With all the buzz over the past few years about branding it’s important to know the difference between branding and packaging. Branding is for your company. Branding is a type of corporate personality that consumers can build a relationship with. Think of it as the “first impression” you make when meeting someone face to face.

Packaging is something different. Think of packaging as the box you put ideas into. Ideas in this case can be, services, products, training programs, etc. How you package ideas should be influenced by your brand. For example, if your brand has a rustic feel, you packaging should be equally rustic. If your packaging is hyper glossy and sleek, so should your brand be sleek and modern.

Additionally, when packaging ideas or services, they should be easy to understand. If you paint houses, for example, you might list the cost per square foot of wall space with instructions on how to figure out your square footage so that the customer can price out the job (to a degree) on their own. Services such as design or consulting can be bundled together to create a complete product or outcome. Training concepts can be packaged in a series of supporting concepts that create an overall understanding.

Packaging is an integral part of providing services or delivering products. Companies that do this well are wildly more successful as they have made it easy to do business with them. Time spent bundling and packaging products and services will increase your close rate on sales and minimize your returns and refunds.

When you make it easy to do business with you, you get more customers.