Free Stickers: Why we’ve started sending goodies to the community
Crafting our Spirit of Community
Our weekly email newsletters collect and share links and articles across numerous software development niches to over 300,000 subscribers.
We wanted a way to show some appreciation to our entire community — not only to our direct subscribers but also those developers and content creators whose libraries or articles we link to every week.
So, the team (led by Fran) got to work on sending out some fun stickers, along with a hand-written note, to say thank you, as a way to show how much we truly appreciate all those who make what we do possible.
Starting this March (2016), we’ve mailed more than 100 people a personalized card along with our web-inspired stickers — and we’re far from being done.
But who gets the goodies? We started by focusing on people we’d linked to in our newsletters, but ultimately anyone who has reached out to us and asked for some stickers has received some.
So far, we’ve sent stickers to folks in France, Italy, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia, Brazil, India, Thailand, the U.S, and here at home in the UK to name just a few.
Community engagement is something we as a company collectively highlighted as one of our values. This sticker project is our first shot at doing just that. Sending out goodies to our community like this is a new thing for us here at Cooper Press, representing an increased focus on community.
But why bother? Not only does it give us the chance to make people smile (always a good thing), it also opens up a dialogue with those who care most about what we do — giving us the scope to learn more about our community.
As our Editorial Assistant Za’e pointed out “we don’t have a particular goal in terms of ROI”, “but feel it’s a good thing to do for our community” — thankfully it’s not always about the numbers (which would be tough to measure anyway).
We’re just getting started, but focusing on our community is our way of showing we’re grateful, even if the gesture is a simple one.
Our Feedback So Far
Here’s just a selection of some of the lovely tweets and Instagram responses we’ve had so far:
Want your own sticker set?
Drop us a tweet @CooperPress, and we’ll make it happen.
Update — April 7th, 2016:
We’ve been positively overwhelmed with the response to our sticker giveaway.
Lots of you have been getting in touch to request your own set.
We are currently working through our backlog of queries, and if you’re still interested in getting a set sent through then please reach out to us again in a few weeks.
