Whether you are creating packaging for your very first product or adding a new product to your existing line, you need to carefully plan your design to ensure it appeals to customers and meets with your current branding. Ideally, you will always work with a designer before adding a product or multiple products to your brand, but it still helps to know what to expect from them. This knowledge will also allow you to make some minor adjustments yourself before consulting the designer to confirm that they make logical sense and would appeal to your target audience.
Keep It In Line With Your Brand
Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind when adding new products to your lineup is branding. You want to have uniformity across your product line so customers are easily able to tell that all of the products within it are made by the same company. By following your branding, the new product will be easily recognizable as being one of yours, encouraging current customers who love your existing products to try it. Similarly, those who try your new product and haven’t been exposed to your brand in the past will be able to easily make the connection between this new item they now love and the existing items that are worth their consideration. Simply put, maintaining brand uniformity will boost sales, both among new customers and existing ones.
Make Subtle Adjustments For Related Products
In cases when the new product you are adding is similar to your existing ones, you can typically take the design and overall packaging you use on your current products and make some subtle tweaks. If, for example, you sell one type of sauce or food and are adding another one to your lineup, consider using the same bottle shape and overall design. Simply change something relatively minor, such as the imagery or some of the colors used, in addition to the name of the sauce. This helps with your branding by encouraging product uniformity and makes it easier for customers to recognize that all of the products are from your company.
Label It As New
People are always looking to be the first to try something and explore new things so consider labeling your new products as “New” for at least a small packaging run at the beginning of its release. This also prevents people from mistakenly thinking they may have tried the product before and didn’t like it for some reason. Depending on your product and brand recognition you may even want to label the new item as something such as “New flavor based on the original ____” or “based on everyone’s favorite ___.”
Remember All The General Packaging Tips
Of course, in addition to all of these unique considerations to make the most of the new addition to your product lineup, you want to keep all of the general packaging tips in mind. Make sure that the overall packaging and design appeals to your target audience, opt for recyclable materials and label the packaging as such, ensure it is easy to use, and create an eye-catching design. Essentially, you should be doing everything with a new product’s packaging as you would with an existing one.
