This blog is the second part to the series of how to create your own LINE sticker focused on Tips and Tricks on marketing and our guest blogger Tenkaminari’s personal experience on having deployed his own set! If you missed out our first part on basic instructional from our guest blogger Tenkaminari, click here to go read the first part.

*Disclaimer* This is a process filed in Thailand so it might be a bit different than in the US. This post has been edited to condense the content. 

BASIC MARKETING FOR YOUR LINE STICKERS

(Tenkaminari’s Personal Strategies)

Building your Foundation of fans from your Friends

Public promotion are important, but the real deal is actual usage. Build up your network from your own friends and family. Some of your fans and friends would buy your Sticker as a “help” but I believe that it is the actual usage that boost your sale. From friends passing to their friends, if they like it too, they’d buy it and continue using and it goes on from your friend’s friend’s to their friends again. It will go beyond your friend’s network.

Making Stickers Usable for Daily Conversations
Ten thousand sets of stickers available on market, and some are even (limited) free from corporations.
You would think that you should make something different from others, something not available in other people’s sets. Well…it’s true in some ways. But seriously, if you made something so unique that nobody had the chance to use it, who would buy it?

Interacting with your Fanbase or Sticker Buyers  (Inserted Tip from Ginger)

One of the few things I believe Tenkaminari does pretty well is to build up his character and Sisakachan is a personal mascot he has drawn comic strips for and been around for a while now. He also creates activities such as giving out a SISAKA mug to a random LINE sticker user who has purchased his sticker from his database. By no means am I saying you should invest in anything before you get a satisfactory return of investment but doing quiz games or tidbit facts to promote your character is also a good idea. Let your friends know on Facebook you have a new sticker set!

TIPS/ LESSONS for LINE STICKER CREATORS

Getting Discouraged by Initial Sales

At first, I’m mentally prepared for getting sales less than 10,000 JPY and it didn’t really bother me much since I’m just a no-name artist who drew as a hobby, not as profession. The ultimate goal for me at that time is just “get to use my own Stickers” nothing more. But once it goes on sale, greed suddenly took over me. Hoping to reach top 5 in Thailand, wanting to get 7,000 JPY per day etc. But it turns out as expected…. I couldn’t make to top 50 in Thailand, and No. 286 in Japan. My ranking is around the 200s in Thailand and 2000s in Japan. _(:3 JL )_

I felt very depressed for a while from that, despite how other people kept on telling me that my achievement is already good enough for no-name like myself.  Anyway, for those who thought that you could easily make lots of money by just drawing 40+2 pictures, I would say that don’t let it fools you.

It’s true that some people made millions of JPY, but what they didn’t tell is percentage of it.
According to data on Aug 19, only 1.5% of creators on market made it over 1 million yen.
44.5% didn’t made to minimum income, 10,000 JPY, and didn’t get a single Baht/Yen from their Sticker.

As for me, I think I’m in the 11.5% lower zone percentile. Yeah, if I think carefully now, it’s rather good. 
So don’t get discouraged and think of it as gathering experiences to make better line sticker sets!

 

Brainstorming for Sticker Ideas

So you know now you can create your own LINE sticker so what would you want to create and where to start?

 Even though my final product is drawn on computer, but my process began with pencil and paper for sketching out rough ideas. Just write down any idea that came into my mind, doesn’t matter if it is violates LINE’s regulation or too complex to draw. Just note down everything and cut out later or uses it for newer ideas. Seriously, carry something to sketch with you around. You never knew when something “insane” will occur, like the one below came from my junior at work who was playing something stupid while moving office floor.

Once I had enough ideas, I redraw them on computer using SAI PaintTool (at that time, but now I’m using CLIP Studio).

Check out SISAKA chan sticker set here:

Chatroom: line://shop/detail/1001944
Web Store: https://store.line.me/stickershop/detail?packageId=1001944

Coming Soon! The Second Set of Sisaka Chan stickers!