, you can surround your logo with holiday designs, which is getting the best of both worlds: brand consistency and seasonal relevance. In other words, be sure to preserve brand recognition while simultaneously applying seasonal relevance.
Creative Box Design Ideas
Let’s focus on shipping boxes. The box containing your product(s) that is delivered to customers is the perfect opportunity to extend the customer’s brand experience, and one many companies overlook to their own peril. Having said that, we also want to note a caveat: Avoid overly complicated designs. Yes, creativity is important, but you also don’t want to overcomplicate your packaging design. Visually appealing is good; overwhelming is not so good. Also, keep in mind that the more complex the design, the more expensive it’s going to be to produce.
Rather than settling for the usual (boring) corrugated shipping box, you could opt for something a little fancier, such as a die-cut mailer box. Here are the two most common choices:
Tuck Top Mailer Box: This type of mailer box has an extended outer flap with a lip that tucks inside the box to close it. They are stylish and sturdy, making them a popular choice for a more sophisticated presentation. They’re also easy to open.
Deluxe Mailer Box: Even more stylish than the tuck-top, these mailer boxes typically feature a thicker weight. The lip, rather than tucking inside the box, rolls over the front and is secured with tabs that fit into vertical slots on the front. This type of box may also feature dust flaps on each side of the lid that tuck inside the sides of the box, creating a more complete seal around the outer edges of the lid.
When you combine custom printing with a die-cut mailer box, you’re really entering the realm of much more effective seasonal packaging that will make a big impact on customers. Learn more at our Brown and Pratt Die-Cut Mailer Boxes page.
If your company uses chipboard boxes for product packaging that will then go into a shipping box, you can achieve some great designs there as well. Learn more at our Printed Chipboard Boxes page.
Additional Considerations, Ideas, and Benefits
We like to say the sky is the limit when it comes to impactful seasonal packaging options like custom-printed boxes, but we know that’s not really true since budgets exist. Despite that constraint, there are still a variety of factors to keep in mind:
Seasonal Customization and Personalization: With custom printing, variable data is an option to personalize the messaging with on-box custom messages, including printing customer names, special greetings, limited-edition notes, core brand messaging, and so on. You can also opt for designs tailored to various customer segments or gifting occasions.
Unboxing Experience: When the customer receives the shipment from your company, they’re about to have an unboxing experience, and you want it to be awesome. For this reason, consider incorporating inserts and tactile elements, including tissue paper, stickers, or personalized notes to add excitement. Unboxing videos have become surprisingly popular, so be sure you encourage engagement and social sharing because those unboxing videos with the right social media tags can go a long way toward boosting brand reach.
Marketing and Sales Boost: Tie your custom packaging to your campaigns by aligning box design with broader promotional efforts, including email marketing, social media, and so on. If you’re worried about the spend on these efforts, remember there is a return on investment (ROI) to consider. Creating high-quality seasonal packaging can lead to repeat purchases, word-of-mouth marketing, and higher sales conversions, all of which can take the sting out of the initial financial expenses involved.
Timely Planning: It should go without saying, but it’s important to plan for all this well in advance of your peak season(s). This becomes even more critical when you consider the need to collaborate with multiple teams (creative, product, procurement, and so on) to ensure a smooth rollout.
Limited Editions and Exclusivity: Consider the impact that exclusivity of limited editions and limited-time offers that can build buzz and drive purchases. You might be surprised how many people are interested in collecting limited-edition packaging, thereby increasing brand loyalty.
Learn more in these related vlog posts: Create A Memorable Marketing Touch with Custom Printed Boxes and How Custom-Printed Shipping Boxes Elevate Your Brand.
Brown and Pratt: Your Custom Packaging Partner
By now, you’ve got a much more solid idea of all the possibilities that can go into your product packaging and shipping boxes to extend your customers’ experience of your brand all the way to opening up the box that gets delivered to their doorstep. These are not just “nice-to-have” features; they are “must-have” features if you want to gain a competitive advantage from your seasonal promotions. To summarize, you want to leverage seasonal relevance, brand consistency, creativity design, and exclusive offerings into packaging that makes a big impact on your customers from a branding perspective.
Brown and Pratt has been providing custom packaging and shipping supplies to a wide range of businesses since 1954. Our deep well of expertise and extensive experience means we can get the results you need. We’ve built our reputation on an unwavering commitment to excellence in customer service, which means we collaborate with you every step from start to finish on every project. If it’s time for your company to partner with a trusted packaging expert who can deliver custom packaging solutions for standout seasonal campaigns, we’re ready to help! Get in touch through our contact page or call us at 888-659-9450, or fill out our online Request a Quote form. We look forward to discussing what we can do for you!
