Want to go guerrilla but have a tight marketing budget? Stickers could be the answer. In fact, stickers are staple marketing tools of many guerrilla marketing campaigns, which are typically predicated on the idea that you can reach a targeted customer base in unique, unexpected and highly memorable ways for incredibly cheap investments. Few things are cheaper to print and deploy than stickers, and no marketing material is near as versatile; here are some ideas you can try for going guerrilla with sticker marketing.
1. Place stickers in unexpected places
Surprise potential customers with sticker placement. Your efforts will be more memorable, and if your stickers are good, they’ll also result in word-of-mouth advertising. Try public areas such as restroom stalls, mirrors and hand dryers; ceilings above dentists’ chairs; under vehicle chassis to market to mechanics; gas station pumps (with permission); on spotlights to cast silhouettes and shadows; and anywhere else your target customer is likely to be surprised by your stickers.
2. Use stickers to ‘enhance’ the environment
Another great strategy is to use stickers to enhance, or alter, the visual environment. A glass cleaner brand placed stickers of people walking into a large glass wall to demonstrate how effective its product was. A coffee company placed stickers of the tops of coffee cups on top of steaming manhole covers. Think about how you can enhance or alter the visual environment with stickers to command attention for your products and services: what’s inside vending machines, for example, or what really makes escalators work?
3. Be creative, funny or poignantly serious
No matter where you place your stickers, make sure they have meaningful impact. Make onlookers’ jaws drop, make them laugh, or make them seriously consider your cause. Hold nothing back, as the most creative guerrilla sticker marketing campaigns will be the most powerful - and the most successful. Be original, as well; if you see a great idea, figure out a way to make it better.
4. Make follow-up easy
Many guerrilla sticker marketing campaigns focus solely on branding, and while promoting your brand should certainly be a part of your campaign you should also consider ways to motivate instant follow-ups. Memorable URL taglines, QR codes for mobile scans, and other strategies can help convince customers to take the next step in the purchasing process now, rather than whenever they get home.
5. Make a point
Above all, your stickers should make a point. Before you even begin to consider how you’ll design, print, and deploy your stickers, define the goals of your campaign. Who do you want to reach? What message do you want to convey? What is the point you want to make? What do you want people to do next? How will you know if your campaign is successful? Now, you can develop your entire guerrilla sticker marketing strategy around the answers to these questions and craft a more cohesive, powerful, and successful campaign.
How else can you go guerrilla with sticker marketing?