Brand name stickers are ubiquitous, they are present on laptops, phones, notebooks, fridges, you can spot them everywhere. Be it the A to Z logo of Amazon, or WordPress Stickers or Google, people proudly display their affinity to these brands by sticking these brand name stickers on their gadgets and other belongings.

As a small business owner, this omnipresence of brand name stickers could be rather inspiring. You may want to put out stickers of your brand name everywhere-what better way to promote your product than visual marketing?

We are sorry to pop your bubble, but we think that plain brand name stickers may not be the best way to go about sticker marketing.  We would like to present our arguments against using only brand name stickers.

But first things first, What exactly is sticker marketing?

Stated simply,

Sticker marketing is using stickers to promote your business name, logo, service, product or idea to potential customers. You can use sticker marketing to introduce your business or idea, to create awareness, to remind customers of your existence, to spark conversations and to drive sales.

Stickers come in many shapes (circle, rectangular, square and custom shapes), sizes (large format decals, laptop stickers, tiny stickers), cuts (die-cut stickers, kiss-cut stickers), materials (vinyl stickers, paper stickers) and visual appeal (matt stickers, glossy stickers, transparent stickers). Depending on your business strategy, budget and promotional goals, you can opt for any of the above for sticker marketing.

What are Brand Name Stickers?

Brand name stickers prominently display font-based logo that focuses on a business’ name alone. Remember Google? Visa? Coca-Cola?

Brand name stickers work really well when:  

1. The brand is already established,

2. The organization has succinct, quirky or memorable name

3. The brand has high emotional connect with your customers

4. Your customer feels pride to be associated with your brand

If you are a new fledgling brand and you opt for brand name sticker, you may not get the right ROI on your sticker spend. This is because:

1. Your brand is new/relatively unknown

2. There is no resonance of your brand with the customer

3. Customer views the stickers as a blatant promotional push, and is reluctant to stick the sticker on his/her personal belonging

4. Customer may not wish to associate with your brand name

Did we put you in a fix? You want to use your brand name in your sticker, but don’t want to make the sticker marketing a futile exercise, if customers won’t stick your stickers. What do you do?

At Gumtoo Stickers, we had the same questions. We wanted to understand what our customers’ and friends’ preferences are when it comes to stickers. So, we conducted a short survey. Here are a few snippets of the survey:

1.     How likely are you to stick a relatively unknown brand’s sticker on your laptop?

As you can see, a whopping 70 % of the survey respondents said that they were unlikely to stick an unknown brand’s sticker.

Nobody is going to stick an unknown brand name sticker! This is the #1 reason why you should not go for only brand name sticker for your new brand.

 2. If you had to choose a sticker for your laptop, what kind of sticker would it most likely be? 

A large percentage (almost 70%) of the survey respondents said that they would choose creative, quirky stickers to stick on their laptops, followed by approximately 25% who preferred Motivational quote stickers. Very few respondents (a little more than 5%) preferred brand name stickers.

Customers do not prefer Brand Name Stickers! That is #2 reason why you should not opt for brand name stickers.

3. If you receive a sticker at a trade-show or any event, which kind would you most likely prefer?

As you can see from the graph, almost 80% of our survey respondents would love to receive creative, quirky stickers from marketers. If given a choice, 20% would opt for motivational quote stickers.

And takers for Brand Name stickers? None at all!

If given a choice, most people would opt for creative, quirky stickers! That’s #3 reason why you should not opt for only your brand name sticker. 

Also, as a bonus, we asked a very important question to our respondents.

4. Do you love receiving free stickers?

Can you guess what the response was?

Everyone loves receiving free stickers! Hurrah!

Sticker marketing works because everyone loves receiving stickers. It is up to the brand and the marketer to use the right kind of sticker to hit their promotional goals.

So, what kind of stickers should you be using for your sticker campaigns?

Based on our sticker experience and the survey we conducted, we present 3 alternates to brand name stickers.

1.  Creative, Quirky Stickers with brand logo and name

These stickers have a creative design, which may also highlight your brand name and logo. Remember the iconic half-eaten apple logo of Apple?

If your design is creative and cool enough, even if your brand is relatively unknown, people will be inclined to stick your stickers.

For example, check this sticker from Tasty Trailers, an IOS app designed to help hungry users find food trailers near their location, on-the-go.

Italian apparel company Shoeshine’s quirky sticker

Schrute Farms is a beet-related agritourism destination in North-eastern Pennsylvania, which offers bed and breakfast accommodations for causal travellers and farming enthusiasts. Check Schrute Farms’ sticker.

2.  Motivational Quote Stickers

You can use Inspirational quotes which resonate with your brand as stickers, with a small mention of your brand in the sticker. For example, check Nature Supply Co (Nature Inspired, Eco-Friendly Apparel and Goods), motivational sticker.

3.  Landscape Stickers

These work well for adventure tourism brands, outdoor apparel brands, camping brands and the like. For example, check Merica Clothing Company’s (a lifestyle brand that’s inspired by adventure) cool landscape stickers. These stickers are almost an extension of their brand’s identity.

So, what are you waiting for? Get creative with your sticker designs, there is nothing holding you back! If you need help in designing creative stickers, motivational stickers or landscape stickers, help is just an email away. Or if you already have a design ready, and would like to know details about our prices and lead time, write to us at sales@gumtooStickers.com.