Producing custom stickers is a great way to get your brand/company/organization name “stuck” in the minds of your target audience. If you’re thinking of adding promotional stickers to your marketing mix, it’s necessary to consider the following:
The ultimate goal
Just because stickers are fun it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take them seriously as a marketing tool. Every marketing decision needs to be made with an end goal in mind. What do you want to get out of your promotional stickers? Are you looking to increase brand recognition/recall? Do you want to increase your website traffic? Or maybe the sticker is a part of a short term sales promotion strategy or contest. The end goal will determine design decisions.
What others are doing
It’s always important to keep an eye on your competitors as you conduct your marketing research. You don’t want to copy what they’re doing exactly but if they’ve used stickers in the past you can consider what you did and did not like about them and use this information as you design your own stickers. You can also look at the promotional sticker strategies of others that are outside your industry and see if anything sparks an idea of your own.
Simple design
It’s important to keep the design of your sticker as simple as possible. Remember, the sticker needs to be quickly understood and easy to read. You should take advantage of all of the sticker real estate that’s available to you. The front of the sticker (the part to be displayed) is the top priority, but don’t forget that the back of the sticker can be used too. This space can be used for advertising copy, to include further information about the company, or even for coupons. Unless you are highly skilled in the area of design it’s always best to hire a professional graphic designer to create your custom promotional sticker. If a promotional sticker isn’t professional looking, the company it represents looks bad by association.
Size matters
Yes, you want your stickers to capture attention but that doesn’t mean that bigger is better. Some people will have no interest in displaying a sticker that’s too big. Your stickers aren’t going to promote anything if people aren’t willing to display them. Consider where you’d like the sticker to be displayed and create stickers that are size appropriate.
Die cutting
A sticker doesn’t have to be a standard circle, square, or rectangle. In fact, if your sticker has an interesting shape it increases the chances of it being displayed. Custom sticker die cutting can be used to create stickers in non standard shapes and to create the best match for your logo & identity.
Jeff Nicholson is the founder and Creative Director at 
2 Responses
How can the back of the sticker be used? Won’t the glue be on the back? Want to understand this idea better because its interesting.
When we are discussing utilizing the “back of the sticker” (back copy), it is print found on the backing paper. So, prior to the sticker being applied somewhere there is an opportunity to deliver information on back of sticker while distributing sticker. If stickers are self applied – no opportunity to use back of sticker once in place. Let me know if you need more information.