An integral part of the daily life of 47 million Thais, LINE has developed and improved a variety of services that fulfills the lifestyle needs of our users. We pride ourselves as the country’s prime platform for communication, whether in general conversation, work, and most importantly - business. For this reason, leading brands are developing various marketing strategies through LINE. One tool that has been recognized by most of these companies is the effectiveness of Sponsored Stickers. These are stickers that a company can offer for download in exchange for having their LINE Official Account added as a friend. There are 3 main benefits from Sponsored Stickers:
In addition, when these stickers are sent to a friend in a chat, it builds a significant amount of brand awareness. This can attract new followers to a LINE Official Account. Especially for businesses with low customer interaction, Sponsored Stickers are a great tool that can help them reach out to new customers. Such examples include businesses like Insurance and financial businesses. Stickers are an excellent method for reaching consumers directly. Releasing new stickers periodically keeps brands at the forefront of their mind.
Now let us take a look at some tips for using Sponsored Stickers as a tool with maximum efficiency.
One of the strategies for using Sponsored Stickers is regular releases as this helps build brand recognition. Many leading brands constantly release stickers. In fact, this has generated a significant followers base. Frequent sticker releases result in more downloads than for a company that rarely releases new stickers or one that has only released a single set. We can see that followers who download a lot of stickers from a certain brand often end up becoming a fan of the brand itself in the process eventually even resulting in Brand Love. Also, Sponsored Stickers serve as a medium for brand interaction in another way as well. Data from Open Rate and Click Through Rate on brand’s LINE Official Accounts shows that brands that release stickers in regularly have 5 times more engagement than brands that do not. These are significant Target Reach numbers that have already accounted for the reduction in followers from those who blocked the brand.
In addition to adding new followers, the continued release of Sponsored Stickers helps to refresh a brand’s existing LINE Official Account fan base. This is because after each download, there is always a chance someone could block or unfollow. A new release helps to retrieve these lost followers back once again.
As we mentioned before, each sticker download has a chance to get a brand blocked or unfollowed. Understandably, this can cause concern about whether or not Sponsored Stickers are worth the investment. However, according to a survey, 90% of people who download stickers do not immediately block or unfollow LINE Official Accounts and often follow and consume the brand’s content for a period of time. The user would then decide whether or not to continue following the brand’s account every time they receive the brand’s content. In addition, brands that use stickers regularly boast a high Target Reach. This means that more people are engaging with their content.
The best way to draw in customers is to develop a strategy around stickers. This starts from choosing a sticker design that understands its audience and their behavior. Brands should make sure their designs are unisex, that they appeal to all age groups, and that they could be used for everyday communication. On the other hand, it is also possible to design a set of stickers that targets one specific group, say, teenage girls. The brand would want a set of designs that utilized colorful cartoons and stylistic font. Another example might be in the design of a set of stickers for online vendors. A brand would want to make sure their stickers could convey a wide range of wording and emotions that vendors would use in their work.
In addition, brands should also produce content that is relevant to their customer’s interests and their daily lives. This will encourage them to follow a LINE Official Account for an extended period of time.
In developing effective marketing strategies, an important thing to take into account is information. It can be very difficult to simply guess what consumers would like without supporting information. It takes time to acquire consumer data. Mission Stickers serve as a tool for this as well. Many brands use stickers to collect Consented Data from consumers. This has been proven to be a very cost effective and pertinent solution for collecting data as it comes directly from the consumers themselves.
Mission Stickers are an enhanced form of Sponsored Stickers whereby people can only download and use them after completing a simple task such as answering a questionnaire or doing a brand activity. Now, the Mission Stickers creator will have access to voluntary information from consumers as well as increase the number of followers to their LINE Official Account. In 2020, just one set of Mission Stickers was able to collect information from 700,000 – 1,500,000 customers. This works out to a Cost Per Data or Per Profile rate of just 3-5 baht. Moreover, people who download Mission Stickers are required to follow LINE Official Accounts too which makes them potential customers as well.
After collecting consumer information, businesses or brands can apply this data towards Personalized Marketing whether this is through the design of a Rich Menu on their LINE Official Account, targeting segments of their audience for tailored Broadcast Messages, or creating a promotion that better meets the needs of their customer base. For example, if a clothing store wanted to run a promotion for new customers, they could use Mission Stickers to increase the number of followers to their LINE Official Account as well as identify consumer shopping behavior through a questionnaire. After that, they could design a promotion that meets those exact behaviors and then release the promotion to just their new followers. Questionnaires could also be focused on improvements to the Rich Menu for targeted groups like elderly customers. The store could then use this information to design a Rich Menu specifically catered to their elderly clientele.
Clearly, Sponsored Stickers are powerful tools. Of course, almost all LINE users use stickers to express their emotions so there is always a demand for new stickers. This is why brands and businesses can use regular sticker releases as a way of collecting data and then strengthening their marketing strategy. With Sponsored Stickers, success is definitely within reach.
