Freebies / Stickers / Giveaways

Way back in the day, I had a couple of internships on some pretty large construction projects. At my first one, I spent a lot of time in the warehouse getting everything organized and learning about everything in there. I’ve always been hungry for knowledge. Where most people would have just kicked back and barely did the minimum, I found myself hunting down the information to figure out what I was dealing with in there. I wanted to make sure I knew what I was giving out when someone came asking. When I’d call to order parts or tools I’d ask the sales guys what things were and built a relationship with some of these suppliers. One day, one of these guys asked if I’d some stickers to share with the crew out there. I didn’t think much of it but accepted his offer anyway. The day those stickers arrived in a box of parts, it was like dropping a piece of meat in a pool of piranhas. That’s the day I learned that grown men like stickers just as much as kids. I began actively asking for stickers and any other cool logo’d merchandise that those companies were willing to part with. 

Cap!I started by giving away caps! This was a fun project that will continue.

Now, I have my own company and I haven’t forgotten the lesson I learned working in that warehouse. Last year or so, I bought 5,000 stickers to give away. I thought people would “go crazy over them”. When I announced that I was going to give away free stickers to anyone who wanted them, crickets. . . I found out the hard way that design matters. I’m still sitting on over 3,000 because I’ve been giving them out with every order in the booth. I also use them as a way to label all my things. Haha. Seriously, even extension cords get the treatment. I’ve gotta do something useful with these stickers. They look like a boring label too. They are just a black rectangle with the words “Olie's Images” above the words “www.oliesimages.com". This is my logo, its how I’ve branded my little company. At the time, I wanted everything to look the same. I ordered business cards, made t-shirts, banners, signs, embroidered everything I could get my hands on. All of that is fine for business. It’s not good enough for stickers. 

HoodiesI've got so many options for hoodies. LOL

My solution is simple. Design something cool and order small batches. I was seriously putting the cart before the horse on the first ones. Why on earth I thought that I needed 5,000 stickers was beyond me. Just a few days ago I got my first batch of designed stickers. I knew that I needed a different approach this time. I started with a call to action on my Facebook page. I asked everyone to submit their favorite Olie's Images photo for a special project. I then made a big deal about picking the winner. I knew that barrel racers were more active on my page than team ropers so, my first design was a cool barrel shot. I started making hoodies with it and after the first 50 hoodies shipped out, I made two more designs. A header and a heeler. The heeler was the runner up from the first contest but I made a new contest for the header. The winners of these contests each got a hoodie with the logo based on their photo. (Pretty sweet prize if you ask me) 

Barrel Racer WatercolorThis watercolor design was inspired by a trip to an antique store

It wasn’t long after that it was brought to my attention that I left out the breakaway crowd. I soon found an image that I loved and proceeded to pop out a design for them too. I was popping out hoodies left and right. I even had to open a Shopify store to automate the system. LOL For a while, I lost sight of the goal. Making stickers. It was kinda boring just making silhouette stickers, I need a designed sticker if I was gonna get some interest in them. 

Below are the first three designs I’ve made. I’ll soon make a breakaway one too. 

Barrel Racer Logo Rainbow MeshThe first sticker I designed! Header Logo Red to Yellow MeshWire Mesh design was inspired by an ad on Instagram Heeler Logo White to Blue MeshCool Blue for the heelers who are calm under pressure.

This has been a good marketing plan so far. I’ve even been mailing them to those who can’t wait to get a freebie in their order. However, this isn’t just about marketing. This journey of making cool stuff that people will actually like is more about working on my own skills. It scratches my own itch to create. It lets me try new things and experiment then have a final product that I can share with everyone. I’m now ordering these in batches of 100 but next time I’ll probably do 50 instead. If this goes well, I’ll keep popping out some cool designs for you all. It has been a great way to quench my thirst for knowledge as well as continue to live a creative life. 

Header T Shirt DesignThis T-Shirt Design was commissioned from someone on Fiverr.com. They took months to finish it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this little blog of mine. If you have any suggestions for future posts or future sticker designs please let me know in the comments!! :) 

American Team RopersThis will probably be my next sticker in the series. Cactus at SunsetI made this for the "other page", The Weekday Wanderer as a nod to Aaron Draplin's designs.