According to Statista, the volume of the packaging industry was about $180 billion in 2019.
The volume and growth of the packaging industry show that it’s a good industry for new business. But before you establish your packaging business, you must gather the right information to stay on the right track and avoid making mistakes.
Keep reading this blog as we will share actionable tips to start your packaging business the right way!
1. Learn about your target audience
The first thing you should do before establishing your packaging business is to learn about your target audience. You have to identify what your customers want and the type of packaging solutions you can offer easily.
It might sound interesting for you to offer all kinds of packaging solutions. However, if you try to offer all services at once, you won’t be able to keep up with the demands of your target audience.
Find the basic packaging service you can offer properly to your target audience and stick to it. Focusing on your primary offering will help you accelerate your business and leave your competitors behind.
2. Take a look at your competitors
As a packaging business, the biggest mistake you can make is ignoring your competitors. To ensure that your customers like your service and you make good profits, you should learn what other packaging businesses have done in the past.
Analyzing your strategies will make it easier for you to understand your target audience.
For example, suppose you compare the services offered by packaging companies in your area and find that nobody is offering food packaging. In that case, you can think about starting a food packaging service if it’s feasible for you.
3. Use the right machines
The types of machines you use in your packaging plant directly affect your company’s growth. Using outdated machines can not only slow down your company’s performance, but it might make it difficult for you to get accredited by authorities.
Make sure you use the latest packaging machines in your plant. For example, using a banding machine improves productivity of your packaging plants and allows you to complete your customers’ orders on time.
4. Handle your financial matters
Taking care of your financial matters is more important than you might think. If you have limited revenue as of now and want to grow your company from scratch, you will have to collect money from different sources.
Think about getting loans from financial institutions that easily offer assistance to small businesses. However, if you don’t want to get loans from banks, you might also find investors in your area who can help you establish your business.
5. Focus on team building
The only way you can accelerate the growth of your packaging business is to hire skilled employees. If you don’t have people who can help you handle your business challenges, you won’t be able to fulfill your customers’ needs.
Make sure you hire the best people you can find for your company. If you don’t have time to run ads for hiring new team members, you can work with a recruitment agency to simplify the process.
6. Don’t forget about marketing
You cannot speed up the growth of your business if you don’t make more sales. To find new customers easily, you have to run proper marketing strategies.
Many business owners think that it’s hard to get started with marketing. However, the truth is that it’s not difficult to focus on marketing if you are ready to learn new skills. Some of the proven digital marketing strategies include:
- Email marketing
- Paid advertising
- PPC marketing
- Social media marketing
- Search engine marketing
7. Optimize your customer support
It’s your job to provide proper information to your customers about the packaging services you offer. The only way you can solve the queries of your potential customers and improve the quality of your product is to improve your customer support.
It’s usually difficult to improve your customer support in the first days of your business. If you don’t have time to focus on customer support, you can hire a BPO to make things easier.
8. Start offering discounts
As a new packaging business, you have to give a reason to your prospects why they should hire your services. A simple thing you can do to enhance your company’s growth and find new customers is to offer discounts.
It gets easier to stand out when you provide amazing services at an affordable price. Make sure you identify how you can offer discounts differently to enhance your company’s growth.
9. Think about outsourcing
It can get hard for you to manage all the tasks as a new packaging business. Instead of establishing new departments in your company, you should outsource the difficult tasks to other reliable business providers.
For example, you can outsource your software needs to an IT agency. Outsourcing is not difficult if you compare different services and pick the one that offers reliable services.
10. Train your employees
Hiring employees doesn’t mean the end of the world. To improve your company’s growth, you have to ensure that your employees have the best skillset.
Training your employees will pay dividends in the future. Your employees will have the right skill set to handle the industry’s new challenges. Invite the thought leaders of your industry to hold training sessions in your company.
11. Reinvest in your business
There’s nothing wrong with thinking about making profits from your packaging business. However, if you want to keep your business growing steadily, you must think about reinvesting your money in your business.
Reinvesting in your business is not as difficult as you might think. Set some money aside from your profits and plan how you can invest it back in your business.
12. Optimize for the KPIs
If you want to accelerate the growth of your business, it’s important to think about how you can improve your business processes without making mistakes. Depending on your “gut feelings” won’t help you positively improve your business.
Try to adopt the right KPIs to measure the growth of your company. Some of the KPIs packaging companies can adopt include:
- Manufacturing cycle time
- Capacity utilization
- Inventory turnover
13. Get proper feedback
Getting feedback about your services is essential to help you as a packaging business. You can only rely on the feedback you get from your customers to rectify the issues in your company and introduce new processes that improve the quality of your services.
