Sticky Marketing & Sticky Branding
The word “sticky” has entered the lexicon of marketing terms. Stickiness can refer to how long someone spends at your website, or in your store, or engaged with you or your product. To explain in simple terms, Sticky Marketing would be any interactions that encourage people to stick around longer or stick with you for future interactions (and transactions). This contributes to an overall sticky branding strategy – when your brand occupies a permanent corner of someone’s awareness.
To be sticky is to be engaged. And, to be engaged requires being personal and believable. When trust is built through honest, relationship-based marketing, people (clients and customers) will stick (spend more time and money with you). The increase in content marketing (blogs, articles, videos, etc.) reflect the movement towards more informational, relationship based, trust building marketing practices. Sticky marketing is also Win-Win Marketing.
Sticky Advertising
Advertising is the segment of marketing that involves inviting people in and building awareness of your product or service. Sticky Advertising would be the opposite of a cheap, in-your-face sales pitch and more towards advertising that invites people to spend some time together for mutual benefit.
Chip and Dan Heath have written a book about why ideas stick called Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. I recommend this book for spurring ideas on how your marketing message can become more sticky. Their definition of “sticky” is a message that is “understandable, memorable, and effective in changing thought or behavior”. They have excellent examples in the book and their “six principles of powerful ideas” are instrumental for any business owner looking to strengthen their marketing message and plan.
Promotional Stickers are Sticky Advertising, Sticky Marketing & Sticky Branding
Of course, I was attracted to Made To Stick because our business designs and sells a sticky marketing tool – custom promotional stickers. Sticker Marketing should be sticky marketing, but unfortunately, that is not always the case. Promotional stickers need to tie in with an overall marketing program. If relationships and trust are not being built then customers are not sticking around… or sticking/displaying an organization’s stickers in visible locations.
So, your promotional stickers and your marketing need to be understandable, memorable and tie in to Chip and Dan Heath’s “six principles of SUCCESs: Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional Stories”. Your business has an identity – it has a story (hopefully interesting, understandable and memorable). Perhaps it is time to review the stickiness of that story and brainstorm some ideas for better communicating the story and building stronger relationships and stickier branding? Good luck… and please let Websticker know if you want a powerful promotional sticker to be part of that sticky marketing mix that supports your story.
For more straightforward marketing advice and how best to utilize promotional stickers, the ultimate sticky branding tool, I also would be remiss not to recommend my own book, Stick This – Using Promotional Stickers To Build Identity, Create Word Of Mouth and Grow Sales
Jeff Nicholson is the founder and Creative Director at 
