Many businesses treat their packaging as an afterthought; they create their product, then find a box to house those products. However, in today’s climate, packaging is an important component of branding and can help create a strong marketing presence for businesses.
Examples of popular types of custom packaging that work effectively as marketing tools include custom sleeve boxes. A custom sleeve box is composed of two parts: a box that contains the item and a sleeve that opens/gives access to this item.
They Attract Attention Before Anything Else
The fact is that most of us will look at the packaging of a product before we ever bother to read the ingredient list or look at the price tag. As human beings we have evolved to be sensitive to colour, shape and design first before logic takes over.
Custom sleeve boxes provide you with plenty of space to be creative. You can:
- Create attention -grabbing, bold colours that stand out among your competitors.
- Use typography to reinforce your brand and convey an appropriate tone for your product (modern, elegant, fun).
- Provide an element of mystery with the sliding box cover which will naturally entice your customers to uncover what’s inside.
Every successful and well-designed box is the result of a great deal of thought. Successful brands typically spend a lot of time considering how their box will appear next to 10 other boxes sitting on a shelf rather than only considering how their box looks when designers are creating it on their computers.
They Build Brand Image Gradually
One thing that a lot of small business owners fail to see is that consistently using the same packaging design will help increase their brand recognition much more than they realize by saving on advertising. If your packaging design is strong enough it can act as an ad for your company without requiring a huge budget.
For many years, “unboxing” was not an item that was discussed in the marketing world, but now, it is a popular form of entertainment. People are posting videos on the internet where they film opening a package: some people watch these videos, sometimes millions of people watch them.
The Importance of Unboxing Has Grown
Unboxing as a marketing term was not too popular years ago; now it has become a sub-category of content creation, where people constantly create videos of themselves unboxing packages and other people watch these videos (sometimes with millions of views).
The design of sleeve boxes makes them ideal for this trend; they have an appearance of luxury due to how they open
For instance:
– The outer cover sliding off is much more intentional and feels better than simply lifting a flap.
– There’s a little bit of a reveal moment when opening the box, like unwrapping a gift even when it’s a common day-to-day item.
– People who use these items will remember “how nice” they felt and will be more likely to share that experience, even if the item itself was not particularly expensive.
Brands are now creating sleeve boxes to create a great unboxing experience for the purpose of filming that unboxing and using it as marketing. Therefore, brands know that if an unboxing looks good on a video, a consumer will create the marketing material, at no cost to the brand, probably even better than if they had paid for a marketing campaign.
Allow You To Provide Information
The box isn’t merely a decorative piece but relatively few minutes of the customer’s time will have their complete attention, and this is prime real estate for communication. Nice-sized custom sleeve boxes can have both positive messages, as well as a lot of useful information.
Use Custom Sleeves to provide:
Basic but significant information, such as ingredients, instructions for use, certifications required by the industry.
A QR code for access to your website; a discount code/offer; and/or links to your social media.
A brief story about your brand, or a tagline (slogan) to give personality to the product.
These are really more important than what most people would think. A customer who is holding your product in a retail store is contemplating whether to buy it or return it to the shelf; they are reading your packaging right now. If you have answered their unspoken inquiry of “what is it?”; “why should I put my trust in it?”; and “how is this product different?” you will have completed an entire sale without saying anything!
They Can Be Used in Almost Any Industry
One of the truly amazing things about sleeve boxes is that they are very adaptable. The boxes are not limited to just one design or customer base.
Examples of businesses using sleeve boxes would include:
– Skincare and/or beauty brands where the sliding feature of the box adds a luxury element to them.
– Food and beverage retailers
specifically those who sell tea, snack foods, or curated gift sets.
– Electronics brands where the sleeve can offer additional protection for fragile items.
– Candle and gift product
manufacturers who are taking advantage of the “unveiling” feature provided by these boxes in order to create a more memorable experience.
What is really interesting is that businesses that are extremely different from each other, e.g., a tea company and a tech accessory producer, could still use the same type of box (the sleeve box) and end up with very different packaging simply due to the fact that both companies have the ability to customize their box to fit their specific brand image.
Calculating the Cost of Sleeve Boxes
Many people believe that because sleeve boxes appear more upscale, they must cost a lot of money to manufacture; however, this isn’t necessarily true.
Here are some reasons sleeve boxes could potentially save your business money:
- Sleeve boxes use less material (as compared to fully rigid, multi-layered boxes)
- Ordering in bulk lowers the cost per unit to produce sleeve boxes and can also benefit smaller companies
A Few Practical Tips Before You Design Yours
- You can add premium finishes such as foil stamping or spot UV coating only to specific locations (e.g., where the logo appears) instead of the entire box, which helps reduce overall packaging costs while maintaining an upscale appearance.
This is just one of the many reasons sleeve boxes have gained significant popularity among startups and small businesses over the last several years. You can make an impact in your packaging without spending a fortune compared to larger competing brands
Putting It All Together
There are six major considerations when choosing sleeve boxes as your packaging option: visual appeal, brand experience, unboxing experience, space for information, versatility across industries, and affordability. Given these aspects of sleeve boxes, it is clear why they are fast becoming one of the preferred choices among brands that care about marketing as well as protecting their products.
Packaging is often the first tangible experience a customer will have with your brand; therefore, how they perceive this initial interaction will dictate their overall impressions about your brand and product moving forward. A high-quality box that feels good, has a well-designed look and feels like it is above average in creating a positive experience — before they even open the product — communicates that you value detail in everything you do.
A Few Practical Suggestions for Designing Your Own
If you are planning on moving towards the use of custom sleeve boxes, here are some additional points to consider that may not be intuitively obvious:
-When designing your box, consider your actual customer rather than thinking about what you like best personally.
-Do not over design your box through excessive text or designing elements — less is more when it comes to creating a successful package design.
-Invest more money into the quality of materials you use; when you use poor-quality materials there is no way for your design to compensate for it.
-Incorporate something interactive; even something simple like adding a QR code.
