Dietary Supplement Packaging Design: Costly Oversights To Avoid
Eye-catching labels and shelf-jumping packaging can make or break your dietary supplement product. On the road to turning great ideas into packaging realities, some pitfalls are more costly than others!
From what we've seen, great dietary supplement packaging relies on more than great design work. When it comes to producing the kind of label the while help you maximize your product's reach and profits a little bit of planning and foresight can go a long way.
In an effort to help dietary brand owners avoid unnecessary costs, we've gathered together three of the most common (and expensive) pitfalls.
NutraScience Lab's Top Dietary Supplement Packaging Oversights To Avoid
Oversight #1: Failing to make sure that your product's label and packaging are FDA-compliant.
Even though it should go without saying, your product's label must be FDA compliant. If it isn't, then you or your company run the risk of incurring an FDA warning letter (which is one letter that no one wants to receive).
While the fines that they bring with them may be unpleasant, the hidden – and more serious – cost of an FDA warning letter lies in the potential damage that it can do to your company or brand's reputation.
Fortunately for us, a contract manufacturer's in-house design team or their regular printers are likely to do everything in their power to help make sure that your label is FDA compliant from the start. Even though they usually aren't liable from a legal standpoint, any good manufacturer will always be willing to look out for their customer's best interests.
Taking the time to vet your label during the proofing process (with our without the help of professional legal counsel) is a must.
Oversight#2: Choosing to work with a graphic designer or printer who doesn't specialize in dietary supplement packaging.
We've said it before and we'll be sure to say it again - the value of working with a graphic designer and a printer who have experience designing for dietary supplement labels cannot be understated.
While it may be tempting to enlist the help of your cousin who does graphic design work, it doesn't take much for the costs that you saved up front to be gobbled up by the costs of editing or (in worst case scenarios) the cost of having to scrap and reprinting an entire set of product labels.
Along with the regulatory elements highlighted in the last section, experienced designers and printers tend to have greater insight into everything from what's trending in the world of dietary supplement labels and packaging to the production tricks that produce the best secondary packaging.
The Bottom Line: While your cousin may be an excellent graphic designer, no one should have to throw away time or money reprinting labels.
Oversight #3: Failing to allow enough time for your highly-customized labels to be designed, proofed, and printed.
Having a unique product label can be great, but depending on how unique your label is your proofing and printing times may end up being longer than you'd planned for.
For brand owners, especially new ones, this fact can be all too easy to overlook. While custom or innovative packaging can be a great way to help your dietary supplement product stand out from the crowd, planning accordingly is a must.
This is a place where sitting down with your manufacturer and their production team can make all the difference. Along with bringing your own questions to the table, your manufacturer should have plenty of questions for you concerning what you're looking for.
The Takeaway
When it comes to making the most of your packaging and label budget, a little bit of planning can go a long way.
Taking the time to familiarize yourself with FDA labeling requirements (or establishing a relationship with someone who's already familiar with them), finding a designer and printer with industry experience, and building additional time and budget into your marketing from the start are great (and simple) ways to avoid some of the more costly labeling pitfalls.
