July 31, 2006
Increase Sales 30% via Customer Focused Graphic Design
By Ashley Parks
Customer focused graphic design is a proven way to increase sales 20-30% for consumer electronic devices such as MP3 players, DVD burners, cell phones, etc.
Unfortunately, most companies take packaging for granted and only call designers in at the last minute to "rush" something into production. As you can see in the latest CNN.com Article on the subject, package design MUST not be an afterthought.
As Ghansham Panjabi, packaging analyst with Wachovia Securities put it, "Revenues in the food and cosmetics markets don't really grow much, so companies have to raise prices to boost them. And they do that through packaging."
This new frame of mind is finally taking hold in corporate America and will ultimately lead to increased revenues on the same scale of what I have been providing for my employers for the past 5 years: a healthy 20-30% increase.
By using marketing research, customer feedback and industry best practices, any graphic design department can follow my lead and help their company achieve improved financial results.
Market Research
It is of the utmost importance to know your target market (your key customers) before starting any designs. As a graphic designer, you must communicate with the marketing and sales organization of your firm to ensure you are creating a package that will be loved by your customer base.
Be sure to ask the right questions of them to determine what would make someone buy your product over someone elses. Here are some items to take into consideration:
- What does this product provide that our competitors do not?
- How is our product BETTER than the competitors?
- Is our product the FIRST to do something in the industry?
- Is our product the ONLY solution on the market that does X?
Customer Feedback
Once you have the answer to these questions, you must quality check them with your customer base to make sure your sales and marketing department are pushing the correct messages. This can be done by interviewing a select group of individuals that would typically purchase your product.
A trade secret of mine is that I go to my local consumer electronics store and I watch what people pick up off the shelf and when they've decided on one, I approach them and ask them why they chose that one. I then ask them why they didn't buy the other ones they looked at and what would have made them choose differently.
I sometimes even tell them why I am asking and that I want to improve my own company's products and designs to make them more attractive to customers.
I then test the answers my sales and marketing department gave me by asking the person questions like, "What if this product had X? Would you choose it over the one in your hand?"
I hate to say it, but 7 out of 10 times, the messages my sales and marketing departments gave me are WRONG! Typically what happens is the engineering department comes up with an idea and it gets squeezed into the product and touted as a great new feature. It's a shame that the proper marketing research is not done on a regular basis.
Industry Best Standards
Once you know for sure what your products' desired features are and what would make your product stand out better than the competitors, you can bring those ideas back to the office and immediately start implementing them with the tried and tested industry best standards.
Every graphic designer should know what the industry best standards are for his or her field and target market. These standards reach across all geographic locations and demographics.
For instance, a package you design for the US market ages 24-34 is going to look compeltely different from a design for the Korean market ages 35-45.
To learn more about the industry best standards for your niche I recommend picking up a couple of helpful books from Amazon.com. I highly recommend The Business Side of Creativity: The Complete Guide for Running a Graphic Design or Communications Business by Cameron Foote.
Conclusion
In conclusion, for consumer electronics companies to increase their sales 20-30%, their graphic design department must have access to and be using the appropriate marketing research, implementing the industry best practices and listening to the customers’ feedback.
Ashley Parks is a professional graphic designer based in Chicago, Illinois. Learn how Ashley Parks can help your company at www.AshleyParks.com.
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