When you start your brewery, you want to create a product that stands out to customers and keeps them coming back for more. A customized label is the first thing that grabs your customers’ attention and makes them want to try your product. As your source for professional promotional labels since 1950, U.S. Tape and Label is the only name you need in labels and labeling.
Why Brewery Labeling Is Important
By 2020, the United States was home to more than 9,000 craft breweries. The craft beer industry was valued at $110 million in 2019, and it’s expected to grow to $200 million by 2026. That statistic means this industry could have an 8% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in that seven-year period. With all that growth, the craft beer industry is becoming a crowded place.
With such quick growth, it’s becoming more difficult for craft brewers to stand out and remain competitive. You may have the best-tasting beer on the shelf, but chances are you won’t meet your sales goals without an eye-catching design that inspires people to pick up your bottles or cans. Half the battle is simply getting potential customers’ attention, even for a moment on the shelf or in a bar.
If you’re looking for a way to differentiate your beer, a creative beer label design can tell your brand’s story while representing the aesthetics of your brewery and your target beverage aficionados. You can reach your target audience through the right combination of colors, lettering, and product information on your label and packaging.
Here are some simple steps you can take to prioritize packaging and transform brand awareness.
Tell Your Story
Building your brand is all about telling your story. A custom beer label offers an excellent medium with which to tell that story. Be aware, however, that consumers have a keen eye for authenticity.
According to marketing professor Julie Napoli, consumers notice three dimensions of brand authenticity:
- Heritage
- Sincerity
- Commitment to quality
Heritage doesn’t mean that your brewery has to have been around the longest; what matters is that you respect your roots, influences, where you’ve been, and how that informs where you’re going. At the same time, a high-quality, personalized beer label stands as a testament to your commitment to the craft.
Consider Your Labeling Options
We can create just about anything you can come up with for your beer bottle and can labels. In another post, we covered the different options you have for designing the right label, including these three focus points:
- Color
- Font
- Style
Bottles may offer more playful labeling options, but cans provide more space to include images and designs that tell your story, and cans have longer shelf lives. Can’t decide? If you have the budget, you can always try both and discover for yourself which appeals more to your customers.
Find Your Target Audience
To create successful packaging and labels, you need to know who you’re talking to. Who do you imagine buying your beer? Are they young or old? Where do they live? Think about these aspects when you determine your target audience. Your target audience will influence your brand messaging and your packaging and label design.
Develop Your Message
When you think about heritage, consider why you started your craft brewery in the first place. Did you want to learn about the brewing process? Experiment with flavors? Think about what drives you to create your beer. Once you consider your motives, look at ways to express that to your target audience. This process helps you develop your brand messaging, which influences your beer labels and packaging.
Audience Awareness
To create logos that stand out, you first need to understand your audience thoroughly. Who is buying your beer and what do they want to get out of the experience? If your target market is more new-age, you don’t want to reference events that they wouldn’t have lived through or phrases they wouldn’t understand. Similarly, if you’re targeting people who live in cities and suburbs, rural images with earth tones and open fields may not grab their attention. Overall, creating a successful label depends on paying attention to your audience and figuring out the most effective ways to reach them through your packaging.
When people are looking to purchase alcohol and aren’t sure what to choose, a vibrant, relatable logo is much more endearing than a dull, off-target one. You need to consider the age demographic, the taste of the beer, the location where it’s brewed, whether it’s part of a series, the emotion behind it, the brewing process and how it affects the final product, and much more. Every unique element to your brew makes an impact on how the logo is perceived—making sure you have the right audience in mind is essential.
Shelf Appeal
When you design your label, consider how your target audience buys your beer. Do they purchase it in a store or a bar? Do they go through a direct distributor to get it? Think about how your beer is displayed in the place where customers purchase it. If your beer is displayed in a store, consider what other beer it sits near. What packaging and label designs do those brands use? Examine those brands’ designs and take note of the colors, fonts, and styles they use. Determine whether you can incorporate any of those elements into your labels and packaging while making them stand out from the competition.
Compelling Design Begins With Your Brewery Logo
Want your brewery to be the favorite among fishermen across the United States? Make sure your logo incorporates a fish or a body of water! When you give consumers what they want on the label, you can be confident they’ll get what they want by drinking your beer.
Ready to learn more about how a beer label partner can transform your marketing strategy and brand awareness? Contact our experts today, and we’ll work with you to craft a label that’s as carefully crafted as your brews.
