8 Tips for Getting The Finishing Touches Right on Your Products
The finishing touches you add to your products will have a big impact on how easily it is for you to sell them. It’s up to you to get those finishing touches just right.
Don’t fool yourself into thinking customers don’t notice those little things because they most certainly do.
These things could even impact the success or failure of your product; they really are that important.
That’s why it’s important to get those finishing touches just right. There are so many ways to do that, but if you don’t know where to start, you’ve come to the right place.
Read on now and start learning how to get the finishing touches on your products as strong and perfected as they can be.
1. Make It Durable
First of all, you’re going to need to finish the product, and many products that are released to the public will need some kind of coating. This is all about making the product and its paintwork more durable.
You don’t want it to get scratched, chipped or damaged in any way, so making it more durable is something that you should definitely try to focus on as you finish off your products.
Stronger protection will be needed for products that’ll be exposed to the elements.
2. Ensure The Box or Packaging is Right
A package is so much more than a protective barrier. When someone is buying in person, it is the deciding factor in making that purchase.
What do the best selling designs have in common? Here are five features we spotted.
They have the potential to become iconic.
Bright red with a few swishes of white – that’s Coca-Cola. Even before logos and designs become iconic, you can see their potential to become iconic.
Something like a custom color can actually shift the culture forever. For instance, what did we call “Tiffany blue” before the jewelry brand began using it for their boxes?
They’re easy to “use”.
A key feature of great design isn’t visual. It’s in ease of use.
When we “use” packaging, what we’re doing is opening, closing, and carrying it. Customers don’t like packages that are difficult to open, tear easily so the product spills out, or are so flimsy they have to take care not to damage what’s inside.
Notches, zippers, perforations, seals, pull tabs, and more all make a package great, because they help the buyer use it.
They’re confident.
How can a package be confident? Well, consider a confident person.
We don’t think of a confident person as someone who brags about their abilities – that’s an arrogant person. A confident person inspires, maintains composure, and exudes authority.
A confident package is the same. It doesn’t need to talk you into buying it; it uses concise words and visuals to convince. It isn’t cluttered with statements, and it’s never visually aggressive, even when it’s meant to communicate strength.
Confidence can be achieved through luxury. A luxury package’s layers and quality materials give a sense of extravagance and let the consumer enjoy every aspect of their purchase, so luxury packaging production is key to a confident product.
The package suits the product.
In the last few years, laundry detergent brands in little plastic pods have become quite popular – for the wrong reasons, frequently.
The way these products are packaged makes them look like candy, when they’re actually harmful and toxic if swallowed.
These big, established laundry brands may have gotten away with it for now, but in general, packaging cleaning products to look like a child’s treat is a huge fail.
The consumer should know how to classify the product at a glance. Being certain of how to categorize something without working to figure it out is hugely appealing to shoppers.
They’re honest.
A good package design does have to include some facts on it, and if the brand has done the work right, they’ll be honest and transparent. They’ll include the weight, contents, and other important information the consumer should know.
In some cases, packaging will include a clear window or be totally transparent to let the customer see for themselves what’s inside.
This makes it even easier for the customer – who rarely spends more than a few seconds deciding to buy – to pick up the item, knowing they won’t be let down.
You might not be a huge, known brand yet, but there’s a lot to learn from the big guys.
Make your packaging simple yet identifiable, build trust through honesty, and don’t let your packaging stand in the way of the customer and the product. Add in some high-quality materials, and you’ve got a design that will sail right off the shelf.
3. Think Carefully About Colour
The colour you choose for the product will have a big impact on how people view it.
This is instinctively one of the first things that we recognise and give any thought to. So you will want to make sure that it doesn’t scare people off.
Ideally, it should make them view the product in a more positive light. You could always test different reactions and see which colour elicits the most positive one so that you’re sure you’re getting this right.
4. Go One Better Than The Competition
When you’re adding the finishing touches to your product, you should also be looking at what your rivals and key competitors in the market are doing.
When they’re going the extra mile and doing more to make their products appealing to customers, you need to go even further than them.
You can’t let your business lag behind the competition because you’ll end up paying for it in the end.
5. Think About Tags and Labels
If you’re selling things like clothes, it’s a good idea to think about things like tags and labels.
You want to make it clear where your products came from and that they’re a product of your company. You should head to GB Labels if you want to see just what can be achieved with this kind of thing.
Don’t underestimate how little details like these can change perceptions of your products; they really do make a big difference.
6. Take Great Photos
These days, most businesses sell online in one way or another. This is something that you definitely need to factor into the equations.
Sometimes, the finishing touches are about presenting the product in the right way, and that includes taking great photos of them for your online store.
If the photos are dark, unclear or there simply isn’t enough of them, you’ll find it so much harder than it needs to be to sell to customers online.
7. Get The Other Visual Featured Right
Your visual identity paves the way for other forms of marketing. Whether you need a logo, or you plan to print out leaflets, or even if you want to enhance your marketing strategy online, visual features are those which can directly influence your sale.
Competition is fierce. You need a visual identity, which stands out from the rest. Here is the list of advertising tricks you can utilize in your marketing campaign.
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics to animals and non-living objects. It is a powerful advertising tool, which makes consumers relate to the product.
Remember the Pixars’s short film with the lamp and the ball, or the Jean Paul Gaultier’s perfume bottles shaped in the form of man and woman.
Of course, not all brands can benefit from anthropomorphism. However, if you feel that your brand can relate to consumers in this way, you should try it. Making a spokesperson with human characteristics you can use in your content marketing and on social media is a good start.
Do not limit yourself to photographs only.
Photographs are not the only visual aids you can have at your disposal. The popularity of infographics is increasing day by day. They allow you to present information in the form of charts, graphs and illustrations.
The information presented visually catches attention of the consumers quickly than a text.
Build a visual narrative with images.
Creating a visual narrative your consumers can personally relate to makes your brand more attainable. For example, you create a context for your brand by posting images of the two people hugging, or dancing. However, choose only the images which are appropriate for your target audience.
Place products so that you can encourage mental interaction.
For example, the research proved that participants are more likely to purchase the mug if the handle was facing right. If you are right-handed and you see the picture of this mug, you mentally interact with the product.
Another tactic you can do is to place utensils on the right, depict the opening of your product towards the viewer and remove the product from the packaging.
Place print ads on left pages.
Since we associate small numbers with the left and bottom and larger numbers with the right and top (as can be seen in any chart), placing a product on left pages will lower its price.
According to a study, participants were shown two lamps. When they were about to estimate the price of the lamps, they chose higher prices for the lamps on the right.
Place images and graphics on the left.
If you are making an ad, place images and graphics on the left, while limit the text to the right side of the page. A stimulus presented on the right is processed by the left hemisphere and vice versa. Since the right hemisphere better process visual stimuli, you should place the image on the left.
Making your visual aids is as important as the quality of the print. Do not underestimate good printing services as they are the ones which will make your product prominent in this ever-competing world.
These psychological tricks can help you immensely with your marketing strategy. Include visual features in your ads and branding, but choose them wisely.
8. Test It with Focus Groups
When you’ve made all the changes and you think you’ve got the product and the finishing touches nailed down, you should put them to the test.
You can do this by organising a focus group of your target customers and asking them to use your product and provide their feedback.
Ask them specific questions about the aesthetic of the product and the finishing touches you’ve put in place. It’ll help you learn a lot.
The finishing touches might not sound all that important, but they can often be the difference between a customer buying a product and passing up on it. It’s up to you to get these right because they’ll also improve customer satisfaction. Take that extra bit of time to get these things right.
