Tell a Story With Your Custom Labels
Labels are everywhere. You see them on hot sauce bottles in restaurants, on peanut butter jars, and on packages of cute baby onesies. Labels identify, brand, and define products in stores and packages to be shipped.
What Custom Labels Can Do for You
By creating custom labels, you can identify your store, brand, or company wherever you choose. Instead of generic labels, custom ones identify you on every product you ship or shirt you sell. Your logo and name stay front and center as customers enjoy your products. If they visually see your pizza logo while eating your pizza, they are more likely to remember where it came from the next time they crave that cheesy goodness.
Placing custom labels on your company packaging lets customers easily identify your brand. Whether for products on a shelf or for shipping orders, labels put your company image out there for consumers to see. Make your product stand out from your competitors’ items by designing a label that is uniquely yours. This also gives you the opportunity to include your own style and make the product your own (symbolically as well as literally).
The Power of Storytelling
Designing your own labels allows you the freedom to create the right look. Want to create labels that are different? You can. Have a unique idea that you’d like to print on your labels? You can do that too. One idea that has been popping up more lately is creating content for labels. Just like content marketing online, this storytelling makes consumers feel closer to your company and brand.
Think about a story of a vineyard’s history on the label of a wine bottle, or the photographs on custom labels of Jones Soda bottles; both make their product unique in the eyes of the consumer. As creative as you get though, don’t forget to maintain your brand in design and color.
A Label Lesson From Coke
A label can be a marketing campaign of its own even. Think about Coke’s #ShareaCoke campaign. The first time I saw a billboard referencing the campaign, it seemed rather odd. On its face, a company is telling me to share my Coke with someone of a random name.
When I received an “Emily” coke (spelled wrong, but still) on Facebook from a friend in South Carolina, I understood.
Then my brother sent a “Mom” coke to my mom over text message that made her day.
Drinking a Coke is now a personal experience and it didn’t take the company much work. All the Coke marketing department had to do was print labels with the most popular names in their target 12-34 demo, and the customers promote their product for them across social media and beyond.
Although you might have a small shop without that kind of national impact, you can certainly still make an impression on your customers simply by what you put on a label. Give them more to learn about you and a reason to share it with their friends, and they will be coming back for more.
Don’t Be Intimidated
If a label design seems overwhelming, start simple. Use one of PrintPlace.com’s label templates for exact dimensions. (They are free and available in several formats.) Then add your logo and contact info. When you are ready to expand on that, try one of the ideas above. You and your customers will be excited about the new look of your printed labels.
(featured label artwork from PrintPlace.com customer, Ele Story)
Writer. Marketer. Enjoying writing about printing and marketing. Other things to talk to me about at a cocktail party include travel, dance, and food. Find me on Twitter @writtenbyemilie