The nutritional label changes that manufacturers are required to make by July 26, 2018, have given many companies a chance to rethink how they’re dealing with their labels beyond packaged foods.

If you sell anything that requires informational labeling, it may be high time to consider something a little bit different: How about a SmartLabel™?

The SmartLabel is Made for Smartphones

By scanning a QR code on the side of a package, customers can instantly access all the information that they could ever want about your product.

In this era of information-based sales over persuasion-based sales, the SmartLabel may well become King. You know shoppers are already Googling that information, this new type of label allows you to control the conversation.

With SmartLabels as a part of your marketing, you’ll be able to meet shoppers where they are, finally. Although a company that sells cosmetics, for example, isn’t required to disclose the ingredients in the same way food manufacturers are, making that same information available can be a goodwill gesture to people who may be on the fence.

It will be an enormous undertaking, that’s not a question. But, marketing to Millennials is a whole different kind of effort than marketing to their parents and grandparents. They’re tech-savvy and they don’t bother with sales pitches. Either they want the item or they don’t. Making the facts available online and focusing more effort on creating attractive, eye-catching and accurate packaging is going to be the key to maintaining a fruitful relationship.

SmartLabels Aren’t for Everyone

Again, the SmartLabel isn’t a mandatory part of the new law, this is just a good time to make major changes to your packaging since everybody else is going to be doing it. But these special QR codes are not for everyone. There are many cases where you may not want anyone to know too much about what you’re selling.

For example, if you’re less than proud of the ingredients in your cleaners, you may want to just keep on going and forget the QR code ever existed. The SmartLabel is designed with consumer transparency as its first priority.

Other manufacturers are concerned that because of the standard format that the data behind the SmartLabels take, their company branding will be lost in a sea of look-alike tabs. This is a valid point, but, remember, you got that customer to your package so you’re very close to getting that package in their shopping basket already. Your branding worked its magic, SmartLabel or no SmartLabel.

Customers’ are increasingly difficult to reach because of ad blockers, cord cutting and the fall of print media, but they still look at product packaging each and every time they go to the market. This is your big opportunity to connect with them on their level and meet them where they are. Sometimes all it takes is a QR code on a SmartLabel to make a lifetime customer.