The holidays are just a few months away, and that means it’s time to bring out the holiday packaging to add to the festive mood and rack up sales. 

However, changing packaging momentarily is arduous, and the benefits of doing so aren’t apparent right away. 

In this article, we’ll list the benefits of switching to holiday packaging, dish out a few tips and ideas to make the most of it, and reveal how you can expedite the artwork creation process. 

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Benefits of using holiday packaging

Although not every holiday deserves unique packaging, there are multiple benefits of using creative packaging during the holidays. We’ve listed a few of them below:

• Increases sales: Making your packaging holiday-themed is the best way to position your product as the right holiday gift and boost your sales. 
• Create a sense of exclusivity: Creative holiday packaging helps draw your customers’ attention and makes them associate your brand with exclusivity, which improves their chances of buying from you and promoting it on social media. This, in turn, creates more word of mouth and sales for your brand. 
• Give your customers a delightful experience: Unboxing a product has become an experience, so creating stunning holiday-themed packaging is the best way to give your customers a great experience and market your product organically. 

5 holiday packaging design ideas

Here are 5 holiday-themed packaging ideas to help you stand out from the competition, improve brand awareness and loyalty, and boost your sales. 

1. Black and white

A black and white holiday theme seems counterintuitive to getting your customers’ attention. But this is a classic color combination and is great for conveying your brand’s minimalism, elegance, and luxury. 

It may also be the thing you need to grab your customer's attention, as other brands are focused on using conventional colors like orange, black, red, and green. Dior’s Christmas packaging is the best example for this. 

2. Frosted

If you want to make minimal changes to your holiday packaging design or be more inclusive of the holiday season in general, you can celebrate winter instead of Christmas itself with a frosted design like Mystic KAORI did. 

The skincare brand’s minimal packaging draws the attention of anyone looking for gifting options for other winter festivals like Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. Also, the packaging changes depending on the lighting conditions, so it’s great to add more aesthetic appeal to your product.

3. Holiday-themed packaging ropes

Changing your entire packaging for the holiday season can be an expensive affair. So, the best way to keep up with the holiday trends without breaking your bank is to go for holiday-themed packaging ribbons or ropes. 

These packaging elements are affordable and add a personalized feel to your packaging, making customers more likely to choose your product. 

For example, take a look at this handmade soap from Soapjam. The packaging rope adds to the authenticity of the brand and makes it look like a personal gift which makes it appealing to consumers. 

4. Metallics 

Metallics add a sophisticated, high-end festive feel to your packaging. Use metallics to enhance brand logos, text, etc., and give your product an appearance of luxury. 

For example, ACH Vegan chocolate launched mint green and red packaging with metallic typography for the festive season to double as a gift option. 

5. Gift tags

Adding a gift tag adds to the holiday cheer, helps customize your holiday packaging and boosts your sales as it helps customers add a personal touch to their gifts. 

For example, this Cadbury gift box comes with tags and allows consumers to write a note to their loved ones, which makes it a popular gift choice. 

5 tips to make the most of your holiday packaging

Here are five tips you can use to create holiday packaging that appeals to your customers and boosts your sales. 

1. Ensure that the packaging design reflects your brand image

Many customers are willing to try new brands during the holidays, but if you want them to buy from you again, you’ll need to develop lasting brand recognition.

That’s why it’s important to avoid generic festive graphics and ensure that your seasonal packaging retains the same brand identity.

For instance, check out Reese’s Halloween packaging. It adds to the festive feel and grabs attention, but it hasn’t deviated from its brand identity, making it easy for customers to recognize the brand. 

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2. Keep the costs in mind

It’s tempting to go all out on packaging during the holiday season. However, adding too  many customized packaging elements adds to the weight of the packaging and causes your company to incur significant seasonal expenses.

It also results in more packaging waste for your customer to dispose of, so a less-is-more strategy is more advantageous. 

Remember, it’s possible to stand out and impress your customer without the bells and whistles that come with holiday packaging. For example, take a look at this Halloween packaging from Fanta.

They used simple images that reflect the holiday season and their brand identity to grab the attention of their customers.

3. Encourage customers to share photos of the packaging

User-generated content is the best kind of content out there as it’s authentic and helps market your brand for free. So, leverage it to maximize the ROI from your holiday packaging. 

You can start with flaunting your packaging design on social media and create a simple, branded hashtag that’s easy for users to remember and use on their posts. 

If you want to take it up a notch, you can create ad campaigns and run contests or giveaways to encourage your customers to share photos of the packaging on social media. 

For example, look at this tweet from Kayman Petites, a beauty brand. They announced their holiday-themed packaging on social media along with a hashtag so users could promote their brand organically and bring more sales their way.

4. Make your packaging reusable

Packaging waste is pretty rampant during the holiday period, so opt for packaging sustainability this holiday season and reduce the usage of plasticized wrapping paper, cellophane, and other non-biodegradable materials.

It’ll save the environment and  improve brand recognition for free by keeping your packaging within your consumer’s sights when they reuse it. 

For example, check out this attractive holiday-themed packaging from Nutella. It attracts the intended target audience — kids — and makes for a great reusable piece that can be used as a decorative item or a storage container. 

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5. Research packaging suppliers 

Never base your choice of packaging suppliers just on price considerations. There are many things to take into account, including turnaround times, MOQs (Minimum Order Quantities) for various packaging components, and the sustainability of a supplier’s designs.

Then, there are also the design specifics like the shape and size of the packaging, brand colors, etc., so make a list of these specifications before signing up for a specific packaging supplier.

How Artwork Flow helps make your holiday packaging process a breeze

The holiday season translates to a rush to come up with the best packaging to boost your seasonal sales. This also means there’s room for confusion and errors, which won’t bode well for your brand reputation. 

So, you’ll be better off using an artwork management tool like Artwork Flow to streamline your label creation and design process. Here’s what you can do with it:

• Catch typos early in the review process: Artwork Flow’s free tools help you quickly find grammatical mistakes and typos. This preserves your brand identity and authenticity.  

• Stay compliant: Artwork Flow has an AI tool in-built into it, so it catches instances of non-compliance and helps your brand stay compliant with regulations. 
• Make communication more efficient: The annotation feature helps collate feedback from multiple teams so designers can incorporate all the feedback in one go and reduce the number of revisions. 
• Inject accountability into your artwork labeling process: Get visibility on the entire label creation and design process with workflows and project analytics. 

Wrapping up  

Creating holiday-themed packaging opens up new avenues for word of mouth marketing and improved sales. 

However, the process leaves room for errors and confusion due to the rush associated with it. Artwork Flow’s suite of tools help multi-functional teams collaborate more effectively and reduce the number of revision cycles. 

This helps brands create appealing packaging faster and launch products on time to get a competitive edge.