It’s no secret that customer engagement is becoming more and more challenging. The marketer is competing for every second of customer attention — not only with business rivals, but also with social media, a myriad of the customer’s own activities, and terabytes of funny corgi and cat pictures.
Hence the well-known motto: a brand should be wherever its customers are. Social media doesn’t make this task any easier: Facebook, for example, keeps changing its newsfeed algorithm, making it difficult to claim a spot in the feed even for brands which the user would love to see more of. This means that brands need to always be on the lookout for new channels to make sure they remain in the customer’s mind.
Let’s talk about one such tool — creating Viber stickers.
How popular is Viber?
Viber is one of the most popular messenger apps used by over 1 billion people across 193 countries. A whopping 30% of those people send stickers daily. These figures are likely to keep rising, both worldwide and within specific regions: for example in Ukraine (CIS) Viber recently had a YOY growth of 40%, and worldwide over 72 million new customers joined within a year.
Moreover, the current trends are working in Viber’s favour: the customer’s growing anxiety over security and personal space often make independent messengers a more attractive choice, especially those which can guarantee data security and privacy — both of which have always been a high priority for Viber. Viber’s highly secure end-to-end-encryption and the specialised, dedicated format of being an app solely for communication rather than a bunch of things like traditional social media — are certainly plus points for Viber.
The demand for stickers is increasing rapidly
The popularity of stickers is keeping up with the app’s own popularity: between 2016 and 2017, for example, the number of sticker packs downloaded grew by 68 million; moreover, the ad market is generally moving towards less intrusive, native ads. Business Insider expects native advertising to drive 74% of all ad revenue by 2021.
Many of the major players have already caught on to the trend: respective branded sticker packs have been launched by giants like Disney, Starbucks, H&M, Coca-Cola, NBC — even Amazon. Like them, GMS understands the immense potential of this new instrument.
Why have stickers become so attractive?
First: stickers are non-intrusive.
They catch the eye of the customer without being intrusive. Customers are sick and tired of being ambushed by unwanted ads at every scroll of every page — a fact which makes the job of marketers more challenging, but a fact, nonetheless.
Stickers, on the other hand, are not an invasion of their private space, they’re not asking anything of the user — rather, they are part of Viber features which customers use for their own purposes or amusement, like emojis or GIFs. This role allows stickers to be predominantly well-received by users, while also keeping the brand in the customer’s sight without annoying them.
Second: viral reach and cost-efficiency.
After the sticker pack is live customers will receive a notification and can also search for the packs by tags and keywords.
Upon starting using the pack, the customer’s social activity begins contributing to the brand’s marketing without requiring any actual action by the user: the 30 % of those sending stickers daily (mentioned earlier) simply continue doing what they have been doing, i.e. sending cute, vibrant pictures and animations to their friends, family, coworkers. Thereby helping the brand to becomes a natural, native element of day-to-day life and communication of millions of customers.
Stickers are extremely cost-efficient as the price to develop a sticker pack tends to be quite reasonable, and the potential gains are very promising.
Finally, vibrancy and diversity.
An internet user filters an overwhelming volume of information daily, so a brand seeking high recall value has to stand out and offer relevant content.
Viber sticker packs come in all kinds of forms: from static pictures or animated to clickable, voiced or even unique promo-stickers. A clickable sticker can contain an integrated link to a brand’s site or take the customer directly to the brand’s public chat which is a great way to attract new subscribers. “Live stickers” can have not only animations but also a soundtrack — in essence, play a whole mini-video.
Vibrant, funny, clever, useful — stickers are quick to grab the customer’s attention while also setting a friendly tone for communication with your brand.
How to launch a sticker pack: tips from GMS expert Vadym Podkolzin
Viber values its clients’ trust, so the company ensures the quality of the branded sticker packs available in its market. This means that in addition to design and development of the pack, the brand will need to align it with Viber’s official requirements. GMS has been an official partner of Viber since 2015 and is well-versed in meeting these requirements.
How to create a sticker pack? How to launch a sticker pack? What kind of stickers perform well? How to ensure alignment with Viber’s official requirements? These are just some of the questions GMS can answer confidently thanks to their successful partnership with Viber.
Indeed, take a look at what GMS can offer. We do recommend the turnkey full-package: from designing the textual and visual components to having your branded sticker pack released in Viber’s sticker market.
Contact our specialists today with any questions you might have or to begin cooperation; and in no time, Viber users will be sharing your company’s stickers promoting your brand’s recognition and customer loyalty.
And if you’re wondering who should use branded sticker packs – the simple one-word answer is … everyone. Whether B2B or B2C — stickers are a really effective and handy marketing tool. And at GMS, we practice what we preach — if you’re in Ukraine or Belarus, don’t miss out on creating your own Viber sticker packs!