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Honey Labels;

15K views 55 replies 20 participants last post by  Jared.Downs 
#1 ·
Does anyone have their Honey Label's custom printed and by whom. I am thinking about having some Label's printed with "Kansas Wildflower Honey". Who does custom Label printing & what was your experiences with them? Also are they waterproof? Thanks for your input. Dale
 
#35 ·
I think it is worth the reasonable pay to have someone else do your labels, especially if you do not have all the materials or time. I worked with Laura at Hetrick Honey Bees, great experience! She custom made our labels with my ideas and some of hers, until we had a product we both thought was dynamite. Great to work with, and well worth the money, but dont think they are waterproof. No :no: dipping the jars in hot water!, that is what the sun is for :). However, not sure if she is taking on new customers, but you should check them out and see. http://www.hetrickhoneybees.com/
 
#36 ·
#38 ·
What does your label look like?
What do they cost?
What is the point of your label? To attract attention? To be recognizable as DanielY's honey? To inform w/ as few a number of words as necessary? To fit into the kind of outlet you wish to market through? (my label wouldn't fit in a fancy upscale kind of outlet)
Do you sell much honey?
 
#39 ·
1. Right now generic very ugly thing from Western Bee Supply.
2. Don't remember, very cheap.
3. To make our name known, to make our brand known, to tell people it is raw natural honey of course. and to give contact info most likely a web site in order to re purchase.

at the moment the contact info repurchase info is pending further decisions. I do not want to sell out quickly. I am looking to develop enough loyal repeat customers to sell what honey we do produce. at this time that will be easy to over do. We started out selling it to fast and then dwindled to almost nothing as of now we are a little bit behind.

4. Whole food to Fancy Up scale is exactly what I am looking for. we are also considering selling much of it as a holiday, Gift. Gift basket sort of product. It is likely we could end up in nothing but Upscale due to other products I can make and sell.

5. so far less then 300 lbs form 4 hives. next year we are looking to have 21 hives. Not sure i will focus much on honey production. We have so far sold about 100lbs of that 300.
 
#42 ·
I wouldn't know I hadn't thought of doing so. I would have to assume you did. so you tell me. I said I take care in how I spend my customers money. And that was after someone pointed out it is the customer paying for the label not me. So far what I have seen and what they want to charge for it is not responsible spending of my customers money. I consider paying more than what something is worth being not only cheap but irresponsible.

As for what I am doing now. That is for my friends family and coworkers. I have not yet started "Marketing" my honey. That is one of the things I am the process of ding and it is not yet even a top priority. The label we have right now is not much more than a way those people can give our contact info to anyone they find interested in it. A lot of our honey has been sold with no label at all.
 
#46 ·
It's kind of hard discussing things w/ folks who aren't doing things that we are discussing. If you aren't really selling honey of course you don't need to buy nice labels. And I never meant to imply that I advocate expensive labels anyway. Just good labels which do the job you want them to.
 
#49 ·
Mark, your questions are great as it helps me brainstorm / think of different ways for all of this. Keeping in mind there is no "right" way to do this....if there was, everyone would do it. And retail can be a tricky.

But trial and error with these ideas will hold the truth to how your customers react. Or you could do all of this and your sales do not change due to the grocery store not seeing an increase in foot traffic.

And keeping in mind, getting a new customer and keeping an existing customer are two different target audiences.

But your comment about "jar number 692," how many do you bottle at a time and put on a shelf? You might think about numbering them ex. (692/1000) While this doesn't speak to the product being made for that specific customer and more to the "collector" or "connoisseur," that's one approach that might increase sales.

And maybe I should switch my statement from "made just for you" to "making you feel apart of the process"? Aside from monogramming / tailoring (clothing as an example) it might be hard to provide that feeling for your customer.

Let's say you bottle 1,000 jars at a time. Each one gets it's label. But you decide to print a tag or wrap the jar with a piece of card stock that the consumer will remove prior to opening the jar. On that tag / card stock, you print a graphic / image / text that shows you (Mark) working the bees. It shows the bee keeper that does all the hard work. etc. And maybe you make three versions of this, that way your existing customer gets to see a different one and learn something new about your operation each time they purchase your product. And maybe being because of that graphic / image / text, a new customer decides to purchase your honey rather than the stuff from Ecuador or other parts of Central and South America.

Maybe that card stock isn't printed? Maybe it's a combination embossing / debossing?
One thing to keep in mind is, at the end of the day it's all about differentiating your brand/product from the other guys.
 
#50 · (Edited)
30,000lbs worth 2 years ago. Not as much the last cpl years. I have 250 buckets put up so far w/ more to come as I get the last of this year's crop off and extracted.

I have been doing this for some time now. I'm sure there are books written on Product Labeling and all sorts of courses on Marketing found in any Small Business Schools you could find.

I like to keep my label simple and sweet, like my honey. It's generic in a way, but being yellow w/ black lettering you can't miss it from across any room. Other than my 5lb jar label which has illustration on it, my labels are all text. They tell the customer what they need to know and does not elaborate on how the honey was produced or processed. Other than some of the honey I identify as Buckwheat, Orange Blossom, Bamboo, Blueberry Blossom, or Cranberry/Basswood, my label identifies the contents of the jar as HONEY.

I like your hang tag idea. DanielY might not like me passing the cost onto the customer though. :)

I attended a Small Business Course a couple of years ago and the Instructor recommended that I change my label and Company name. He thought I should have my face on the label. I guess that it should be the whole label actually. And change the name to something which said something about what the company is, rather than "Squeak Creek Apiaries". But I maintained that once you got used to the name you'd never forget it. Squeak Creek is where I live.

I have never had any trouble selling as much honey as I want to and could sell much more if I wanted to. What I am doing has worked well enough for me. I think I will keep on doing it. But I do like kicking around ideas.

I may work up that hangtag idea. Unfortunately the guy I like working w/ on things like that has moved far away.
 
#51 ·
30,000 lbs.... how's your back? That's a solid amount of honey.

Some people love the saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" but I am in the business of always trying to improve things.

If you're happy with how things are going then that's awesome. If you're well established in your area, then keep doing what you're doing and make minor adjustments as you need to.

As a designer that's done branding for companies, I see nothing wrong with your name being "Squeak Creek Apiaries." I actually like that it's not generic or lengthy.

I know in my previous post I mentioned showing you "working" the bees. But I'd suggest not putting your face on the label. Not knowing whether Squeak Creek is an actual creek, I might have an iconic part of the creek (if it is a creek) with a bee getting a drink of water or something that speaks to your area.

As far as small business schools and what other people say, take it all with a grain of salt including what I've said. You know your market / product better than any one here or any where else.
 
#52 ·
My back is just fine. Thanks. Carried 8 buckets of honey into the house today, two at a time.

Yeah, I didn't get along w/ the instructor too well. He didn't care for me either after a while. Maybe if I had gone to his class back when I was starting out rather than after being at it as long as I had.
 
#53 ·
Actually I like the Hang tag and for some bottles it is about the only thing I an think of that I like. What I don't like about them is that will be separated from the bottle. Also keep in mind they do not work well if you sell honey at farmers markets and such where you will be packing and unpacking those bottles. those tags tend to take a beating. You can also end up with a lot of people touching the tag to see what is written on or in it. Which can result in it needed to be replaced if ti gets dirty. Printed cards could actually be far cheaper than labels.
 
#56 ·
If you're required to attach the label but want alternatives for packaging / label, then I'd put the bare minimum on the container and put the rest of the info you want to include where ever / how ever fits your brand and message.

This isn't exactly what I had in mind with the attached card stock but it's along the lines.


Again, not entirely how I'd do it. More of a card stock wrapping the entire bottle from front to back.
 
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