What’s been featured on cars, helped to establish brands, started conversations, and increased exposure since 1935? Stickers, that’s what! With their durability and minimal cost per impression, it’s surprising that the amplifying power of this resource isn’t harnessed more by marketers and visual merchandisers. Here are 8 reasons you MUST include customised stickers into your merchandising mix:
- To the Bumper and Beyond
Gone are the days where stickers were only made in rectangular shapes for the bumper of your car. Today, they can be found in all shapes, sizes, and colours virtually ANYWHERE!
- Vintage Appeal
Long before people were liking, commenting, and pinning, they were starting conversations with stickers. When designed and distributed effectively, they are able to generate word-of-mouth marketing, high brand exposure at a low cost, and a huge amount of impressions.
- Say what?!
Think offline marketing, like word-of-mouth, is dead and gone? Think again. Recent studies show that 90% of people trust word-of-mouth recommendations from people they know (Nielsen), meaning that 90% of these recommendations are happening offline.
- The Age of Anti-Advertising
With the recent shift in marketing/advertising towards a more permission and connection based model, marketing efforts that get lost in a sea of competing messages are no longer cost-effective for small businesses. The power of stickers lies in the fact that when displayed, they are not perceived as advertising at all. They are endorsements, recommendations and badges of support for a message, product or organisation.
- The Gift that Keeps on Giving
Whether they are handed out or dropped in a letter box, stickers are perceived to have higher value than other promotional items (business cards, brochures etc.). This is because they are not seen as a piece of promotional material, but more of a gift, which makes them harder to throw away, and causes the recipient to engage with them: “Where can I stick this? or “I really need to drop back in to that store next time I go shopping”.
- Money Maker
When executed well, stickers can become a product for a brand or business. A brand’s name, slogan, or logo can easily be made into a sticker. If your brand has fans, advocates, or a unique angle, you have definitely entered the territory of creating a sticker where people are willing to pay for the privilege of showing it off. Ensuring the sticker fits your customers wants and needs is key to enabling profitable success.
- Identity Development
Due to its short and sweet nature, the development and design process of the sticker often clarifies the focus of other marketing efforts (business cards, logo design, press releases etc.). You see, the same core questions need to be asked:
- What is my message/story?
- Who am I trying to speak to?
- Where will I find these people?
- What are they interested in?
- How am I going to communicate with them?
- An enhancement that won’t break the bank
Stickers can be used to influence in ways, aside from branding, to enhance and strengthen marketing efforts. Stickers can be traded for contact details of a brand’s target market, valuable product information and information regarding promotions can be found on the back of them. When incorporated into the merchandising mix, they are able to increase distribution and brand exposure, and generate fabulous PR, whilst reducing costs.
In spite of their small size, stickers have the ability to strengthen a community’s awareness of a brand, and its message. As one of the highest impression, and lowest costing tools used to make and strengthen connections between retailers and their target markets, its one that you shouldn’t ignore. Are you ready to connect with your target market and exponentially increase your brand’s exposure? Get a FREE quote for your custom stickers.