Category Archives: Selling Your Products

Have you ever heard of the Box Tops for Education program? It’s a fundraising initiative that product manufacturers can support by printing specified information on the top flaps of their product boxes. After consumers use up the products in these boxes, they raise money for the school of their choice by turning the box top flaps in.

Box Tops for Education allows participating manufacturers to contribute to a worthy cause. As an added benefit, it builds up the value of their brands by positioning them as companies who positively impact the communities where their products are sold. Since consumers are more likely to trust companies who demonstrate that they care about people, not just profits, this is a great way for manufacturers to increase brand loyalty.

Savvy product manufacturers can increase brand loyalty and give them an edge over their competition in a similar fashion. The premise of these types of programs (or campaigns if you prefer to call them) is to give buyers reasons to hold onto product labels even after they have recycled or otherwise discarded the rest of the packaging. They essentially find ways to increase the value of the product labels themselves. Although Lightning Labels always encourages manufacturers to give something back to the communities that keep them in business, brand loyalty programs don’t necessarily have to focus on charitable causes to be effective.… Read the rest of Label Your Way to Brand Loyalty

With many people who want to work unable to find jobs, consumers are more aware than ever of the importance of buying products that put Americans to work. For companies that manufacture  products in the United States, it is important to include labeling on each item that shows potential customers their commitment to building the American economy.

The phrase “tough economic times” has been overused in recent years to describe the economic downturn that has caused so many Americans to become unemployed. Overused or not, however, these are indeed tough economic times for those who can no longer pay their bills because of the shrinking job market. As a result, many Americans are consciously choosing to spend disposable income on products that contribute to a stronger American economy.

For this very practical economic reason, a country of origin label makes sense. This type of label is easier than ever to product thanks to the availability of online label printing services.

While the US has been making goods since, well, 1776, country of origin labeling legislation only came about with the Tariff Act of 1930, which required most imports to indicate country of origin.… Read the rest of The Importance of Promoting “Made in the USA”

Many companies view labels as advertising tools — they help the brands encourage customers to choose their products over the competition. However, businesses that use labels solely for this purpose may be missing other opportunities as well.

Nowadays, new technology enables brands to leverage product labels in ways that engage consumers beyond first glance. For example, quick-response codes could be pasted on the front or reverse sides of labels to give consumers more information on products or special discounts.

Meanwhile, other brands have instituted reward or loyalty programs for collecting product labels, further encouraging customers to purchase their goods.

Thanks to advances in technology, labels can be so much more than simple stickers used to differentiate products at retail.

For example, many product manufacturers are now using near field communication radio frequency ID (RFID) tags with their labels to further engage consumers. When consumers approach products that use this technology, special messages can be relayed to their phones.

If product manufacturers are trying to boost sales, they may set their labels to broadcast coupons. Or they could simply send messages asserting the value of buying that product over another. Some companies even use the tags to encourage… Read the rest of How to Drive Brand Engagement with RFID Tags

Holiday-themed labels allow companies to take advantage of the holiday season.

As the Christmas Creep continues its inevitable sneak towards July, we’re already beginning to see the occasional holiday-themed packaging or labels show up in our shopping carts. If you’re unfamiliar with the idea of the “Christmas Creep,” allow us a bit of exposition. The Creep is a term used to describe the unstoppable advancement summer-ward the start of the holiday shopping season.

The Creep isn’t limited to jolly packaging or holiday labels; you’ll hear jingle bells jangling in advertisements and see mistletoe hanging over cash registers, and it’s happening earlier and earlier in the year. In what feels like a century ago, but was really only a decade or so in the past, Black Friday—the day after Thanksgiving where retailers create sales so ludicrous that store employees and consumers have died in the shopping crush—was considered the “official” starting gun for the sprint to fill consumers’ credit cards with expensive gifts for loved ones.

Nowadays, head to a local mall or retail store, turn on your television, flip on the radio, and you’re likely to feel the barrage of the Christmas Creep ‘round Memorial Day. And it seems as if it’s working.

It’s easy to understand why retailers would prefer to extend the holiday shopping season; the “Christmas quarter” is also known as the “golden quarter,” the period where Americans forget about their credit problems, the global recession, or the fact that they ought to be thinking of savings accounts, college loan payments, paying down credit cards, or fixing that hole in the roof. The idea goes: if we can make shoppers get some holiday shopping done before Black Friday, they might be tempted to do even more shopping the day after Thanksgiving (and yet more again during the run-up to whatever gift-giving holiday each shopper observes). We Americans have a very short attention span, it seems, when it comes to gift-giving.… Read the rest of Holiday Labels: A Solution to the Christmas Creep

Businesses always have a preconceived notion of what their product stands for and the purpose it serves. The trouble with these notions, however, is that companies are frequently not part of their product’s target audience, and as a result, they may misrepresent it when they bring it to market.

This is why brands need to take a step back from their product and look at it from the customer’s viewpoint. How the companies perceive their product doesn’t matter, it’s… Read the rest of The Customer's Shoes: Designing Labels for Your Target Audience | 1 Comment