How to Make Your Product Stand Out

If you’ve developed a new product in a popular category, it’s critical to find ways to make it unique. You know your merchandise is precisely what your customers are looking for. The question is, how do you make sure they find it and recognize its superior value? As you prepare to introduce your offering to retailers, you must learn how to differentiate it from competitors. It requires a careful blend of branding, communications and in-store messaging.

At Creative Displays Now, we’ve been doing just that for nearly 60 years. Here are our best tips to help your product stand out from the crowd.

1. Be Human

Your product should connect with customers on a human level. Even with hundreds of coffee brands in the world, they can all share the marketplace because they solve people’s fundamental needs. Whether it’s a craving for a great-tasting hot beverage, a need for energy and focus or a desire for a luxurious experience, coffee can be the solution. The specific need a coffee brand fulfills can lie in the branding.

The same coffee beans can be dressed up, marketed and packaged in many different ways, including:

• Gourmet
• Organic 
• Bold-flavored 
• Smooth-tasting

Sometimes, we forget customers don’t buy from businesses. They buy from people. The difference between another product on the shelf and the one that hits home with shoppers is how the offering and brand incorporate personality. Humanize your website and social media strategy.

Create an “about us” page that genuinely shows people who you are. Tell your brand’s story and inject the page with personality, not jargon. A fantastic formula for an “about us” story begins with your founder discovering a problem and solving it with a unique product.

Any customer interaction should feel personal. Write your social media messages and emails the way a person talks. Let your customer service reps use their names. Address emails to your customers’ first names and sign them with your own first name. Respond to comments on your social media channels, answer questions and create posts to inspire conversation.

2. Show How You Meet Their Needs

One of the top product differentiation strategies is to showcase exactly how your item solves a problem or meets a need within a product category. This establishes an emotional connection with your customers, showing them you’re on their team. It encourages them to trust you and get excited about the product you’ve created. 

Instead of simply increasing your customer base, this strategy enables you to create product advocates — customers who are so excited about what you’re doing that they tell all their friends to go buy your product after trying it themselves. A satisfying emotional connection caused by meeting customer needs can drive a lifelong dedication to your brand.   

Here’s an example of how this might work. Maybe you’ve developed a wireless mouse with a more comfortable, ergonomic design than others on the market. Your packaging display could promote a combination of efficiency and comfort, emphasizing that customers can use this mouse for hours without realizing it because the shape is so comfortable. 

The packaging colors, wording and display should all align to remind customers of their needs and show them how your product can provide an incredible solution. When your packaging reflects an understanding of customer needs, it earns trust and creates curiosity. Customers instantly feel connected and interested in your solution. 

You might have a granola bar with a unique ingredient others aren’t using, such as a particular grain or super fruit. Perhaps you have a lotion formulated for a specific skin concern. Whatever you’ve done differently, highlight that selling point in your branding. Consumers with the problem your product solves will see how yours stands out from the rest.

3. Play to Your Strengths

Even in a competitive product category, there’s something you do better than anyone else. Whatever your point of differentiation is, play to it. Identify what works for your product and build on it. What encourages conversions and purchases? Is it your price point, ingredients list, quality performance or something else? Whatever drives people to the checkout aisle is what you should focus on.

Emphasize your strengths in the packaging and retail display design. For example, we once built a product display featuring a kitty litter lift test. The display proved how lightweight our client’s product was. While the client could market their formula across channels, letting customers feel it with their own hands made the connection crystal clear. Our point-of-purchase (POP) display played on the product’s strength.

Evaluate your product’s strengths and capitalize on them. If you have a popular niche product people go out of their way to find, consider making it more available. If products are only for sale through your website, your customers would probably love to see them in their local stores. If your product is only available at select locations, expanding to new stores will naturally grow your customer base.

Another way to emphasize a product’s strength is through messaging. For example, we helped one of our clients launch a new printer with an in-store display. The text highlighted that it had the world’s lowest black ink usage, and an ink monster graphic drew attention to the cost savings.

4. Establish Trust With Customers

Your social media, email and other platforms are communication tools. Use them to your advantage by communicating early and often. Welcome new customers with personalized messaging. Let your loyal consumers be the first to know about new launches. When communicating with your customers, be honest. Don’t try to turn your products into something they’re not, and be sure to take responsibility for mistakes.

Your customers use social media to connect with people. Use your social media platforms to strengthen your connections rather than promote your product. Spark conversations with your patrons and ask them for feedback. Developing new products based on their suggestions will show you value your customers’ opinions and yield a product real people want to buy.

The right product packaging can also help you show your brand’s visual identity, which enables you to demonstrate authenticity and trust. One way to do this is by making your merchandise visible through the packaging. When customers see the product itself, they can trust it’s well-made and will solve their needs.

If you don’t want to expose the product through the packaging or use transparent materials, display a beautiful photo of the product on the box. Another option is to use a simplistic design that lets the offering and brand speak for themselves.

5. Enhance Existing Customer Relationships

Another way to build customer relationships is to reward loyalty. The consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry faces unique challenges with loyalty programs. It’s harder to track customer loyalty when shoppers may buy products from different retailers. 

One way to do this is by printing a coupon inside the product packaging, giving a loyal customer a deal on their next purchase. CPG companies can also develop more formal loyalty programs by asking shoppers to upload receipts. This program can give you access to personalized customer data to strengthen your consumer relationships further.

After taking the time to build customer relationships, drive your efforts home with POP communications. In-store displays let you reach your patrons in the retail setting when they’re ready to buy. These displays build on your existing relationships by making your product more prominent in the store. As they draw your customers’ eyes in, they act as the final reminder needed to trigger a sale. The right display can also introduce your product to new consumers, setting the grounds for a new relationship right in the store.

Another option is to use your brand’s current visibility to expand into a new market. If you’re well-known in a particular market, leverage your status as a household name to chart new territory. Pick a new market related to your current offering, where your brand’s success can carry over. For example, if you’re known as a health food brand, you could find a new market in healthy drinks or even vitamins. Let your brand’s current strengths lead the way to help your next product stand out.

6. Play up Your Mission 

Most products on retail shelves aren’t much different from those around them. One area where you can make your product unique is in your brand’s mission. It’s essential to have a clear mission and develop branding around it. For example, in the CPG industry, many brands envelop their products in a mission of giving back. Using recyclable packaging and sustainable ingredients makes that vision tangible. Consumers who believe in the mission will connect with your product when they see the package’s recycling symbol. 

A toy company might adopt a mission related to inspiring young minds and innovating new ways to have fun. It can reflect that mission in its retail messaging with creative, interactive product displays. These visuals might entice kids with bright colors and relatable, kid-friendly graphics.

Part of sharing your mission is telling a story that customers want to be part of. This starts with understanding the identity that your customers want to have. Do they see themselves as generous, healthy or committed to sustainability? Show them how partnering with your brand’s mission includes them in a story they want to be the hero of. 

For example, consider two different vitamin brands. One of them includes information on the organic farms their nutrients come from, appealing to customers who value sustainability and natural health. The other vitamin brand uses bright colors and playful shapes to appeal to parents, letting them know that their vitamins are delicious and easy for kids to take. 

These brands are telling different stories that show they understand their audience and the lifestyle they want to live. Product branding is a choose-your-own adventure — what will make your audience want to choose the story you’re telling instead of the other stories they see on the shelf? 

7. Let Your Brand Culture Shine

Stemming from your mission is your brand culture. Everything from your company story to your marketing cultivates a culture around your products and employees. When your organizational culture matches your brand, your employees will support and engage with it. They’ll live and breathe the messaging you want to convey to customers. Your corporate culture will ultimately strengthen your product’s brand positioning in the marketplace. In fact, purpose-driven brands have been shown to grow three times faster than their competitors and experience higher market share gains.

Consider how many tech companies are known for their cultures alongside their products. Some employees go on luxurious corporate retreats. Others combine work and play with elaborate on-site office amenities. The cut-above experience these businesses provide employees reflects the superior user experience they infuse into their products. Employees and customers alike benefit from a strong workplace culture because it builds stronger products and branding. 

You can build your brand into your company culture, too. It all depends on the value proposition you offer your customers through your brand identity. A sports drink company focusing on product performance can show that in its culture by celebrating achievement, excellence and consistency among its staff. A company positioning its new tech product as a category disruptor might encourage its team to take risks and engage in friendly competition.

8. Try Custom Product Packaging

Packaging does more than protect products from the outside world. It’s a key differentiator on store shelves, helping your product stand out from competing items in your category. It’s a tangible manifestation of your brand and lets you communicate your unique selling proposition right on the label.

Packaging is one of the most effective ways to make your product stand out on store shelves. Here are some tips to get the most from your product packaging.

Use Simple Designs

In a busy retail market, it’s tempting to design packaging in the hopes that it will be louder and more attention-grabbing than your competitors. In some respects, this strategy could work. However, you must be careful not to let bright colors distract from the product itself. Overly intricate designs are hard to decipher and could make customers’ eyes gloss over rather than grab their attention. A simple design is striking and appealing. The best packaging designs highlight the product rather than speak over it.

Simple design means every color and line of text has meaning and contributes to a shopper’s understanding of the product. We recommend using fewer colors, readable fonts and minimalist graphics. When all the design elements play off each other and contribute to a cohesive package, the messaging jumps off the shelves. Customers instantly see your product and the needs it solves. 

Communicate Through Packaging

When seeing an unfamiliar product for the first time, customers need a way to understand what they see quickly. This is crucial with innovative products that establish a market need. The package’s messaging and graphics should communicate precisely how to use the product and why customers might need it. A retail POP display surrounding the products can also communicate usage. If your product solves a niche problem, help your customer recognize the issue within the packaging or display design.

Use Color Effectively

The colors on your packaging should be thoughtful and align with your brand. If you have many different products, use specific colors to differentiate an item from the others in your brand. When choosing colors, pay attention to:

• Emotions: Colors have a powerful influence on emotions and prime customers with specific associations. The colors on your packaging should reflect the feelings and connections customers have with your product. For example, people tend to associate blue with trustworthiness. Green or brown can reflect earthiness, organic ingredients or sustainability. However, a brown label on a bottle of water might give customers the wrong impression.
• Flavor: If you have a food product, color plays a big part in communicating taste. Brown usually indicates chocolate, coffee or hearty grains. Red could mean strawberry, cherry or peppermint. White, blue and green portray minty flavors.
• Target audience: Wouldn’t it be great if your product packaging was your customers’ favorite color? While you can’t please everybody, your colors communicate who your product is for. For example, bold, dark colors usually speak more to adults, while pastels or primary hues can attract young children. The specific color combinations you use tell shoppers who a product is for.

Update Packaging Regularly

Like your marketing campaigns, packaging can quickly go stale. If regular shoppers pass by the same shelves week after week in their favorite store, your product will soon fade into the background. Design trends and tastes shift, and your packaging must follow suit.

It’s also smart to align your packaging with current marketing campaigns or seasonal events. For example, holiday-themed packaging for a children’s toy can garner a few more sales. You could also position a candy or tech item as a stocking stuffer in the winter. Similarly, a cleaning product could use a “spring cleaning” message on the label as the weather warms up.

Work With the Pros

Creative Displays Now offers customizable cardboard packaging for a range of retail products. Corrugated product packaging is especially effective since 10 out of 15 consumers prefer paper or cardboard packaging over other materials.

Through cardboard’s versatility, we can tailor an outstanding retail package design to the size, colors and messaging you need. Our in-house production gives us complete control over the quality and production timeline. Meanwhile, our decades in the business provides us with the expertise you need for convincing packaging.

Work With Creative Displays Now for Custom Retail Displays and Packaging

At Creative Displays Now, we’re experts in POP marketing. We design one-of-a-kind retail displays and product packaging that get your products noticed in the sea of competitors. Whether you’re a new company or a long-standing brand, we can develop custom retail displays and packaging that differentiate your items and communicate your unique offering. We have extensive knowledge of display specifications and requirements for all major retailers to ensure a seamless experience. 

With over 60 years in the display and packaging business, we can help you navigate the retail display process while promoting your product effectively. We control our entire process in-house to guarantee fast turnaround alongside high-quality design, printing and manufacturing. For more information, contact us to discuss your project or get an estimate. You can also call us at 1-855-284-6922!