“A packaging insert is a secondary protective item in a box to secure and make the product presence unique.”
The inside of the package is equally important as the exterior look!
Packaging inserts play a significant role in keeping the products protected, good-looking and secure like flyers, free offer cards, tags, decorative boxes, Thanksgiving messages, inviting cards, and many client-engaging crafts with the intent to interact with precious buyers. Inserts have a range of materials like foams, cardboard, blister, plastic, and pulps as per product requirements.
For, luxury products, foam and cardboard inserts are inserted to make them look premiere and exclusive. Special, printed, and handwritten cards show the brand’s loyalty towards the clients – showing extra efforts to make a humble connection with buyers. Especially, the discount offers on the first purchase make up the purchaser’s mind to go shopping again. Such tactics put your Brand Name forward in the rushy online market. So, understanding these trendy packaging criteria, we offer a wide range of unique custom boxes with beautiful packaging inserts.
If you have an online business, and you want to boost it, make unique and captivating inserts, and follow up on current market trends. In this article, we are going to explain incredible and fascinating Packaging Insert Ideas, insert types, and printing processes with their benefits for the nourishment of your marketing strategies and customer loyalty.
Types of Packaging Inserts

The category of inserts depends on the usage and what kind of product you are going to pack in the box. If the object is delicate, industries mainly use soft and custom foam packaging inserts. Therefore, depending on the product’s material, there are the following types of Insert Boxes:
Foams:
- The best material to give more protection and delicacy to the objects.
- It can be cut in different shapes as designed according to the product’s shape.
- Memory foam, polyester, poly foam, polyethylene, latex foam, re-bond foam, etc., mainly fall into foam types.
- These are not applicable to food packaging.
- Not sustainable and non-biodegradable.
- Budget-friendly with low cost
- Make boxing attractive, luxurious, and premier.
Cardboard:
- Most profound material used in insert designing.
- Maximum protection and sturdiness.
- Applicable in all types of product packaging.
- Eco-friendly, sustainable, and budget-friendly.
- Easy to cut and make different shapes.
- Types: Kraft paper boxes, corrugated boxes, and rigid boxes.
Blister:
- Clear sheets of plastic, also available in coloured sheets
- Mild protective and secured.
- Highly recommended for pharmaceutical industries.
- It can be used in every product packaging.
- Non-biodegradable, thin-layered, budget-friendly material
- Types: PVC, PETS, PETG, HIPS.
- Available in capsules or customized shapes.
Pulps:
- Moulded Pulps with dry and wet processed techniques.
- Sustainable and secured material for packaging.
- Highly adaptable for shape-changing.
- Lightweight and biodegradable
- Not for food storage
- Low in cost with high protection
How to Make Creative and Innovate Inserts for Boxes?

After knowing about inserts and their available materials in the market, it will be an easy task to make suitable inserts for boxes. These objects include cards, printed material, additional gifts, product samples, and many versatile custom prints. Let’s get into detail with our wonderful and productive Product Insert Examples. It will help you pick a suitable one or more to impress your buyers.
1- Thank You Note: Aesthetic Packaging Insert Ideas
Packaging Thank you cards in boxes is the best way to show humble gratitude to your customers. These creative cards have a big room of card templates that you can customize and design according to your packaging styles. From small businesses to large ones, these make a bridge between buyers and sellers, eventually leaving a positive impact on the client.
Here are some simple examples of your inserts:
- Thank you for your purchase. We provide the best quality product to our clients
- May you have a happy day with great success!
- Thank you (with name); we send this note with LOVE.
- Thanks for supporting our business.
- We send you heartfelt gratitude for your purchase.
2- Handwritten Note: Personalized Approach
The most impressive way is handwritten notes. When a customer sees inked notes, it increases the brand’s loyalty and makes it more worthy in the customer’s eyes.
3- Printed Notes: Innovative Packaging Insert Ideas
Almost every big industry uses printed thank-you notes. Because of large-scale production, it isn’t easy to write every note with one hand. These cards have a larger variety with more versatile designs.
4- Discount Offers: Make It Cost-Effective
The most popular and direct way of grabbing your customer’s attention is giving discount offer inserts. If you send an email, he may pay attention to the message. However, sending discount offers written on cards will be an in-handed move as leaving a reminder for their next purchase.
There are the following ways of using the Discount cards:
Free mockup Coupon Cards:
- Coupons have selected times of discounts.
- 91% of customers get back to the brand with these mockup cards
- 63% give more value to online shopping industries
- Come with minimal graphics, soft colors, and clean backgrounds
- Mainly available with 5400 x 3600-pixel dimensions
Scratch OFF Discount Card:
- A hidden jackpot of winning free offers
- Manufactured with scratch-off material to pop the offer out after scratching
- The most exciting technique of making users anxious about new discounts.
- Available in funky, vivid, and catchy designs with a centralized scratch-off part for clients
- The most common tagline: scratch off to find out your exciting discount on your purchase!
5- Promo Codes: Grab New Customers
- Promotional cards are value notes with discounted codes
- 20% discount on your next purchase
- 10% credit return on credit card purchase
- Free shipping on the next order
- Adding up a gift box on the next purchase
- 50% off on all packages (commonly tagged by travelling industries)
6- Tips and Guideline Inserts: Feasibility in Usage
Tips and guideline inserts include instructions like how to use, how to dispose of, how to keep the product when to use it, and protection details.
Here is a way of crafting your tips and guideline cards:
- Instructions are always clear and detailed with a friendly tone.
- Write safety precautions for fragile items.
- Use printed kraft papers, laminated notes, and matte cards.
- Use the brand’s sense.
- Add curing points for cosmetic or skin items.
- Add website details and contact details.
7- Surprising Gifts: Amaze Your Buyers
On special occasions like Valentine’s, Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, Friendship Day, etc., these Small Gift mockups surprise the customers and leave a smile on their faces. These unexpected inserts provide a powerful positive transactional moment on the receiver’s psyche. These inserts include:
- Stickers
- Dried flowers
- Scented candles
- DIY ribbons
- Bows
- Tags
- Wrapping papers
- Scrape books
- Board Games
- Engraved keychains
- Compasses
- Customized mugs
8- Samples: A Good Marketing Tactic
- Sample inserts add up a great value in packaging boxes. Along with the product, you can send a sample for FREE to your buyers. You need to add an item that matches the order.
- Sample products make a line to the cross-sell promotions. You will introduce merchandisers to new products and make them buy more from your website.
- If you have launched a new product, by sending a sample, you can acknowledge the users more about the item.
9- Instructive and Informational Notes
The best way of representing your brand’s approach is by adding up booklets or guidebooks that have every step detail with instructions. These tips will help them to fix the item first-hand with less effort. These include:
- Instructions
- Risks
- Warnings
- Ingredients
- How to use
- Any doc recommendations
- Age guidelines
- Where to use
If you print the details on the box, the user can neglect them, but if you put the informational and instructive cards, they will surely read them. This also shows that the company is very careful about the customers and provides instructions to avoid any harm. For example, some products can be dangerous if used by children. Therefore, leaving a note with “Keep it away from children” will make parents more conscious and protective.
10- QR Codes: Unique Packaging Insert Ideas
Jazz up your packages with QR code inserts. Scanning the codes will land the customers on exclusive discount pages, premium content, access to guidelines, e-books, unboxing reviews, and exclusive video advertisements. These will directly link the buyer to your products and offers and get you reliable customers with more selling insights. Moreover, it is now trendy to use the Bar codes in places to connect the links and get the results in no time.
11- Return Policies
Changing their minds is a normal thing for common purchasers. Placing the return labels and policies on insert cards will solve the complex procedure of product replacements. It is an easy and quick access to maintain customer loyalty and understand the client’s likes and dislikes.
Almost 92% of customers said that they would buy the product if the return policy were easy. Along with following things along with return labels like:
- Hard copy slip
- Cards with website links
- Email address
- Contact number
- QR Codes
12- Reviews and Social Sharing – Client’s Endorsements
Add a testimonial card or feedback card to get the reviews shared by the customers. This can be a good way of interacting and sharing the brand’s determination on social media platforms.
These reviews will dictate what things you have to work on and what needs improvement. Also, what things are more liked by the customers and come with more insights. The more positive customers give reviews, the more value and credit your brand will get.
13- Referral Cards – Collaborate with Friends and Family
Referral inserts are the physical cards that companies give to buyers to give them to their friends and family. Incentives are generated on every sign-up. There are the following incentives:
- 10% off on a friend’s first order
- 20% off on the second order
- Signing up on the website will get them a 30% discount
Custom Printing on Packaging Inserts

Inserts are the interior parts that need to look catchy and beautiful. Designing and custom printing will add up to a surprise for the viewers. Writing Thank-you notes, phrases, or messages in bold letters and print with colourful themes would grab the attention of buyers.
There are almost three printing techniques to imprint the designs on inserts:
1- Flexo Printing
Flexography is the most common method of printing designs on any kind of surface: Corrugated, Cardboard, Kraft paper, Smooth Surfaces, and Rough Surfaces. It is a good option with cost-effective tactics to encounter large production in industries. In this process, the machine presses the designs on the sheet and makes them delightful for viewers.
2- Digital Printing
Digital Printing is the latest technique that uses the CMYK spectrum to provide a great range of colours. This printing process is direct with a step-by-step procedure to get photo quality ending results. For small businesses, this is cost-friendly with quick drying batches.
3- Litho Printing
Lithography is a premium way of designing the inserts on labels first and then pasted on the sheet. This leads to other luxurious techniques like foil embossing, coating, lamination, etc.
What are the Key Benefits of Using Package Inserts?

Here are the following satisfactory benefits of using inserts in packaging:
Product Protection:
The first and most dictated advantage of using inserts is that you can provide a great level of protection to your products. While in long-term shipments, fragile objects get broken easily; therefore, using inserts in mailer boxes would lessen the chance of any harm to the least.
Supposing you deliver the item, and when a receiver receives it, he finds it broken. What image of the brand comes to his mind? Of course, BAD! So, these inserts play a significant role in securing your products in a long journey.
Promotion and Increase Selling:
The online market has spread arms all over the globe. In this market, everything is what a customer sees online; therefore, this promotion aspect is very much important. In addition to protection, inserts make the products catchy and luxurious. When you add an insert in the box, you show your buyers an extra effort. Especially the promotional discounts, additional offers, and discount code cards indulge your customer in buying more and more products from your brand – a promotional offer to upsell your products among online buyers.
Unforgettable Unboxing Experience:
When an individual orders a product, he anxiously waits to receive it. When a receiver opens up the box, it becomes a Wow moment when he finds it extraordinarily beautiful and striking to his eyes. Adding Inserts will make the unboxing experiences more exciting and provoking. Extra inputs will add up surety to them and show them a product loyalty factor.
Get Feedback and Reviews:
Inserts like Cards containing website links and page barcodes will help customers scan the links and give reviews as per their purchasing experiences. This will boost your brand’s insights and get you more customers with a tremendous increase in sales. Also, with different reviews, you will come to know about your product’s pros and cons.
Capture Social Media Traffic:
The world is interconnected through social media platforms. Sharing unboxing experiences as user-generated content is trending nowadays. People buy their favourite items online and give a review photo or video on their social media platforms and interlink with the seller’s website. In this way, people get to know how the product is and how useful it is. Inserts make these experiences more exciting and provide the product’s authenticity to viewers.
Brand’s Reputation and Loyalty:
When you send the box with inserts like thank you notes, promotional cards, special deals, exclusive offers, discount codes, and small gifts hypes the reputation of the brand. These beautiful gestures will make buyers order more items from your brand. Marketing Inserts are small but give a big benefit to your company by increasing your sales, getting you more clients, and maintaining your brand’s loyalty towards your consumers.
Final Thoughts
Compiling all the statements, Packaging Inserts are small inputs but play a significant role in brand awareness and promotions. These inserts are packaging tools that are protective and beneficial for all companies, whether running small businesses or large. Moreover, these inserts are available in different materials that are cost-effective and cover a wide range at a small price. So, if you are running a brand, go with these innovative inserts and surprise your customers with catchy cards or gifts.
FAQs
Q1- Why should I add packaging Inserts in Boxes?
Ans: Packaging inserts keep the products safe, increase their life, boost the brand’s reputation, gain customer loyalty, and seem to be productive for sellers. Moreover, these inserts enhance the beauty of items along with the touch of delight in packaging.
Q2- What are marketing inserts?
Ans: Marketing inserts are like promotional inserts with discounted offers, gift cards, promo notes, and all other things that generate more insights and get you more customers.