5 Powerful Business Use Cases Of Stickers

Stickers might seem like a piece of paper that kids, students, and working professionals put on their personal belongings such as phones and laptops. So you might be surprised to learn that there is a term known as “sticker marketing”.

It is one of the oldest and most impactful marketing techniques followed since the early 1900s. It is also an effective form of marketing similar to other concepts that exist in the digital age.

Speaking of the digital age, stickers are a big part of modern-day communication that happens over smartphones and messenger apps. A study by Harris Poll reveals that stickers, emojis, and GIFs (which combine to make visual expressions) help millennials (people in the age bracket of 18-34) communicate better than plain text.

It is, therefore, clear that stickers have plenty to offer for different people, not least enabling them to express themselves in their own unique way.

Let’s discuss the origin of stickers and the concept of sticker marketing in detail.

Historians believe that the first stickers may date back to the ancient Egyptians. Archaeologists have found remains of papers that were plastered to the walls of ancient markets to display the prices of goods.

However, the humble beginning of the modern-day sticker happened in the 1880s when merchants began placing stickers on their goods to attract their customers’ attention.

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These were handwritten in the beginning and as the printing industry gained prominence stickers became a large part of their daily workload. They contained both prices of the goods and later short descriptions of the products.

The latest market change in sticker production came with the introduction of digital inkjet printers. These have allowed companies to produce cost-effective stickers. Nowadays, you can find various kinds of stickers in many different shapes, sizes, and designs. The production of stickers is also different depending on where they are used (cars, notebooks, product labels, and much more).

Use cases of stickers are myriad as they contribute in different ways when it comes to business processes. Let’s look at the prominent use cases.

Visual Appeal

It is important to remind ourselves that products don’t exist in isolation. They’re always competing for shelf space, whether it’s shelving in a physical store or positioning in an online store.

Stickers are a great way for brands to showcase their personality by being creative. They are visually appealing and capable of getting attention to the message highlighted on them. 

They help activate the customer's senses while at the same time communicating valuable information. That's why it's essential to design a visually appealing sticker for your business needs.

A sticker doesn’t need to have much detail, but its message should be clear, for it to work. The more attractive the sticker, the greater chances of it getting noticed.

Branding

Stickers are one of the best tools to showcase your brand’s creativity. They are interesting merchandise to give out whenever your company organizes an event to launch a new range of products.

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Stickers help companies to promote and enhance their brand image. We see logo stickers everywhere – on the rear of cars, on bulletin boards, on lamp posts, and certainly on consumer products and packaging.

Stickers can be thought of as mini billboards that give people an opportunity to notice your logo or slogan outside of the usual context, giving your company more top-of-mind awareness.

The best example of this can be found when you buy an Apple product. The product usually contains Apple stickers on the back of the phone, tablet, and other devices. People display them on their gadgets to showcase that they are users of Apple products.

This not only indicates brand loyalty but also promotes the brand on a global scale, driving brand awareness among those who might not have known or heard about a company.

Staying with stickers as a branding tool, they can help improve online conversions, build a subscriber base online, and even increase email open rate. 

Brands can grow their subscriber list by offering people free stickers for their email IDs. Likewise, adding QR codes to stickers will guide people to potentially completing a purchase. It’s important, however, to add instructions such as “Scan this QR code with your phone” to enable people to use the sticker effectively and realize its value.

Marketing

Stickers command viewers' attention and can be placed virtually anywhere - on walls, windows, cars, computers, backpacks, sidewalks, doors, and machinery. Thus, it’s a powerful, low-cost marketing tool. 

Marketers often use the concept of guerrilla marketing with stickers because it is a creative, low-cost advertising technique, using unconventional tactics to accomplish marketing goals. 

Reddit, Gillette, Canon, and Pedigree are a few brands that have run some of the most successful sticker marketing campaigns.

What works for stickers is that they aren’t considered intrusive in the way pop-up and banner ads might be. This helps to grab and, importantly, retain the attention of a target audience.

Gifts And Giveaways

Do you notice the psychological reaction that kicks in when we receive a gift? It is called the rule of reciprocity and describes the subconscious feeling after receiving. There are a few techniques one can use for gifts and giveaways in their business, but stickers are the most preferable one in this method.

This is due to stickers being the most cost-effective and high ROI method. These types of giveaway sticker marketing are usually found during business events, product launches, and so on. Whether you’re giving away stickers of your logo, or a promotional image with subtle branding, people always love the idea of a free sticker, because they can use it anywhere.

Information-driven

First impression matters and can often communicate to customers the kind of brand you are. The second impression is when customers read product information through stickers. Stickers are the right tools to provide important sales information about a product. 

Also known as product labels, these stickers typically contain information such as manufacturing date, date of expiry, ingredients used, and so on. Attractive labels make it easier to display information and attract attention which can help promote a product.

Let's look at the above product label sticker. 

The information given on the sticker is comprehensive. The details are highlighted clearly and consist of the product name, product description, manufacturing, and expiry date.

The Digital revolution has paved the way for many online marketing techniques such as social media marketing, search engine marketing, and more. But traditional methods like sticker marketing remain effective when it comes to promoting a brand.

Among the main reasons for the success of stickers are they help people feel connected to a brand and interact with customers in a personalized way that can be hard to replicate with other tools.

Another advantage is sticker production is cost-effective and any business can take advantage of the cost-effectiveness and scalability. 

Stickers play a key role in communication as more people than ever are using smartphones and messenger apps every day.

In addition, the business use cases of stickers are myriad and rather significant in amplifying the visibility of a brand. The visibility and boundless reach beyond a brand’s immediate geographical area enable brands to generate business value in many seamless ways. 

Picmaker is an AI-powered DIY graphic design tool that helps anyone create unique stickers for branding, advertising, marketing, or as a tool for visual communication. Creating stickers on Picmaker is free and can be done in minutes. 

You can use tools such as intuitive tools such as MAD Button, Background Remover, Stickerify, and more to fast-track the process of creating stickers and achieve your envisioned business goals.

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